As Iran and the United States, a key member of the P5+1 world powers, inch toward deicing their 35-year-old frosty and at times traumatic relations, jockeying from all sides of political spectrum target the direction of this process and whether the icy relations should ever start to melt. Regional opponents of improved ties between Iran […]
The [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is comprised of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, Qatar and Kuwait. According to the GCC’s Charter, what unites these countries are their “special relations, common characteristics and similar systems founded on the creed of Islam.” “Their […]
Editor’s Note: The following is a contributing guest piece. Saeed Ghasseminejad is the cofounder of the Iranian Liberal students and Graduates (ILSG) and the International Center for Liberalism Studies (ICLS). His work on economy and politics of Iran and the Middle East and has been published in CNBC, The Weekly Standard, National Post, International Business […]
The Economist released an interesting chart on global military spending this week showing the increased spending on military assets by countries that have been considered in the past to not be pro-Western or an ally of the United States or EU. The largest spending boom was made by China. China has openly shown the People’s […]
There has been a lot of speculation lately about the impact of the Crimean Crisis on the situations in Syria and Iran. The current negotiations regarding these countries involve cooperation between Russia, the United States, and other countries now directly and indirectly involved on opposites sides of the Crimean question. Naturally, that bodes ill for […]
Gareth Porter, author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold History of the Iranian Nuclear Scare, is a renowned investigative journalist and historian on U.S. national security policy. Porter was the 2012 winner of the Gellhorn Prize for journalism awarded by the Gellhorn Trust in the U.K. His previous book was Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and […]
February 11 marks the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, a jolting socio-political and geopolitical event that transformed the dynamics of the Middle East, energy security, and global diplomacy. Iran, at the time a key regional ally of the U.S. and the West, became a virulently anti-U.S. and anti-Western state with a state ideology […]
Editor’s Note: The following is a contributing piece by Jahandad Memarian. Mr. Memarian is a senior research fellow at Nonviolence International and a contributor to Al-Monitor and the Huffington Post, He holds an M.A. in Western Philosophy from the University of Tehran and was previously an Iranian Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Santa […]
Kamran Bokhari is Vice President of Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs at Stratfor, a leading geopolitical and intelligence consulting firm based in Austin, Texas. Mr. Bokhari is a distinguished scholar and expert in Middle Eastern and South Asian affairs. He has given briefings to the U.S. and Canadian governments on important geopolitical issues in […]
Editor’s Note: The following piece was first published in Middle East Briefing (ISSUE 9 VOL 1 Jan 13th 2014), a weekly publication of Orient Advisory Group, a research and risk assessment firm based in both Washington DC and Dubai UAE. __________________________________________________________________ Quiet changes have already been made in the team of Iran’s negotiators with […]
Editor’s Note: Kaveh Shahrooz is a Toronto-based lawyer. He was formerly a Senior Policy Advisor with Canada`s Department of Foreign Affairs, where he advised the government on Canada’s role at the UN Human Rights Council. As a lawyer Mr. Shahrooz practiced at a leading international law firm in New York and was an Editor-in-Chief of […]
The waning days of 2013 is a time of reflection on the most significant events of the year. It’s also a time to take a look at the most significant, controversial, and attention-grabbing books of the year. This year at the FPA, I picked the books in four categories: U.S. foreign policy, U.S.-Iranian relations, international […]
As regular readers know, the United States and five other countries (P5+1) concluded an interim nuclear agreement (the Joint Plan of Action) with Iran, setting the conditions that will hold during negotiations on a final agreement concerning the Iranian nuclear program and the international economic sanctions imposed on that country and also outlining some aspects […]
Dr. Janice Gross Stein is the Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, where she is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science. Dr. Stein is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada and the […]
As readers already know, the P5+1 and Iran concluded an interim agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear program. This was accomplished in remarkably little time despite some reporters’ harried declarations that the talks were on the verge of collapse. (Reporters sometimes accept at face value “confidences” from diplomats that are really part of the bargaining process. It […]