Reports
As tensions escalated with Iran, 78 percent of Americans said they opposed military action against Iran, according to a Gallup Poll released on August 20, 2019. The vast majority of Republicans (72 percent) and Democrats (86 percent) said they instead favored economic or diplomatic efforts. The…
On June 21, the State Department released its annual “Report on International Religious Freedom,” which accused Iran of multiple violations of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. “Non-Shia Muslims and those affiliated with a religion other than Islam, especially members of the Baha’i…
On June 20, the State Department released its annual “Trafficking in Persons Report,” which again designated Iran as a Tier 3 country, the lowest ranking possible. “The Government of Iran does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant…
A record-high 57 percent of Iranians said economic conditions in their communities were getting worse after the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018, according to a newly released Gallup poll. The organization interviewed a national sample of Iranians using landline and mobile…
Half of American adults expect the United States to go to war with Iran “within the next few years,” according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. A representative sample of 1,007 adults were asked a series of questions from May 17-20 amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran. Earlier in May…
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.…