iran panorama

By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh Of the 20 Democrat US presidential candidates who recently participated in the first two rounds of debates on CNN, nine so far have qualified for the next stage. Statements from the Iranian leaders and the coverage of the debates by the Iranian media show that the Islamic Republic is closely watching and examining the process. This is because the outcome of next year’s US presidential election will be one of the most important developments for the ruling mullahs; it will have significant implications for the geopolitical, strategic and economic landscapes of the regime in Tehran. Nothing better illustrates this than considering the effects of two successive US presidents — Barack Obama and Donald Trump — on the theocratic Iranian establishment. When Obama assumed office, the ruling mullahs’ hold on power was in jeopardy as a result of four rounds of crippling economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. Tehran was having a difficult ...

By Bob Blackman Aug. 14 (UPI) --  At the end of July,  Amnesty International released a new statement on one of the worst unresolved crimes against humanity in recent decades. The statement  was motivated by the latest remarks to emerge from Tehran regarding the Iranian regime's systematic massacre of political prisoners in the summer of 1988. Far from being held to account, the architects and participants in that massacre have been richly rewarded with positions of power and influence in government and various state-affiliated organizations. And this has helped to reinforce a sense of impunity, which allows for public commentary that reflects not only a lack of remorse but ongoing admiration for the killings. This was apparent in 2016 when then-Minister of Justice Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi responded to newly leaked information about the massacre by saying he was "proud" to have helped carry out "God's command" of death for its main targets, the pro-demo...

By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh One of the characteristics of democracies in the West is that every government or administration generally comes to office for a few years, and is then replaced by another with new plans and policies. One of the strategic advantages Iran has over the West is that, without such democratic accountability, the theocratic establishment can plan decades ahead. It is true that presidents in Iran change every four or eight years, but they do not make final decisions. Presidents and foreign ministers work for the Supreme Leader, the ultimate political and religious authority, who rules until his death and enjoys the final say in domestic and foreign policies. This continuity has given Iran a platform for a multifaceted strategy in an attempt to wait out the Trump administration. When Donald Trump became US president, Iranian leaders knew they would have several difficult years ahead; Trump had made his intention of confronting the Iran...

By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh This week, Iran’s state-controlled Persian news outlets put significant emphasis on a report that the White House had invited Iran’s top diplomat to the Oval Office. The invitation was reportedly extended by the junior senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, the first GOP senator to take any steps to initiate a meeting with Iranian leaders. He was said to have invited Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to meet US President Donald Trump in the White House. This was good news for Iran, as the Islamic Republic projected Paul’s offer as a victory for Tehran and a blow to the United States. This is due to the fact that, from the perspective of the Iranian leaders, any offers for negotiations from world powers is a demonstration of weakness, and grants Tehran more leverage. In addition, the Iranian leaders’ proposals to resolve the tensions over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as Iran nuclear deal, are preposterous. For example, Zarif...

  By  Reza Hoseani After the Sanction on Zarif, we have seen massive reactions in the state media by Iran regime's officials in support of Zarif. What is the reason for this? Almost all of the mullahs' agents, institutions, and media outlets defended both bands delicately. In addition to Jahangiri, Vaezi and the Foreign Ministry, other government organs supported Zarif. The Revolutionary Guards praised "the delicate effort in the media and propaganda war against the enemy of the regime". IRGC News Agency praised "his clever diplomacy". The band called Construction Brokers also wrote: "Zarif was and remains the consensus point of government and sovereignty for negotiation. One of the guards, Mohsen Galibaf, said: Zarif is the "spoken language" of the system. Mullah Zulnouri, head of the regime's parliamentary security commission, who had attacked Zarif a week earlier, defended Zarif as "the diplomat's defender of the cou...

By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh To more efficiently shape policies toward the Islamic Republic, it is vital to pay attention to the voices of the Iranian diaspora residing outside Iran for several reasons. First of all, Iran has a sizable diaspora with over five million Iranians living abroad. Although most of the Iranian immigrants left Iran in 1979, a considerable amount of Iranians continued to leave Iran, reaching a peak in the early 1990s, and again more recently because of the sharp increase in the brain drain. Iran has reportedly the highest brain drain in the world, with approximately 150,000 educated individuals leaving the country every year. Secondly, due to the socio-economic status of the Iranian expatriates, they can be a robust platform in potentially helping to change the destructive behavior of the Iranian government and transforming Iran into a more prosperous and peaceful country. According to several nuanced reports, including a study conducted by Massachusetts Insti...

  By  Reza Hoseani On Wednesday, July 31, the United States sanctioned Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. The move drew international media attention, topping the world news various journalists and commentators have discussed it from various angles, and numerous commentaries have been made on this subject. In fact, the US had said about a month ago that it wanted to sanction Zarif. But the question is, why didn’t America do it at the time? And what was the reason for this delay? A while ago, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced a Sanction of Khamenei and his office and assets, saying Zarif’s regime secretary of state would also be sanctioned, but the US did not sanction Zarif. Zarif was on the verge of traveling to the United States to attend some United Nations summits and the point was that Zarif wanted to seize the opportunity and open a diplomatic path through America. It was said at the time that while the mullahs’ regime was pretending to ...

By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh Iran’s economy is in a much worse situation than international financial institutions predicted just a few weeks ago. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reportedin April that inflation could reach 40 percent, while the World Bank indicated in June that Tehran’s gross domestic product (GDP) would shrink4.5 percent this year. That was 0.9 percent worse than its prediction in January. But, thanks to data releasedby the Statistical Center of Iran last week, the picture appears even gloomier. Among the parameters through which a healthy economy can be measured are its rate of inflation and the price of commodities compared to average salary. According to the Statistical Center of Iran, consumer inflation has reached almost 50 percent — some 10 percent higher than the IMF predicted and 25 times higher than the inflation rate in an efficient economy. Generally, an acceptable inflation rate is about 2 percent. The astronomical increase in inflati...