News

Amidst the landscape of Middle East tumult, there remains the prospect of Iran—and its blatant evolving nuclear capability.

In retrospect, Iran circa the presidential protests of 2009, may be
seen as the first in the series of popular rebellions we’re witnessing
today - though the leadership there successfully beat down the protests.
Indeed, the Tehran regime now appears to be relatively stable in the
region. Suddenly almost every other government in the Middle East is
viewed with greater uncertainty. Which ones can withstand internal
dissent? These mobs of newly empowered individuals will shake and
perhaps remove standing governments. And there seems to be a tendency in
the White House to celebrate these expressions of popular will on the
one hand, but on the other there is no vision of where all this leads.
Sure Mubarak was authoritarian, but what now? It is not easy to run a
country with limited resources, but a large and growing population. We
may come to reflect on the Mubarak years more kindly if we find the next
Cairo government can deliver political candidates, but no food. The
prospect of serial revolutions is not the least likely outcome.

How does the world now look from Tehran? Is it better or worse? Is
there more incentive or less to push on the nuclear front? Is the
Iranian economy going to get str... >>>