Reports
Iran’s critical assistance to the Assad regime has given it wide latitude to entrench itself on Syrian territory, according to new report by the Syria Study Group. Tehran is working to introduce advanced weapons systems that could threaten Israel and to establish a foothold in the eastern…
For more than a decade, one of Iran’s top national security priorities has been to maintain its ability to enrich uranium. Although Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, according to U.S. intelligence, Tehran wanted to maintain the core capabilities necessary for weaponization should it…
As tensions escalated with Iran, 78 percent of Americans said they opposed military action against Iran, according to a Gallup Poll released on August 20, 2019. The vast majority of Republicans (72 percent) and Democrats (86 percent) said they instead favored economic or diplomatic efforts. The…
On June 21, the State Department released its annual “Report on International Religious Freedom,” which accused Iran of multiple violations of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. “Non-Shia Muslims and those affiliated with a religion other than Islam, especially members of the Baha’i…
On June 20, the State Department released its annual “Trafficking in Persons Report,” which again designated Iran as a Tier 3 country, the lowest ranking possible. “The Government of Iran does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant…
A record-high 57 percent of Iranians said economic conditions in their communities were getting worse after the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018, according to a newly released Gallup poll. The organization interviewed a national sample of Iranians using landline and mobile…
Half of American adults expect the United States to go to war with Iran “within the next few years,” according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. A representative sample of 1,007 adults were asked a series of questions from May 17-20 amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran. Earlier in May…
Iran’s national security policymaking is an opaque process involving both official branches of government and informal influence networks. The one formal body that brings most of those influencers together is the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). Established in 1989 by Article 176 of Iran’s…
In 2013, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards began recruiting Afghan Shiites to fight in the new Fatemiyoun militia on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Most of the fighters came from the estimated three million Afghan refugees living in Iran. Over the next four years, some 50,000 Afghans were…
In 2018, Iran’s human rights record “remained extremely poor and worsened in several key areas,” according to a new State Department report. Issues included executions of juvenile offenders, denial of fair trials, poor prison conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, invasion of privacy, severe…