Middle East & North Africa

Iran’s Supreme Leader keeps ties with former officials who can be of use in backchannel negotiations on sensitive foreign policy issues

Iran’s belief that global power is shifting from a declining West to a powerful East is an ideological miscalculation

Without relief from U.S. sanctions, Iran looks to Africa to strengthen its economic, political , and ideological ties in the region

Reformists in Iran struggle to reinvent themselves as protests mount, the middle class shrinks and the country’s ‘quasi-democracy’ descends into a ‘pseudo-democracy’

U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal not only caused foreign companies to break contracts but made it more difficult for Iran to seek redress

Eight years after the JCPOA was reached, the European Union continues to cling to a moribund deal while Iran and the U.S. appear to have moved on

Despite rising arms trade due to the Ukraine war, Iran and Russia remain natural economic competitors and their partnership is likely to remain limited

Despite intense repression, civil society entities in Iran have proven that they cannot be uprooted or destroyed