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Published March 3, 2016 at 7:55 am - No Comments
IranPolitik managing editor Farzan Sabet recently spoke to the Toronto Star, Newsweek, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on the 2016 Iranian Elections. See the interviews below: The Star: “In Iran, Friday’s tightly controlled elections will be pivotal for moderates: Analysis” Newsweek: “Iran Elections: Why They Matter” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: “Nine Takeaways From Iran’s Elections”
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Published February 25, 2016 at 2:52 am - No Comments
IranPolitik managing editor Farzan Sabet has written a new article on the upcoming Assembly of Experts election in Iran in the Washington Post Monkey Cage: “On Friday, the Islamic Republic of Iran will simultaneously hold votes for the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament) and the Assembly of Experts. While the parliament has received more attention, the assembly is arguably more important for Iran’s political future. The elected assembly is widely expected to choose the third supreme leader in the Islamic Republic’s history, decisively shaping its political landscape for the critical coming years.” To read the rest of the article, visit the Washington Post.
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Published February 18, 2016 at 7:42 pm - No Comments
IranPolitik managing editor Farzan Sabet has written an article about the clash of visions between Iran’s supreme leader and president that could shape Iran’s relations with the West, in New America Weekly: “The Islamic Republic of Iran recently marked the 37th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which heralded a decisive break in the country’s relationship with the West, especially the United States. Coming ahead of the first post-nuclear deal Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament) and Assembly of Experts elections next week, which pit relatively pro-Western moderates against anti-Western conservatives, many have been pondering if we could soon witness Iran-West reconciliation. Optimists have lauded the election of moderate […]
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Published January 19, 2016 at 6:38 am - No Comments
Mass disqualification Preliminary reports appear to indicate the there has been mass disqualification of aspiring candidates by the Council of Guardians ahead of the 2016 Iranian Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliamentary) and Assembly of Experts elections. According to Tasnim News Agency, only 4,720 out of a total of 12,123 aspiring candidates have been qualified to participate as candidates in these elections, a 38.9 percent qualification rate. That’s an average of 16 candidates competing for each seat in parliament. While an unprecedented number of aspirants registered to run in the elections, this would also be the lowest qualification rate of any election. Seyed Hossein Marashi, a member of the Reformist […]
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Published December 27, 2015 at 12:05 pm - No Comments
With the end of registration for aspiring candidates who want to participate in Iran’s upcoming 2016 parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections, Minister of Interior Abdol-Reza Rahmani-Fazli announced a high turnout. According to government figures 12123 people registered for parliamentary elections, over 100 percent more than in the previous 2012 election, while 801 individuals registered for Assembly of Experts elections, an increase of over 62 percent since the last election in 2008. Iran’s parliament, the Islamic Consultative Assembly or “Majlis”, is responsible for legislation. The Assembly of Experts, an 88-person body made up of Islamic jurists, is responsible for selecting the supreme leader, the most powerful position in […]
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Published October 23, 2015 at 9:40 pm - No Comments
IranPolitik co-founder and managing editor Farzan Sabet recently conducted an interview on the anti-“infiltration” campaign in Iran with the Christian Science Monitor: “Expectations were high that clinching a deal “would automatically enhance Mr. Rouhani’s position to expand social and political freedoms in Iran and resolve other issues in the US-Iran relationship,” says Farzan Sabet, managing editor of the IranPolitik website and Nuclear Security Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford. But those expectations did not take into account that the rare consensus among moderates and conservatives for a nuclear deal was to lift sanctions only, says Mr. Sabet, and does not extend to Rouhani’s […]
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Published September 20, 2015 at 9:24 pm - No Comments
Nuclear negotiations were one of the few areas of broad consensus among the political elite of the Islamic Republic of Iran. With the nuclear deal in hand, however, underlying tension between moderate and conservative currents in Iran has been increasingly coming to the fore. This tension has manifested in a number of ways, for example in the debate over the role of the Council of Guardians in vetting parliamentary election candidates. Another majour debate has been about the threat of Western, and especially American, penetration of the country and whether the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is uniquely empowered to confront such threats. The latter was a majour […]
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Published August 8, 2015 at 8:22 pm - No Comments
The withdrawal of Ahmad-Reza Darvish’s “He Who Said No”, an acclaimed film about revered Shi’a figure Imam Hossein, from Iranian cinemas this past week highlights how censorship in Iran continues to be an obstacle to the indigenous production of culture. This past week director Ahmad-Reza Darvish’s award winning film Rooz-e Rastakhiz (entitled “He Who Said No” in English), about the revered Shi’a figure Imam Hossein’s uprising against and martyrdom at the hands of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid, was pulled from cinemas in Iran due to what some claim is the film’s irreverent treatment of its subject matter. The film was originally created in 2010 and first shown at […]
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Published July 16, 2015 at 10:00 pm - No Comments
The Iranian nuclear crisis, which has come to define the last 12 years of the tumultuous post-revolution U.S.-Iran relationship is at an end. But this is an end which is also a beginning. The process of engagement which led to negotiations, which in turn led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has enabled an unprecedented level of interaction and trust building between the United States and Iran that may open doors to greater future cooperation. In this sense the JCPOA provides an institutionalized framework in the form of the Joint Commission for ongoing and iterative discussion on not only the issues provided for in the technical […]
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Published July 2, 2015 at 5:18 pm - No Comments
IranPolitik co-founder and managing editor Farzan Sabet recently conducted a Q&A on the domestic politics of implementing a final nuclear agreement in Iran with The Atlantic: “Kathy Gilsinan: Say the negotiators actually strike a nuclear deal. How does the Iranian system process it domestically? Does parliament have to pass laws to implement it? Can the supreme leader simply reject it if he doesn’t like it? Farzan Sabet: According to Article 77 of Iran’s constitution, international treaties, protocols, contracts, and agreements have to be ratified by parliament. In the case of the nuclear negotiations, this means that parliament has to ratify both a final agreement and other legal documents […]
