Iran Archive

TEHRAN — I decided to move to Iran after having spent seven years living in and writing about the Arab World, where foreigners are generally handled as a rare and privileged species. As such, I approached reports of Iranian impudence in dealings with the West and Westerners with suspicion. Were these reports just another case of anti-Iranian Western propaganda? The steady stream of reports coming out of Iran about Westerners being arrested, summarily tried and jailed on spying accusations did make me wonder, however. Iran is the only country in the region where this is a regular occurrence. This doesn’t […]

From the moment Iranian forces captured a group of 15 British sailors and Marines, the tensions among competing power centers within Iran began bubbling to the surface. One can almost imagine the heated debates raging among assorted Mullahs, military men and politicians about what to do with the 14 men and one woman taken on March 21 in the waters of the Persian Gulf. That, not coincidentally, was the day before a scheduled meeting of the United Nations Security Council, which approved new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, demanding yet again the suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program. There are […]

On March 14, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council together with Germany submitted a draft resolution that would broaden the embargo against Iran. As part of the international effort to derail Tehran’s nuclear program, the proposed resolution seeks, amongst other things, to ban procurement of Iranian “arms or related material.” Though harsher sanctions will be required before Iran thinks again about suspending its nuclear program, a global embargo on its defense exports could nevertheless be a painful blow.<<ad>>In 2005, Iran exported around $100 million worth of military hardware. Its defense industrial base has grown significantly and today […]