Towards An Eu Iran Strategy

With the shah still sick, it was hard to manage what was back in Iran. The speed of change in Iran was too hard to get command. “The shah was in trouble, reaping the harvest of years of brutal and unpopular policies, including the use of secret police that controlled dissent with arbitrary arrests and torture.” It was obvious that the shah had lost all control of his people of Iran, but the president had hoped for an alliance of opponents to be formed. A man

Thesis: Iran, because of these events, is in worse condition because of the cultural revolution, poisoned from within, and is the victim of the actions of the western powers.

These allegations have been investigated by parties in and outside of Iran, including London’s Chatham House and the Institute of Iranian Studies, University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which co-published a report after the election. The

Things move so far and so fast in the Middle East that some of the pieces here already seem like distant history just a year or two after happening and being written. If Iran, in 2013, ‘felt that the economic pressure and the credible threat of military intervention were to threaten its very survival, it might, just as Assad did with the chemical weapons, go as far as give up the entire nuclear program altogether.’ Before 2014 started was a relatively peaceful time. But of course, we know now that the West will never make such a threat, that the mullahs will have their way, and that the Americans are in retreat amidst the confused ruins of their policies as the Russians move in.

Iran and the United States are frigid bedfellows indeed. For the last thirty-seven years, these two cultures dogmatically opposed each other philosophically and theologically. To this day, the two countries monitor the other’s actions with suspicion and disdain. The United States accuses Iran’s Islamic theocracy of state sponsored terrorism and proliferation of nuclear materials with the intent of use against Israel. Iran by contrast sees the United States as an aggressive interloper driven by a lust for fossil fuel hegemony and diametrically opposed to Iran’s own national interests. Truly a match made in heaven.

Throughout the 19th and 20th century Iran saw not only the changing of three regimes, but also the coming, and going of classical imperialists in Britain and Russia, but also late comers to the game in the United States. In each instance however, Iran was on a road to appeasement. In some instances such as with the Qajar’s, Iran’s Imperial family was trying to get more money for the betterment of itself. In the event of the Pahlavi’s, Iran was trying to modernize based off of a western model of success. In both instances the carving out of resources was involved in which Iran stood to lose the most by giving up very lucrative state industries to

Former President Ahmadinejad set Iran back years by putting Iran into extreme isolation from the international community. His continued badgering with the international community, eventually lead to a nuclear stand-off with world powers. With what seems to be the Ayatollah’s blessing, President Rouhani has so far shown promise to ease the country’s relations and assume a solution on the nuclear issue. “For Washington, meanwhile, the election offered stark confirmation that its strategy is working, at least to a point. The outcome confirmed that political will for a nuclear deal exists within the Islamic Republic. In other words, the path out of isolation and economic crisis is perilous, but Iran’s new president, who has sometimes been dubbed “the sheikh of diplomacy,” may just be the right man at the right moment to walk it.” (Maloney, 2013)

As Michael Axworthy states on the back cover of his book, A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind, Iran is a “land of contradictions”. As this is true these contradictions is what makes Iran, Iran. Iran today is looked as the pinnacle of the Islamic faith in the form of a Government structure. Since 1979, Iran has been known as the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iran will continue being an Islamic Republic for centuries to come. Iran has a rich history of intellectuals and scholars. Iran is known for its vibrant culture that dates back longer than the Western Ideals were even conceived. However Axworthy asks a question about Iran and its impact on the world’s history and the current events that we see in Iran today, Axworthy asks “Is Iran an aggressive power, or a victim?” This statement is a true paradox, can Iran be the next Nazi Germany, the next Soviet Union or the next Great Islamic Caliphate or is Iran just fighting to keep its culture alive from a vast array of attacks from foreign entities and internal struggles.

Iran has posed a prominent threat against the United States for decades, and after their long strenuous ordeal, a controversial, yet tolerable agreement has been committed. To many, this compromise is anything but beneficial given its short timeframe, but others are greatly relieved with such an agreement altogether. This article is truly eye opening and personally helped me form a better perspective of an important ordeal in the world. Given the seriousness of the issue at hand, it is a read that keeps the reader informed and engrossed throughout every line. The author effectively connected emotionally to the audience, used diction, and listed many facts, that each were incorporated throughout the article in order to enhance the article’s persuasive

The 2009 Iranian presidential election and its aftermath is characterized by a strange power dynamic between Ayatollah Khamenei's and the people where Khamenei is constantly testing their reaction to his dictatorial action, seeing what he can get away with. After choosing the president with no regard for the votes and levying threats at anyone who protested, Khamanei listened to what the opposition has to say, allowing them to voice their opinion in many circumstances. This pattern in Khamenei's action seems to reoccur in the elections' aftermath, creating a cycle in which he carries out an outrageously repressive action, and then is attentive to the people dissent towards it. This constant pushing and pulling dynamic

The battle between president Obama and the congress is settled in favor of the President, however a similar battle in form, but different in nature, has emerged in Iran. The Rouhani’s government has insisted for weeks that the Parliament should not review and vote on the JCPOA. On the other hand, a handful of influential conservative members of parliament, close to the IRGC, insisted on the parliament’s rights to vote on the deal. The supreme leader finally sided with his devoted followers in the Majles. However, his intent is different from them. While the extreme hardliners in the Majles intend to reject the deal, Khamenei’s goal is to drop the responsibility of signing the deal, which he has to do if the JCPOA is submitted to the Supreme National Security Council. The

Anyone who has even the slightest clue about anything related to world news has the basic understanding that Iran is a major player in the world of politics. From miscellaneous missile launches to disputes with other foreign nations, they have strong armed their way onto the international stage. Iran has become the largest threat in the Middle Eastern region as a result of the efforts of their fairly infant Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Plunging in for a closer look, the strength of the IRGC impresses not only politics, but the socioeconomic culture of Iran but not in the most positive fashion.

The first source which will be evaluated in depth is The Shah by Abbas Milani first published in 2011. Milani is the Hamid & Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Center on Democracy at Stanford University. He is one of the founding co-directors of the Iran Democracy Project, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is in U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Till 1986, he

The history of the Middle East after the Second World War is full of myths, conspiracies, and crucial policy changes in many governments. One conspiracy that seems to stay unsolved until today is the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh, the former Prime Minister of Iran, by a cooperative coup between the British SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) and the US CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).1 This Event has still yet to completely unfold, even when the U.S openly admitted their involvement in 2000. Mossadegh was considered a radical and an enemy to Britain, but to many Iranians he was a hero who aimed for Iran’s independence from the foreign influence of Britain.

The ESS has recognized regional stability as a top priority for the EU. Conflicts in the Balkans, the persistent threat of war between Israel and Palestine, cultural revolutions along the Mediterranean’s southern shores, and fierce conflicts along the EU’s border all play an integral role in the