Iran Archive

A few weeks ago, the United States had cautious grounds for optimism in terms of both Iran and Iraq. Election results in Iraq had opened the possibility of a more inclusive national government being formed, one that might finally begin to build on the breathing room obtained at such cost by the surge — and which would permit the orderly drawdown of U.S. forces over the next year. On Iran, there seemed to be an emerging international consensus that Iran’s nuclear program was deserving of sanctions: Both Russia and China signaled that they were prepared to consider new measures designed […]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a searing, accusatory speech against the West at the United Nations yesterday, causing many nations — such as France, the U.K. and the U.S. — to walk out before he was done speaking. Ahmadinejad talked about the West’s culpability for the escalation of the international arms race.

In recent weeks, the members of the Obama administration have developed a comprehensive strategy for the Eighth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which began yesterday. The administration’s declared position is to use the conference and other opportunities to strengthen all three of the treaty’s core objectives or “pillars”: disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. U.S. officials have stressed their support for the fundamental trilateral bargain behind the NPT: Countries with nuclear weapons will move towards eliminating them; states without nuclear weapons will not seek to obtain them; and all countries will enjoy access to peaceful […]

As Iraq’s political leaders crisscrossed the region holding meetings in various neighboring capitals in the run-up to and aftermath of the March 7 parliamentary elections, they provided a running display of the country’s continued vulnerability to the actions, both benign and malign, of its regional neighbors. While these cordial meetings were described as friendly consultations and information-sharing exercises, they reflect a stark reality: Iraq’s future is not solely in its own hands, and due to its weakness, the country’s future course will be shaped by both the actions and interference of its neighbors. Less clear is Iraq’s contribution to the […]

On March 7, President Barack Obama made a brief appearance in the Rose Garden to comment on Iraq’s just-completed parliamentary election. Obama hailed the vote as a success and condemned the insurgents who carried out a few scattered attacks in Baghdad. Then he returned to what is for him a familiar theme, casting the ballot as yet another milestone on the road to ending the seven-year-old Iraq War. “The Iraqi people must know that the United States will fulfill its obligations,” Obama said. “We will continue with the responsible removal of United States forces from Iraq.” Perhaps the framing was […]

Beginning last October, when an earthquake registering 4.0 Mw on the Richter Scale struck the city, Tehran’s residents have been barraged by prognostications of an earthquake reducing their metropolis to rubble. Iranian newspapers run stories almost daily detailing possible outcomes. More recently, Tehran’s acting prayer leader, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sadeqi, became the object of worldwide ridicule when he claimed, “Women who do not dress modestly . . . spread adultery in society, which increases [the occurrence of] earthquakes.” But what’s really at the root of Tehran’s earthquake scare? President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered a hint on April 6, when he urged Tehran’s […]

President Barack Obama’s multipronged approach to minimizing nuclear risks — embodied in the simultaneous roll out of the Nuclear Posture Review, the START follow-on treaty with Russia, and the Nuclear Security Summit — is nothing if not ambitious. Taken together, these steps mark a potential turning-point for U.S. nuclear strategy by reducing the role of nuclear weapons and by prioritizing efforts to lock down weapons-usable material, clamping down on nuclear terrorism, and strengthening international rules against proliferation. As the Nuclear Posture Review puts it, “Changes in the nuclear threat environment have altered the hierarchy of our nuclear concerns and strategic […]