Articles

The Iran Deal Is Strategically and Morally Absurd

It is less an arms-control agreement than cover for American inaction.

By: REUEL MARC GERECHT 4 MAY 2018

It was surely Barack Obama’s profound aversion to the use of American military power that so enfeebled his nuclear diplomacy and made his atomic accord with Iran the worst arms-control agreement since the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. I do not know whether a more forceful president and secretary of state—say a Democratic version of Ronald Reagan and George Schultz—could have gotten a “good deal” with Tehran; it just boggles the mind to believe that a better deal wasn’t possible. A stronger president and secretary of state certainly would have been willing to walk away. Neither captured by Iranian demands nor the mirage of “moderate” mullahs and engagement, more astute, less fearful men would have been more patient, and more willing to let sanctions bite deeper into the economy and political culture of the Islamic Republic. Read More »

Behind the Headlines/May 7, 2018

Jamshid Chalangi:

In tonight’s program our guests, economist Jamshid Assadi and environmentalist Djalal Idjadi will be sharing with us their expert opinions about the following topics:
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Iran Among the Ruins

Tehran’s Advantage in a Turbulent Middle East
By: Vali Nasr

Over the last seven years, social upheavals and civil wars have torn apart the political order that had defined the Middle East ever since World War I. Once solid autocracies have fallen by the wayside, their state institutions battered and broken, and their national borders compromised. Syria and Yemen have descended into bloody civil wars worsened by foreign military interventions. A terrorist group, the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), seized vast areas of Iraq and Syria before being pushed back by an international coalition led by the United States. Read More »

How Iran will respond to new sanctions

By: Djavad Salehi-Isfahani Thursday, May 3, 2018

Since December 2017, Iran’s currency, the rial, has lost one-third of its value. And on April 10, the exchange rate’s rapid depreciation prompted the government to halt domestic foreign-exchange transactions and outlaw foreign-currency holdings of more than €10,000 ($12,000). Read More »

Two-Faced Trump: Peace In Korea, War With Iran

by: John Feffer 3 May 2018

The president giveth and he taketh away.

Donald Trump is a stern and wrathful leader. He thinks nothing of raining down fire and fury upon the enemies of his “chosen people.” Indeed, he even flirts with ending the world if he doesn’t receive due respect and the requisite number of burnt offerings. But he can also reward his followers, and those who curry his favor, with positions of power and untold riches. Read More »

American and Iranian hard-liners await the end of the nuclear deal

By: Ishaan Tharoor May 4 2018

We are entering the final stretch ahead of President Trump’s likely decision to pull out of the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

His administration has to decide by May 12 whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran, ones that have been repeatedly waived since the agreement was signed by the Obama administration in 2015. The recent appointments of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton — two vociferous Iran hawks who were doggedly opposed to the deal — seem to make it all the more likely that Trump will follow through on his threats to scuttle the deal. Read More »

Behind the Headlines/May 4, 2018

Jamshid Chalangi:
In tonight’s program, with our guests Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh and Hassan Shariatmadri will be discussing the topics of the increasing opposition to the theory of the rule of clergy or Velayateh Faghih in Iran among the country’s religious circles, as well Iran’s silence in the face of Netanyahu’s revelations of the regime’s secret nuclear activities.
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