Posts tagged : "Iran’s Foreign Relations"

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: As the world was mesmerized by the spectacle of the presidential race in the United States, attention was diverted from other headline-making issues, at least fleetingly. In particular, it looks as though the dust has settled on the latest civilizational clash between the West and the Islamic world following the reprinting of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo and the brutal murder of Samuel Paty, a French middle-school teacher who had shown the cartoons in one of his classes. A debate on the appropriateness of republishing the controversial cartoons, the degree to which they caused offense to Muslims worldwide, the sanctity of freedom of speech in a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Responsible Statecraft: It might not be good news for Iran, but Israel is solidifying its foothold in the Middle East, cozying up to more Muslim, Arab nations that have long stopped thinking of the Jewish state as an existential threat. The surprise announcement on the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in August, followed by a similar deal between Israel and Bahrain in September, lifted the veil on the new realities of the region, ushering in fresh alliances and shifting paradigms. It’s out in the open that Iran and Israel are sworn enemies, and although they never engaged in any direct confrontation, they have been the two belligerents of a full-blown proxy conflict and...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran was overtaken with merriment and relief when the long-awaited nuclear deal was inked in July 2015 by the Islamic Republic and six world powers, spelling a happy ending to a diplomatic impasse that had been an unnerving fixture of media headlines and an unvarying talking point of world leaders for nearly two decades. Iran was extricated from the bludgeoning sanctions that had maimed its economy and turned it into a hermit kingdom, and the international community obtained robust assurances that Tehran’s nuclear program would not deviate toward weaponization. A genuine diplomatic breakthrough was clinched, and then-US president Barack Obama lauded it as “the strongest non-proliferation agreement...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: With less than two weeks to the US presidential election, Iranians, like much of the world, are carefully watching the heated contest between the incumbent Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden, who has opened up significant leads in the pre-election polls and many observers say has the potential to make the Republican president a one-termer. Although foreign policy is not usually a determining factor in how the American people elect politicians, the outcome of the November 3 ballot will have reverberations beyond the US borders, and America’s friends and foes have already begun contemplating the contours of their future relations with the United States under the two possible scenarios:...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The 75th United Nations General Assembly that ran from September 22 to 29 was not impervious to the blight of the Covid-19 pandemic, and unlike in preceding years, New York City was not the rendezvous of top-tier leaders and high-profile delegations flocking to Manhattan to mark what has usually been a monumental diplomatic event and a magnet for the world media. The General Assembly this year was eviscerated of its traditional exuberance characterized by hotly anticipated or rare encounters between heads of state and government, impassioned speeches during the General Debate sessions, particularly those by the rulers of “rogue states” who are otherwise banished from international forums, and...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Relations between Iran and the United States have followed a bumpy course since the 1979 revolution that set the stage for a metamorphosis of Iran’s foreign policy premised on the mantra of “neither Eastern, nor Western.” As the Islamic Republic gained more statecraft experience, that adage surrendered its sanctity, and it is now fine to be pro-Eastern, even though unexplained hostility toward what is geopolitically identified as the West, as a whole, remains in currency. Unlike the second term of Barack Obama as the US president, when Tehran and Washington made major strides toward resolving some of their many differences, culminating in the monumental Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Living in a highly connected world means people take pride in assets that were less relevant and charming 50 years ago. Today, social mobility, freedom of movement, connectivity and open borders are privileges that are cherished by the citizens of the 21st century. It is no longer possible for nation-states to erect walls of protectionism along their borders and preclude the flow of people and information. Even for a country like North Korea, which to many typifies isolation and autarky within the framework of a revolutionary Juche doctrine, foreign relations are critical, ensuring the survival of the nation in a hyper-connected, radically changed world. The Henley Passport Index, a global ranking...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The resounding “No” the United Nations Security Council gave last Friday to a US-led initiative to extend indefinitely an arms embargo against Iran set to expire on October 18 may for some time be a favorite topic for discussion in think-tanks, media and academic institutions thirsty for new developments in the course of Iran-US relations. However, there are ramifications to this episode that need to be spotlighted irrespective of the sensational hype about the “victory” of Iran and the “humiliation” of the United States. The fact that other than the Dominican Republic, no Security Council member, not even Washington’s staunch allies Britain, France and Germany (which abstained), sided...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Reports about the delivery of 1.5 million barrels of gasoline to Venezuela by Iran in early June once again threw the saga of relations between those two countries into relief. Media, commentators and scholars have been heatedly debating the enigmatic Iran-Venezuela partnership ever since, and how this alliance can challenge the global dominance of the United States, which has long punished both countries with merciless sanctions. Geographically, there is little that Iran and Venezuela share. They are nearly 12,400 kilometers away from each other. Culturally, contemporary Iran subscribes to a conservative religious tradition, which manifests itself in different aspects of daily life, while Venezuela...

Kourosh Ziabari - Responsible Statecraft: Like much of the world, Iran is also engulfed by the deadly outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Thus far, 4,232 people have died and more than 60,000 Iranians have contracted the virus. The country is the epicenter of the disease in the Middle East. Aside from its health impacts, the noxious pandemic has had a clear message for the Iranian leadership: Iran needs viable international partnerships, and to alleviate adversities of this magnitude, it has to disentangle itself from isolation and be part of the international community. Evidently, there are ultra-conservatives and hardliners in Iran, whose vision for the future of Iran is the establishment of an “Islamic North Korea,” bereft...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: In July 2015, Iran and the major world powers came to a detailed and comprehensive agreement that put an end to years of controversy over Iran’s nuclear activities and was lauded as a landmark non-proliferation accord. The 159-page document came to be known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, stipulated certain restrictions on different aspects of Iran’s nuclear program and in return emancipated Iran from the shackles of international sanctions that had gripped its economy for decades. The normalization of Iran’s relations with the international community was one of the by-products of the JCPOA, and the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog confirmed in consecutive reports that Iran was holding to...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: More than a year after the US pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, the ripple effects of President Donald Trump’s controversial decision continue to be felt across Iran and the Middle East. The Iran-US relations are cranked up to a point of unprecedented hostility and officials in both countries have been ramping up aggressive rhetoric towards the other side while a new military face-off in the region appears to be just around the corner. The Trump administration has been waging a campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran in a bid to convince the Islamic Republic authorities to come to a new agreement with the United States addressing a broader range of issues than just Tehran’s nuclear activities....