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Begin New Search Political Geography Iran Content Type Journal Article Publishing Institution The Fletcher School, Tufts University

1. Is there Eurasian Connectivity without Europe?

Author:
Niva Yau
Publication Date:
12-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Tucked between Russia, Iran, and China, Central Asia is now desperately looking for solutions to cushion the impacts of global tension on its fragile economies, which are deeply tied to sanctions against Russia and a local production slowdown as China recovers from its zero COVID policy. While European diplomacy has come at a crucial time, its Central Asian policy is ambiguous, and commitments misplaced. Central Asia is continuously perceived by the EU as a region in need of developmental assistance, which leads to European regional policies that focus on digitalization and climate issues. What Central Asia needs is the establishment of concrete logistical connectivity that will enable efficient flow of products across Eurasia.
Topic:
Climate Change, Diplomacy, Economics, European Union, Connectivity, and Digitalization
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, Iran, Central Asia, Eurasia, and Asia

2. Sanctions Run Amok – The Undermining of U.S. Power

Author:
Keith A. Preble
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Well into its second year, the Biden administration has continued to grapple with persistent foreign policy challenges while new ones have emerged: North Korea has not curtailed its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs; negotiations with Iran on resuscitating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remain stalled; and a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine may signal a potential invasion and full-scale conflict. In confronting these and other challenges, the United States continues to use economic sanctions as a mean of punishing, signaling, and coercing rivals into changing their foreign policy behaviors. As a tool of American economic power, policymakers often see sanctions as “Goldilocks” instruments that are “just right,” albeit ones that require time and patience to facilitate policy change.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Sanctions, and Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Iran, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

3. Violent Non-State Actors in the Middle East: A Conversation with Dr. Carmit Valensi

Author:
Robert Pulwer and Carmit Valensi
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Dr. Carmit Valensi is a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and a consultant for various research and security groups. She specializes in contemporary Middle East, strategic studies and terrorism. Her Ph.D. thesis explores Hamas, Hezbollah, and FARC as "violent hybrid actors."
Topic:
Non State Actors, Arab Spring, Syrian War, Hezbollah, and Interview
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Lebanon, and Syria

4. Full Issue: Money & War

Author:
Sarah Detzner, James Copnall, Alex de Waal, Ian M. Ralby, Joshua Stanton, Ibrahim Warde, Leon Whyte, Richard Weitz, Jessica Knight, John H. Maurer, Alexander Tabarrok, Alex Nowrasteh, Tom Keatinge, Emily Knowles, Karolina MacLachlan, Andrew Lebovich, Caroline Troein, and Anne Moulakis
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The Fletcher Security Review: Managed and edited by students at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, we build on the Fletcher School’s strong traditions of combining scholarship with practice, fostering close interdisciplinary collaboration, and acting as a vehicle for groundbreaking discussion of international security. We believe that by leveraging these strengths – seeking input from established and up-and-coming scholars, practitioners, and analysts from around the world on topics deserving of greater attention – we can promote genuinely unique ways of looking at the future of security. Each issue of the Review is centered around a broad theme – in this issue, we tackle “Money & War.” Money influences every aspect of warfare, conventional or unconventional. No nationstate military, insurgent group, terrorist network, trans-national criminal organization, or hybrid actor can be understood, or countered, without knowing where the money is coming from – as well as where, and how, it gets spent. Evolutions and revolutions in financial tools and practices quickly translate to transformations in military affairs, and some cases, vice versa.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Economics, Human Rights, Governance, Sanctions, Military Affairs, Finance, Islamic State, Navy, Arab Spring, Maritime, Conflict, Multilateralism, Islamism, Drugs, and Currency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Africa, China, Iran, Sudan, Darfur, Middle East, Asia, North Korea, Mali, Asia-Pacific, Sahel, United States of America, and North America

5. Weak Sanctions Breathe Life Into North Korean Defiance of International Community: FSR Interviews Joshua Stanton

Author:
Joshua Stanton
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Joshua Stanton, an attorney in Washington, D.C., has advised the House Foreign Affairs Committee on North Korea-related legislation, including the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, and blogs at OneFreeKorea. His article, "North Korea: The Myth of Maxed-Out Sanctions", a legal analysis of North Korean sanctions, refuted the idea that there is nothing left that the world community can do to bring them to the negotiating table. In this interview, he expands further on this idea addressing why people think that nothing more can be done and how the Iranian nuclear deal will affect relation with North Korea. The views expressed are solely his own.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, Sanctions, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Iran, Asia, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

6. Sanctions, Economic Mismanagement, and the Iranian Currency Crisis, 2010 - 2012

Author:
Jessica Knight
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
In October 2012, the Iranian rial earned the unwelcome distinction of the world’s least valued currency. It had lost more than 80% of its open market value in the previous two years, crashing from 9,800 to 37,000 rials (IRR) per U.S. dollar (USD). As the rial lost value, demand for more reliable hard currencies surged until it far exceeded the Central Bank of Iran’s (CBI) official supply. Many western analysts, taking their cue from U.S. officials, claimed this devaluation proved the efficacy of international sanctions. Did it really?
Topic:
Financial Crisis, Sanctions, Economy, and Currency
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, and United States of America

7. When Proxies Fail, Force Must Prevail U.S.-Iran Relations

Author:
Jonathan Ruhe
Publication Date:
05-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
For decades, the United States and Iran have pursued fundamentally incompatible strategic objectives. Yet despite having expansive goals and minimal mutual interests, each side has recognized that direct confrontation would jeopardize its ultimate goal. Thus competition between the two countries often has taken less decisive, but also less risky, forms of behavior, namely: diplomacy, sanctions, and the use of proxy forces. Given the stakes involved, however, relying entirely on such measures to convey the seriousness of one’s intentions is insufficient. Indeed, the United States has been most successful influencing Iranian policy when it has demonstrated its own willingness to use force or supported actors using military force directly against Iran – and conversely, least successful when it has failed to do so. ​ The two countries have long held mutually exclusive aims. The United States wants to remain predominant in the Middle East to ensure the free flow of natural resources and the security of its allies, even as it withdraws troops after more than a decade of war and faces an uncertain fiscal future. The Iranian regime pursues nuclear weapons capability to protect against its perceived danger from a U.S.-supported overthrow, provide an umbrella under which it can project unmatchable power against its neighbors, and validate its continuing right to rule, among other goals. Both objectives are highly ambitious and in direct conflict with each other. ​ Therefore the lethargy of peace suits both rivals well, as neither side feels it can afford an overt rupture. For the United States, direct conflict would critically endanger its efforts to maintain regional stability with a receding regional footprint. For Iran, it would seriously delay its approach to a nuclear weapons capability. There is little middle ground for diplomacy to secure, given the two countries’ ultimately irreconcilable goals.
Topic:
Security, Bilateral Relations, Conflict, and Proxy War
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, and United States of America

8. From Silk to Sanctions and Back Again: Contemporary Sino-Iranian Economic Relation

Author:
Aaron Morris
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Sino-Iranian economic ties have grown increasingly robust over the past 40 years despite efforts by the international community to strengthen the diplomatic and economic isolation of Iran vis-à-vis an ever-intensifying sanctions regime. As other nations retreat from their interactions with Iran, China benefits from consistent access to its oil and gas reserves in an environment of minimal international competition. Through this relationship, Iran finds a market for its vast oil and gas assets, as well as a partner through which to obtain support for infrastructure projects. It also benefits from importing China's refined gasoline for internal consumption, as Iran does not possess the internal capacity to produce refined petroleum in sufficient quantities to meet internal demand.
Topic:
Climate Change
Political Geography:
China and Iran

9. A Regional Arms Race? Testing the Nuclear Domino Theory in the Middle East

Author:
Rizwan Ladha
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
In November 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a much-anticipated report on the Iranian nuclear program, highlighting the fact that Iran has made significant progress on research and development toward a possible nuclear weapons program. Nonetheless, the report concluded that Iran's leaders had yet to make the decision to actively pursue the bomb.
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East

10. "Let's Talk About Sex and Gender: The Case of Iran" A Book Review

Author:
Hafsa Kanjwal
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
During a widely reported and controversial lecture at Columbia University in New York, the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, boldly declared: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country.” His statement, which caused ripples internationally, especially in the United States, underscores prolonged tensions on the subject of gender and sexuality in modern Iran, a nation experiencing what many have called “a sexual revolution.” How do we come to understand the history behind these tensions? How does this history relate to the broader historiography of gender and sexuality in the Islamicate? This review will look at two recent works, both published in the past decade, that have attempted to address these questions. The first book, entitled Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity, by Afsaneh Najmabadi draws upon visual and literary material from nineteenth century Iran during the Qajar period to demonstrate the centrality of gender and sexuality to the shaping of modern culture and politics in Iran.
Political Geography:
Iran

11. "U.S.-Iran Cultural Diplomacy: A Historical Perspective"

Author:
Ramin Asgard
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
In his seminal review of modern American cultural diplomacy, The First Resort of Kings, American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century (2005), Dr. Richard Arndt explored the full breadth of this important element of American international statecraft. Arndt defined cultural diplomacy by first considering how it contrasted with “cultural relations, or “relations between national cultures, those aspects of intellect and education lodged in any society that tend to cross borders and connect with foreign institutions.” Cultural diplomacy, he stated, “can only be said to take place when formal diplomats, serving national governments, try to shape and channel this natural flow to advance national interests.”
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Iran

12. "Women and the Law in Islamic Societies: Legal Responses to Domestic Violence in Saudi Arabia and Morocco"

Author:
Cybèle Cochran
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
A common misconception pervades in the West that women are all mistreated in Arab societies due to the application of Islamic law (shari‛a). Scanning media articles, we see references to stoning as punishment for adultery in Iran and requiring of the burka for women under the Taliban. In Morocco, however, women are not obligated to wear the veil and stoning is not an acceptable punishment for any crime. All of these countries have Muslim governments, and all claim to base their legal systems on shari‛a principles. What then accounts for the differences in their treatment of women under the law?
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Iran and Morocco

13. "Interview with Robert Baer, Author of The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower"

Author:
Michael Mylrea
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The ongoing showdown with Iran is one of the greatest US foreign policy challenges of this century. Iran's ambition to become the region's superpower has been bolstered by its large oil and gas supply, Shiites gaining control in Iraq, Hezbollah—an Iranian proxy army—fighting Israel to a standstill, and, its defiant move to become a nuclear power. Bold messages from Iran, such as that it will retaliate against the West and its allies if they try to impede its rise to power, are challenging to interpret.
Topic:
Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Iran

14. Does the Price of Watermelons Matter? Economic Performance and Political Legitimacy in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Author:
Nicholas Gossen
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Despite Ayatollah Khomeini's famous comment that the Iranian revolution was “not about the price of watermelons,” the Islamic Republic of Iran was in part founded on economic promises of redistribution, equality, and justice. The strength of this rhetoric has formed a core basis of political support for the regime, but it has also established public expectations that the Islamic Republic has been chronically unable to meet. Many analysts have cited Iran's poor economic performance since the revolution and resulting public dissatisfaction as a key weakness of the clerical regime and a potential source of its downfall. Indeed, this is a crucial element of the argument advanced by advocates of stronger multilateral economic sanctions against Iran in the dispute over its nuclear program. However, underlying this logic is an implicit assumption that regime legitimacy is tied to economic performance. While intuitively appealing, this assumption bears further scrutiny, particularly if it forms a basis for American policy decisions towards Iran. The primary goal of this paper is to examine the political and economic factors that have caused the gap between economic rhetoric and performance in Iran, and to assess the extent to which that gap has affected the political legitimacy of the Iranian regime.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
America, Iran, Middle East, and Beijing