Iran

Toplines Iran may be attempting to deter a possible US strike by moving forces and conducting a live-fire naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz. US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on January 30 that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy will hold a two-day live-fire naval exercise in the …

Sunday will mark 47 years since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran after 14 years of exile. As excited revolutionaries awaited his plane’s arrival at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, the country’s new supreme leader was asked by an accompanying journalist what he felt about finally coming home. “Nothing,” was Khomeini’s cryptic …

A conversation with Karim Sadjadpour and Robin Wright about the recent protests and where the Islamic Republic might go from here. Aaron David Miller: What’s happening with the protests? Robin Wright: When we look at this moment, we need to put it in context. The revolution in 1978–79 took fourteen …

In a recent parliamentary session, Iranian lawmakers donned military uniforms and vocally condemned the US and Israel, reflecting Iran’s defiance amid external pressures and domestic protests. In a dramatic parliamentary session broadcast live on state television, Iranian lawmakers wearing military and Revolutionary Guard uniforms shouted ‘Death to America!’ and ‘Death …

Iran’s geography has turned it into a strategic hinge – one that anchors Russia’s southern depth and gives China an escape from US maritime containment. In the corridors of US strategic decision-making, Iran is no longer treated as a discrete regional file. Dealing with Tehran has become inseparable from great-power …

The protests in Iran this month were the most recent in a series of popular uprisings that reveal a fundamental reality inside the country: The Islamic Republic in its current form is unsustainable. Since 2017, large-scale demonstrations have swept across Iran on four occasions, with masses of citizens from diverse …

Azerbaijan, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, all of which have been Iran’s “frenemies” since 1979 and whose military-strategic interests are increasingly converging, are expected to exploit any large-scale instability that could follow another potential round of US strikes if Trump changes his mind. The Wall Street Journal recently published a …

Toplines Iran is likely trying to deter US military action against Iran by deploying forces and conducting naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Armed Forces General Staff (AFGS)-affiliated outlet Defa Press claimed on January 29 that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy deployed “hundreds of fast, missile-launching, …

EU foreign ministers agreed Thursday to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a “terrorist” group, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said. “Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise,” she said. Meeting in Brussels ahead of the terror designation …

The United States and Iran are not on the brink of open war. There is no countdown, no formal ultimatum, no declared strike order — but Donald Trump’s latest warning has undeniably raised the temperature. The relationship is entering a phase where the margin for error is shrinking. Danger no …