Reports

Iran’s national security policymaking is an opaque process involving both official branches of government and informal influence networks. The one formal body that brings most of those influencers together is the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). Established in 1989 by Article 176 of Iran’s…
In 2013, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards began recruiting Afghan Shiites to fight in the new Fatemiyoun militia on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Most of the fighters came from the estimated three million Afghan refugees living in Iran. Over the next four years, some 50,000 Afghans were…
In 2018, Iran’s human rights record “remained extremely poor and worsened in several key areas,” according to a new State Department report. Issues included executions of juvenile offenders, denial of fair trials, poor prison conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, invasion of privacy, severe…
Pakistan has spent decades striking a delicate balance between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the self-appointed vanguards of Sunni and Shiite Islam, respectively. Pakistan is predominantly Sunni, but it also has a substantial Shiite population and shares a nearly 600-mile long border with Iran. Since 2015…
The majority of Iranians say the economy is bad and is getting worse, according to a new survey by IranPoll, an independent research company based in Toronto, Canada. Some 85 percent of those interviewed said European countries were “moving slowly” to trade and invest with Iran because of U.S.…
Iran’s economy has faced recurring existential crises since the 1979 revolution. Tehran suffered the biggest shocks from the sapping costs of an eight-year war with Iraq, between 1980 and 1988, and the wave of international sanctions imposed in 2012. During less volatile years, Iran’s economic…
Iranian society has undergone dramatic changes since the 1979 revolution. The population has doubled. The Islamic Republic has improved education. Illiteracy has been virtually eradicated. People are living longer. • Education: In 1976, the adult literacy rate was 37 percent. In 2016, it was 86…
Iran’s politics have changed dramatically – from a one-party system heavily dominated by clerics to a multi-party system dominated by secular politicians – during its first four decades. Iran’s parliament is illustrative. The key trends:    Clerics in Parliament: In 1980, clerics held 61 percent…
On January 29, Director of National Intelligence Daniel R. Coats released the annual "Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community." At a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, Coats and his counterparts from the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency,…
On December 6, the U.N. Secretary General reported that Iran has continued to implement its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In the sixth report on compliance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, António Guterres touted the JCPOA as a “major…