One of Vladimir Putin’s earliest proposed mega-projects—first announced on September 12, 2000—calls for the creation of a North-South transportation corridor linking Russia with the Caspian littoral states, including Iran, as well as India and Sri Lanka. Such a transit network would permit these countries to... MORE

Mid-February registered a remarkable sequence of international forums, whose participants debated and sought to counter Russia’s power politics in Europe and the Middle East. First, defense ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had their regular meeting in Brussels (February 13–14) and then proceeded... MORE

Foreign affairs have yielded few successes and much chagrin for Russia since the start of 2019 (see EDM, January 14, 2019). Relations with the United States are going from bad to worse, as the inevitable collapse of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signifies... MORE

Azerbaijan saw several important events in 2018—both domestic and external and sometimes interlinked. And a major takeaway from contextualizing the past year has been Baku’s cautious optimization of its existing balanced foreign policy. In particular, when looked at together, the events of 2018 suggest that... MORE

Iran—Suicide Attack in Chabahar Underscores Local Turmoil Brian M. Perkins A suicide bomber detonated an explosive-laden vehicle at a police headquarters in the Iranian port city of Chabahar on December 6. The bombing left at least two individuals dead and injured more than a dozen... MORE

A small group of gunmen attacked a military parade of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on September 22 in the city of Ahvaz in the southwest of Iran. At least 29 people were killed and more than 60 injured in the attack, which happened in... MORE

Armenia’s interim Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held talks with Iranian President Dr. Hassan Rouhani, on September 26, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York (Premierminister.am, September 26). The meeting, initiated by the Iranian side, was immediately heralded as signifying a... MORE

Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Mujahedeen El-Khalq (MEK) was the subject of frequent attacks from Iranian-backed proxies, which overwhelmed their members residing in camps Ashraf and Liberty in Iraq. Before this, MEK, an Iranian dissident group, began living in Iraq in the early... MORE

The Russian Ministry of Defense did not wait long to deliver its promised S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Syria. On the night of October 3, a huge An-124 Ruslan transport plane unloaded four mobile launchers, radars and command vehicles at Russia’s local Khmeimim airbase. This demonstrative... MORE

On May 8, after weeks of negotiations with European leaders, US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal signed between Iran and several other world powers, citing concerns that the JCPOA had failed to constrain... MORE