Assess Sanctions Success before Piling More on

Last week Paul Pillar wrote that our sanctions-happy Congress is hindering progress with Iran. This week three high-level members of the US foreign policy elite are asking Congress to not lose sight of the end-goal — peacefully reaching a mutually… Continue Reading

Sanctions as the end

Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst, examines the fight between Congress and the Obama Administration over more sanctions being proposed for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by Sens. Robert Menendez, (D-N.J). and Mark S. Kirk, (R-Ill.). Prior to… Continue Reading

Gary Sick on Iran’s Foreign Policy

Gary Sick, who served as an Iran specialist on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, speaks to Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose about an article that he wrote for the magazine in 1987, which still holds… Continue Reading

Jailed Iranian Rights Defender Nasrin Sotoudeh Unable to Collect Award

The whole world needs to know about Nasrin Sotoudeh, the Iranian rights lawyer who was ultimately sentenced to 6 years in prison after the Islamic Republic convicted her of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security in 2011. Sotoudeh’s… Continue Reading

IAEA Reliance on Third-Party Data Could Compromise Political Credibility

Beginning with a reference to a contentious report by the AP that used an alleged Iranian document provided by an “unnamed country” to suggest “that Iran is working on a bomb,” Mark Hibbs, a senior associate in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program, writes that… Continue Reading