Regional Policies

The outbreak of war in 2026 has profoundly reshaped Iran’s political landscape, intensifying long-standing tensions between reformist and conservative currents within the Islamic Republic. Conventional wisdom suggests that wartime conditions-marked by heightened securitization, centralization of authority, and intolerance for dissent-inevitably marginalize reformist actors, by subordinating political pluralism to regime survival. Indeed, early assessments point to the consolidation of power among…

The war between the United States and Iran represents a qualitative shift in the structure of regional security, marking a transition from indirect deterrence to an open, multi-layered conflict. The conflict has moved beyond a bilateral confrontation to assume the character of a multi-front regional war spanning Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf, and the Red Sea. The behavior of both…

The escalating transit crisis at the King Hussein Bridge – Al Karameh (Allenby) Crossing—manifested in congestion, prolonged waiting lines, and repeated closures—demonstrates that it is not merely an operational malfunction detached from its political context. Rather, it constitutes a complex, layered crisis shaped by overlapping Israeli restrictions on movement and mobility through procedural controls (operating hours, number of buses, sudden…

If Iran drew its political boundaries early-at the Treaty of Qasr-e Shirin in 1639-it did not delineate its intellectual boundaries with the same clarity except across a full century of upheaval, inquiry, and the redefinition of the self. The modern Iranian intellectual field did not emerge solely from the Islamic Revolution, nor did it take shape in a single moment…

Iran’s contemporary influence is neither a late byproduct of the 1979 Islamic Revolution nor analytically sound to reduce, in a simplistic and reductive manner, to a distant Safavid origin-as if Iranian history had not been marked by ruptures, inflections, and profound transformations. Rather, as multiple junctures in its history suggest, Iran has, over centuries, accumulated layered configurations of political and…

In a development that reveals the scale of transformation underway in the Lebanese file, the discussion is no longer confined to how to contain the war or mitigate its repercussions. It has shifted to a deeper level concerning the redefinition of Lebanon’s regional position, the limits of its actual sovereignty, and the shape of the internal balance possible amid the…

“This report is based on the analysis of digital conversation data using social media listening tools. It tracks engagement volumes, prevailing trends, and patterns of discourse across multiple platforms, enabling an in-depth reading of public opinion dynamics within the digital sphere.” Approximately 22.8 million digital conversations addressed the war on Iran in March 2026, involving more than 3.2 million users…

The pilot and professor of geopolitics-who has combined the mayoralty of Tehran with the speakership of parliament-now emerges as a potential negotiator and a figure poised to shape the contours of a political transition. The name of Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has recently emerged as that of a figure who has accumulated a rare breadth of experience across…

The ongoing war in Lebanon can no longer be understood as a limited military round between Israel and Hezbollah, nor even as a subsidiary extension of the U.S.–Israeli confrontation with Iran. Recent developments indicate that the conflict has shifted to a new level, where immediate military objectives are intertwined with broader strategic stakes related to reshaping Lebanon’s strategic environment and…

This assessment proceeds from the premise that the Israeli–U.S. war on Iran has moved beyond the stage of proxy warfare into a phase of gradual attrition, cost escalation, and the reconfiguration of the region’s geopolitical and strategic environment. Drawing on a modified Delphi approach that synthesizes the assessments of a number of experts and researchers, the paper seeks to distill…