Iran

Once again the Iranian nation is at a fork in the road: a choice between worse and worst. It is not clear when it will have the possibility of choosing, under a democratic structure, between better and best. A problematic election and the intervention of the armed services in politics

Today, when Iranians go to the polls to elect a new president, the vote will almost certainly be free, competitive, and fair. It will also be a joke. Always inventive, Iran's ruling mullahs years ago developed a new twist on the old autocratic game of holding sham elections. Whereas the

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has gone through three distinct political stages. The first stage, which began with the victory of the revolution and ended with the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was a period in which the revolutionary regime was established and consolidated. This stage, which also witnessed

The periodic crises in Iranian-European negotiations over Iran's nuclear program -- including yesterday's proposal offered by the British, French, and German foreign ministries that has yet to be accepted by Tehran -- trigger some important questions: Who profits more from extending the talks? Does the West really prevent Iranian nuclearization

Although the Palestinian intifada led to the death of many Israelis (proportionally speaking, the equivalent of 45,000 Americans being killed by terrorism each year), Iranian possession of nuclear weapons would be even worse. Such a development would constitute an existential threat for three reasons. First, Israel’s small size and concentration

Next to the Middle East lies another region with a large Muslim population and some acute problems with Islamist radicalism: the Caucasus. Aware of the danger that instability in the Caucasus (particularly since the dissolution of the Soviet Union) could spill over into the Middle East, Israel has actively sought

The following lecture was published as a chapter in Confronting Terrorism Financing, American Foreign Policy Council (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005). The age of “network terrorism” results from the loosely affiliated networks that, taken together, form the potent international terrorist threat that challenges Western civilization today. Such networks

When will Iran achieve "nuclear status"? When other states form their own policies on the assumption that Iran has nuclear weapons—whether or not it has declared or tested a nuclear bomb. The earliest warning will probably come from Iran acting in a more assertive manner. Despite all the concern in

The statements about Iran's nuclear program made by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Muhammad ElBaradei, have served as an eye opener for many Turkish officials, both from civilian and military ranks. They are now taking Iran’s activities in the nuclear field much more seriously and