A big question is if Iran can indeed play both sides and somehow accommodate the interests of both China and India simultaneously, particularly if India continues to closely align its foreign policy with Iran’s chief rivals, the US and Israel, and is embroiled in an intractable competition with China. Read Here – Asia Times
Five years after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was concluded, it is on life support, following the US’s reinstatement of sanctions and Iran’s return to enrichment activities. Before two decades of diplomacy are squandered, all parties involved must step back from the precipice. Read Here – Project Syndicate
One of the secret elements of the deal signed last year is that China will invest US$280 billion in developing Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemicals sectors. This amount will be front-loaded into the first five-year period of the new 25-year deal, and the understanding is that further amounts will be available in each subsequent five year period, […]
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to reassert America’s waning influence on the world stage, challenging the U.N. Security Council to extend a U.N. arms embargo that is due to expire in October. Instead, America’s top diplomat received a scolding from friends and foes alike in the 15-nation council, which roundly criticised Washington for withdrawing […]
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is now 81-years old. While his health remains a closely guarded secret, his past medical history, age, and the deaths in recent years of other senior leaders have led Iranians to start considering what a post-Khamenei Islamic Republic might look like. There are two main contenders to succeed Khamenei: his 51-year-old son, Mojtaba, and Judiciary Chief Ebrahim […]
As Iran struggles to end its troubles at home, its proxies and allies in the Middle East have sought to deal with this health crisis in their own way. In some cases, this has led to decisive action, and in others, it has meant undermining any attempt to “flatten the curve”, as slowing the virus’s […]
The delivery of the first batch of European aid to Iran this week does not only represent a lifeline to the regime in Tehran as it attempts to tackle the deadly impact of the coronavirus pandemic. It also presents Iran with the opportunity to begin the painful process of rebuilding relations with the outside world. […]
Iran said it had asked the IMF for its first loan since the time of the Shah to combat a coronavirus outbreak that has claimed 429 lives and infected more than 10,000 people. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced the request on Twitter, calling on the International Monetary Fund to “stand on the right side […]
Like two hostile prisoners on the run and shackled to each other by fate, Iran and the United States continue their mutual loathing and periodic conflict. The inevitability of talking and even cooperating, however, also looms over both in a region neither can shape unilaterally. Washington and Tehran’s shared distaste for a wider military conflict […]
When nation-states engage in the bloody calculus of killing, the boundary between whom they can target and whom they can’t is porous…Since the Hague Convention of 1907, killing a foreign government official outside wartime has generally been barred by the Law of Armed Conflict. Read Here – The New Yorker
looking beyond borders 