In Donald Trump, the US may have finally found a president whose views on Iran are both unambiguous and immutable. They are, as social scientists would say, overdetermined. First among causes, the Iran deal, like the Affordable Care Act, stands as part of a repugnant Obama legacy and is therefore to be repudiated; whether or […]
If history is any indicator, India will not deprive itself of the benefits it stands to extract from the current situation. During the previous round of US sanctions on Iranian oil exports (2011-15), India maintained reduced oil imports from Iran. It greatly benefited from the situation largely due to an arrangement in which it withheld payments for a […]
The United States’ use of sanctions has exploded over the past decade. An analysis by the law firm Gibson Dunn found that President Donald Trump’s administration added nearly 1,000 people, companies, and entities to U.S. sanctions lists during 2017, nearly 30 percent more than the number added during former President Barack Obama’s last year in office. Read Here […]
Over the past two years, however, Zarif’s power has dramatically waned. Although he has continued his speaking tours in the West, he has been supplanted on the regional policy portfolios that most matter to Tehran—including Iran’s presence in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen—by a quieter but far more influential figure: Ali Akbar Velayati, the longtime foreign-policy […]
After a months-long stretch of merely sporadic violence and simmering tensions, the Middle East seems on the verge of another fiery eruption, and there are no outside powers with the interest or leverage to douse the flames. Read Here – Slate
The Iranian rial: crash. The Turkish lira: crash. The Argentine peso: crash. The Brazilian real: crash. There are multiple, complex, parallel vectors at play in this wilderness of crashing currencies. Turkey’s case is heavily influenced by the bubble of easy credit created by European banks. Read Here – Asia Times
The Syrian Civil War is the world’s bloodiest conflict, and much of the blame can be laid at the feet of Syria’s neighbours and the world’s major powers. So far, France, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, the United Kingdom and of course the United States have all intervened—and this long […]
The legal status of the Caspian Sea has remained unresolved for nearly 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But now, the leaders of the five countries bordering the world’s biggest enclosed body of water have finally made significant headway after agreeing — at least, in principle — on how to […]
Making inroads into Iran has become a priority for both China and India, with both nations seeking to expand influence in their respective regions. Located at a critical juncture, Iran links Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East. Furthermore, Iran’s abundant resources provide a significant amount of energy to China and India. Read Here […]
U.S. foreign policy toward Iran is approaching a “back to the future” moment, with the Trump White House resurrecting the strategy pursued by President George W. Bush (and, for a while, President Barack Obama) of pressuring Iran economically into abandoning its nuclear pursuits. Read Here – The National Interest
looking beyond borders 