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Latest Articles about Iran
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Could Russia Lose the Syrian Arab Army to Iran or General Maher al-Assad?
The security apparatus remains the key pillar of political power in the contemporary Arab state system. Whatever the post-war outlook of Syria will look like, its fabric will not change overnight. In one way or another, the Syrian military and intelligence community will remain the... MORE
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Iran Completes Controversial Hydropower Project on Aras River
In early May 2020, media reports highlighted the construction of a large hydropower system composed of the Khudafarin and Qiz Qalasi (Maiden Tower) hydropower plants as well as hydro junctions and related facilities and bridges on the Aras River, which follows part of the border... MORE
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The Ban on Hezbollah Activities in Germany
The German Ministry of Interior Horst Seehofer announced on April 30 that the Lebanese organization Hezbollah would be fully banned from carrying out any activity on German soil. The announcement was followed by raids on four mosques and organizations suspected of being linked to Hezbollah,... MORE
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Briefs
The Libyan Conflict and the Moroccan-Algerian Arms Race Brian M. Perkins Algeria and Morocco have long been in competition for diplomatic and military supremacy in the Maghreb and have intermittently faced off in the conflict over Western Sahara. Algeria has been the region’s preeminent military... MORE
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Iran Expanding Its Naval Presence in the Caspian
Western analysts tend to focus on the Iranian navy almost exclusively in terms of its ability to harass or block oil tankers coming through the Strait of Hormuz, an understandable perspective given the danger that Iran could disorder world oil markets if it was successful... MORE
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Food Shortages in Turkmenistan Lead to Rationing in State Stores
Isolationist Turkmenistan, which proudly claims to be COVID-19-free, has nonetheless been affected by the pandemic (Izvestia, May 10). A recent closure of its borders due to pandemic concerns has halted imports, reportedly leading to food shortages. The provincial situation became so dire before the borders... MORE
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Russia Now Losing Out to China on Iranian Rail Route
The Russian government long assumed that Western sanctions on Iran would allow it to steal a march on the world by expanding its railroad connections to the south via the Islamic Republic while simultaneously ensuring that the South Caucasus remains a Moscow-dominated hub for both... MORE
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Abu Alaa al-Walai: Tehran’s Loyal Iraqi Militiaman
"All Americans in Iraq will be hostages if a war broke out between the U.S. and Iran. Because we will stand with Iran, period,” said Abu Ala’a al-Walai, the prominent Iraqi Shia militia leader, in a TV interview last August (Alalam TV, August 28, 2019; YouTube,... MORE
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Tajikistan Struggles to Integrate Ismaili Pamiris Living Along Afghan Border
Eastern Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region—comprising more than half of the historical mountainous region of Badakhshan, which it shares with northern Afghanistan—is one of the most isolated, impoverished and unsettled places in Central Asia. Gorno-Badakhshan was a center of resistance to Dushanbe during the civil war... MORE
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COVID-19 Increases Importance of Middle Corridor
Following the large coronavirus outbreak in Iran, neighboring countries quickly closed their borders with the Islamic Republic. More than a thousand Turkish trucks carrying goods to Central Asia found themselves stuck at checkpoints due to the closure of the Iran-Turkey and Iran-Turkmenistan borders (Daily Sabah,... MORE