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Policy Analysis on Iran

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The Iranian Elections:

Politics of the Supreme Leader vs. Power of the President

On June 10, 2009, Ali Alfoneh, Meir Javedanfar, Mehdi Khalaji, and Patrick Clawson addressed a special Policy Forum at The Washington Institute to discuss what to expect from Iran's June 12 presidential election. Ali Alfoneh is a visiting research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,Meir Javedanfar is a Middle East

Ali Alfoneh
Mehdi Khalaji
Patrick Clawson

Strategic Challenges in a Changing Middle East

Moshe Yaalon, a senior minister in the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu and former chief of the IDF general staff, delivered the 2009 Zeev Schiff Memorial Lecture on Middle East Security

Moshe Yaalon

◆ Zeev Schiff Memorial Lectures

Articles & Testimony

Will Iran's Election Produce Change We Can Believe in?

To most Westerners, Iranian politics is essentially a black box, making it difficult to know what to hope for out of Friday's presidential elections. Knowledgeable commentators offer vastly differing opinions regarding the extent to which the results will reflect the will of the Iranian people versus that of Iran's ultimate

Renewal of Allegiance:

Presidential Elections in Iran

Large voter turnout for Iran's June 12 presidential election would be a double-edged sword for the country's hardline leader, Ali Khamenei. Although Khamenei would like to maximize participation in Iran's elections, which he sees as an affirmation of the regime's legitimacy, higher turnout would likely lead to a smaller share

Ali Alfoneh

The Voting Manipulation Industry in Iran

With Iran's presidential campaign culminating on June 12, all three challengers to incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad are expressing increased concern about the possibility of election fraud and manipulation of the election. Not only are there complaints about regime influence on the campaign, such as biased coverage by state-run television, the voting

Mehdi Khalaji

In-Depth Reports

Arab Reactions to a Nuclear-Armed Iran

Israel's fears about a nuclear Iran are well known. But Arabs have their own fears, too. After centuries of religious and political rivalry, Arab relations with Iran are marked by deep mutual mistrust. Since the end of the Cold War, Iran's sense of security has itself been in constant flux

Tariq Khaitous

Lebanon Goes to the Polls:

Last Minute Surprises and Long-term Implications

On June 7, Lebanon goes to the polls to elect a new government. All told, 587 candidates are competing for the 128 parliament seats, and with just days to go, the contest is too close to call. Both the pro-West March 14 coalition incumbents and the Syrian-Iranian-backed Hizballah-led March 8

David Schenker

House of the Leader:

The Real Power in Iran

On June 4, Iran will mark the twentieth anniversary of Ali Khamenei's appointment as the leader of Iran. While international attention is focused on the June 12 presidential elections, the winner of that contest will remain subordinate to Khamenei in power and importance, despite the latter's low profile. Lacking the

Mehdi Khalaji

Articles & Testimony

Punitive Power:

Combating Proliferation with Sanctions

Sanctions are a frequent yet controversial tool used by the international community in dealing with proliferant states and nuclear non-compliance. Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson examine the impact of sanctions against Iran and North Korea. © IHS (Global) Limited, Jane's Intelligence Review. Reproduced with permission.

Articles & Testimony

Moderates at Risk in Election

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s visit to Beirut last week underscored the enormous stake America has in parliamentary elections that Lebanon will hold June 7. The country's governing majority -- moderate, pro-Western, supported by Washington -- is running neck and neck with a coalition dominated by Hezbollah, the militant

Articles & Testimony

The Leveretts Get Iran All Wrong

Just as he is being criticized by those to his right for his emphasis on engagement with Iran, President Obama came under attack from the left, in the op-ed pages of the May 23 New York Times, for just the opposite. Unlike critics from the right who largely concur with

In-Depth Reports

Lessons from the Past

In the thirty years since Iran's Islamic Revolution, which resulted in the overthrow of the Iranian monarchy and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Western governments have repeatedly tried to engage Tehran. This collection of essays, the product of a special colloquium hosted by The Washington Institute in

Patrick Clawson

Articles & Testimony

Stopping an Iranian Bomb

Hanging over yesterday's meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was one overriding question: Can the president's strategy of diplomatic engagement persuade Iran to cease its efforts to develop nuclear weapons? Unfortunately, history offers little cause for hope -- especially if the United States remains focused on

Will Russia Help the United States with Iran?

Russia's recent decision not to sell the S-300 antiaircraft missile system to Iran (at least for now) raised hopes that Moscow would cooperate more fully in the effort to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. Recent statements from Russian leaders indicating that they were on board with the U.S. strategy

Disrupting Tehran's Export of Technology and Weapons

Earlier this year, Cyprus impounded the Iranian-chartered freighter Monchegorsk, a vessel laden with war materiel bound for Syria (and perhaps beyond). This episode highlights the shortcomings of current UN and European Union sanctions on Iran, and underscores the need for a more systematic approach for dealing with Tehran's efforts to

Matthew Levitt

Counternarcotics Offers Chance to Cooperate with Tehran

On March 31, Washington took its first step toward engagement with Tehran through a diplomatic encounter with the Iranian government at the Afghanistan conference in the Hague. Even though the initial contact was awkward, it was clearly a step forward for the Obama administration, and both countries agreed that the

Throwing the Book at Tehran

On April 7, 2009, the U.S. Treasury Department designated as a proliferator Li Fangwei, the commercial manager for the Chinese company Limmt, for providing support for Iran's missile program. Treasury also blacklisted eight aliases of Limmt, which was originally designated in 2006, in addition to six other Iranian entities. The

Michael Jacobson

Articles & Testimony

Iran's Nuclear Program and Its Human Rights Record Are Closely Linked

Iran's hardliners see their nuclear program and their repression as integrally linked: both are ways to combat Western arrogance seeking to overthrow the Islamic Republic. For this reason, the West should tie its concern about Iran's nuclear standoff with the world community to an insistence that Iran respect the human

Patrick Clawson

Egypt's Campaign against Iran Sends Washington a Signal

In the last week, Egypt has moved against Iran and its allies in the Arab world. Cairo arrested a Hizballah cell that was preparing terrorist operations on Egyptian soil, organized a campaign against Hamas weapons and money smugglers in the Sinai Peninsula, and stepped up efforts to displace Qatar --

David Pollock
Mohammad Yaghi

Articles & Testimony

The Baha'is of Iran and Contact with Foreign Nations

Concurrent with the increase pressure on the Baha'is, once more the Islamic Republic of Iran has declared activities of the followers of the Baha'i Faith illegal. In his letter to the Minster of Intelligence, Iran's Attorney General, Qorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi, has accused the Baha'is of connection with Israel and of

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Supported by the

Viterbi Program on Iran and U.S. Policy

Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran poses the most serious and urgent set of security challenges to the United States and its allies in the greater Middle East. Since the Khomeini revolution in 1979, Iran has sought to export its radical ideology through the use of terrorism, subversion, and support to ideological fellow-travelers throughout the Muslim world.

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Featured experts

Farzin Nadimi

Farzin Nadimi, a Senior Fellow with The Washington Institute, is a Washington-based analyst specializing in the security and defense affairs of Iran and the Persian Gulf region.

Patrick Clawson

Patrick Clawson

Patrick Clawson is the Morningstar Senior Fellow and Research Counselor at The Washington Institute.

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