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2010 Iran archive
2009 Iran archive
2008 Iran archive
2006-2007 Iran archive
2004-2005 Iran archive
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Iran changes tactics to keep US Navy at bay
The division of responsibilities between Iran’s naval forces, outlined in a new report, will frustrate enemy attacks but not change the outcome of any future conflict with the United States
Issue 868, 18 December 2009. more
Also see Issue 868, 18 December 2009. IRGCN operations in the Gulf
Economic policies divide regime as continuing protests threaten its hold on power
Risk management report, Also see Issue 868, 18 December 2009. more
Protests continue but political opposition fades
Opponents of President Ahmadinejad’s re-election and the wider regime continue to protest and organise, but opposition group leaders are under increasing pressure as the supreme leader and his allies dig in.
Issue 865, 20 November 2009.
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Gazprom takes over from Statoil in Azar field development
State-owned Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (Pedco) on 2 November signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Gazprom Neft – the oil arm of Russian energy giant Gazprom – to develop the Azar field on the Anaran Block, in the Ilam province of western Iran.
Issue 865, 20 November 2009. more
‘Scorched earth’ in Yemen further raises regional temperature as US considers Iranian angle
Humanitarian concerns have forced a ceasefire in Yemen’s murderous Al-Houthi conflict amid signs that the Arab-Iranian ‘cold war’ is hotting up. With Saudi Arabia and Egypt joining the US in seeing wider regional significance in what has long been understood as a localised conflict, Ali Abdullah Saleh is looking to exploit a difficult situation
Issue 864, November 2009. more
In alliance against the Houthis, cold war partners accuse Iran
The government has stressed the Iranian connection in recent communiqués on the northern conflict. Houthi leader Badreddin Al-Houthi exposed his movement to charges of Iranian backing by contacting Shia marjas (spiritual leaders) in Najaf and Qom, drawing stern criticism of government crackdowns from Shia notables such as Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. Iranian state media has strongly criticised the Yemeni government’s handling of the Houthi issue.
Issue 864, November 2009. more
Communal tensions rise as suicide bomber kills revolutionary guards
Everyone from ‘Great Satan’ America to Al-Qaeda has been blamed for a suicide bombing that targeted senior IRGC commanders in Sistan va Baluchistan. The incident points to deepening confrontation in sensitive, often ethnically distinct border regions such as Khuzestan province, where Tehran has rejected all challenges to its authority
Issue 863, 23 October 2009. 
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Iran shows off new military projects but its new arsenal fails to impress
Despite an increasingly sophisticated military infrastructure, a fatal crash and a number of technical faults at a recent air show have undermined President Ahmadinejad’s threats of retaliation if the US or Israel were to strike
Issue 863, 23 October 2009.more
Iranian trade finance ‘fraught with burdens and worries’ but still alive, bankers report
As international financial sanctions tighten, Iran has slipped off the radar of most banks, but import letters of credit are still being issued by Iranian banks and may be confirmed by a handful of western counterparts
Issue 863, 23 October 2009. more
UK blacklists Iranian businesses
In a move to increase pressure on Tehran, the British government has followed US moves by banning all UK-based companies from entering into or continuing any transactions or business relationships with Bank Mellat, one of Iran’s largest state banks, as well as with state-owned Iran Shipping Lines.
Issue 863, 23 October 2009. more
Sanctions avoided over nuclear compromise – for now
Risk management report: Issue 862, 9 October 2009. more
Conservatives more firmly ensconced as worries remain over Supreme Leader succession
The influence of Iran’s conservative faction has grown enormously since June’s disputed presidential election (GSN 857/1). The victory of its chosen man – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – has increased its stranglehold on the machinery of state, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) gaining ever more power. But while there has also been an increase in the power of Rahbar (supreme leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was very vocal in his support for Ahmadinejad during the elections, the key underlying issue seems to be his eventual succession, with conservatives positioning themselves to influence the outcome of a process which many expect to happen sooner rather than later
Issue 862, 9 October 2009. more
Iran’s conservatives position themselves for Khamenei’s succession
With persistent rumours about the Supreme Leader’s health, key figures are jostling for power as they await the succession that many expect sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, with growing influence, the Rahbar’s son Mojtaba Khamenei waits in the wings
Issue 861, 25 September 2009. more
Also see Issue 861, 25 September 2009. How Iran’s supreme leaders are chosen
Majlis approves Revolutionary Guard government
The Majlis has approved 18 of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 21 nominations to government posts, many of whom are hardliners loyal to the president and with backgrounds in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Issue 860, 11 September 2009. more
Also see Issue 860, 11 September 2009. New oil minister approved
‘Vanished cargo was carrying arms to Iran’, report says
A cargo ship that vanished en route from Finland to Algeria on 24 July was carrying arms to Iran and was being tracked by the Israeli security service Mossad, according to sources in Russia and Israel quoted in UK newspaper The Sunday Times.
Issue 860, 11 September 2009. more
First Persia fund on SDN blacklist
First Persia Equity Fund, a Cayman Islands-based subsidiary of the state-controlled Bank Melli Iran, has been blacklisted by the US Treasury Department’s office of foreign assets control.
Issue 860, 11 September 2009. more
As Ahmadinejad begins second term political splits threaten his future
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s inauguration marked an inauspicious beginning of his second term in office, as political divisions within the ruling elite continued to deepen, to the extent that forming a new cabinet could prove difficult for the embattled head of government.
Issue 859, 7 August 2009. more
Iranian concerns
The first term of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad restored hardline conservative nationalism to centre stage. The president’s continuing nuclear programme, ignoring Saudi demands for a nuclear-free Gulf, could only deepen anxieties.
Issue 859, 7 August 2009. more
Divides deepen as Ahmadinejad is increasingly isolated
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad managed to add further complexity to the Iranian crisis with the appointment of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie as first vice president. Known to favour cultivating diplomatic relations with Israel, the move created a political storm among leading hardliners.
Issue 858, 24 July 2009. more
Baghdad’s anxiety heightened by Iranian turmoil
Washington’s decision, announced on 9 July, to release five Iranian officials detained by US forces in Iraq since January 2007 was unusually timed. The men were described by Tehran as ‘diplomats’ but were said to have included the operations chief and other members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds force, which was accused of arming local Shia militias and inciting attacks against US forces.
Issue 858, 24 July 2009. more
Fearful caution as GCC leaders watch the hardliners triumph in Tehran
Iran’s post-election crackdown has deepened GCC concerns about regional security. But that does not mean the Saudis would tacitly grant Israel airspace to mount a strike against the Natanz nuclear plant.
Issue 857, 10 July 2009. more
Risk management report
GSN Risk Grade — D/4: Economy to suffer further amid political and social unrest
Issue 857, 10 July 2009. more
GSN special report: Iran poised between thuggery and a new political dispensation
Opposition supporters remain passionate about the rightness of their cause, but as Basij and other militia stalked the streets of Tehran, the regime appeared to be regaining the initiative in realpolitik terms as this special issue of GSN went to press.
Issue 855, 12 June 2009. more
Also see Issue 855, 12 June 2009. Background: Chronicle of a stolen election
Arab-Persian ‘Cold War’ mentality proliferating in the Gulf
Once debate was unleashed in Iran’s election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s maverick foreign policy came to play an important role in shaping opinion, among ordinary voters who see beyond populist sentiments to count the cost of Iran’s isolation as well as among elite players who have increasingly come to view the incumbent as a liability.
Issue 855, 12 June 2009. more
Ahmadinejad confronts an Iran looking for change within the continuity
Given half a chance, Iranians will vote against the establishment – not just in disaffected urban areas, but in the countryside (where incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is widely believed to have the edge), and even within the ruling elite, whose members may swap from faction to faction while maintaining staunch support for Iran’s velayat-e faqih system of clerical rule. Ahmadinejad has made a global career by presenting himself as an underdog – a status that tends to attract Iranian voters (as the reformist Mohammad Khatami found when he beat conservative rivals in 1997). But he has other elite ‘underdogs’ to compete with. So in a system where the intervention of religious authorities to stop otherwise well-qualified candidates from standing and to encourage support for a favoured few does not necessarily produce the expected results, there remains everything to play for when Iranians go to the polls on 12 June.
Issue 854, 29 May 2009. more
Engagement without marriage: Beltway pessimistic as Obama’s team prepares to tackle Iran
Barack Obama’s first 100 days passed, the new administration is getting down to Middle East business in Washington DC. The process looks likely to be incremental and workmanlike, with none of the pizzazz of failed Bush-era ideas like the ‘Axis of Evil’ or ‘Greater Middle East Initiative’. While GSN’s recent canvassing within the Beltway found considerable scepticism among the foreign policy elite at the new administration’s willingness to engage ‘rogue states’, the Obama team is not naïve, and is lining up an early test of how to deal with Iran.
Issue 853, 15 May 2009. more
Risk management report
GSN Risk Grade — D/4: Ahmadinejad faces challenges on all fronts, but still has friends at home
Issue 851, 17 April 2009. more
Mousavi’s emergence reorders the reformist pack
As Khatami steps aside to allow the new contender a clear run, reform supporters hope they may have found a candidate who can defuse conservative opposition. But President Ahmadinejad still holds a lot of powerful cards.
Issue 850, 27 March 2009. more
Iran confronts an ever-tightening squeeze on its trade finance
New administration but same pressures: new US sanctions against Iran’s largest state bank have underscored Washington’s determination to eviscerate Tehran’s trading capabilities.
The US Department of Treasury’s early March announcement that it had blacklisted 11 companies linked to Bank Melli Iran, labelling them proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, will have surprised few observers, after a protracted period in which Washington has unremittingly broadened its financial sanctions policy against Tehran, which it accuses of enriching uranium with the goal of making weapons.
Issue 849, 13 March 2009. more
Waiting on the Rahbar, all bets are off as election season opens in Iran
Will Mohammad Khatami secure the backing of Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for his presidential comeback bid this summer? Unlikely as this might have seemed even weeks ago, Iranian political observers, whose debates GSN has joined in the past week, are agreed that this may be the decisive question, when voters go to the polls in June. Khamenei is, without a doubt, the Islamic Republic’s most powerful figure. He has yet to signal his intentions – and he may not yet have reached a firm view, his support for the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently wavering.
Issue 848, 27 February 2009. more
US mulls the lessons of 30 years of containing Iran as it readies sticks and carrots
The Obama administration’s decision to attempt diplomatic re-engagement with Iran provides a moment of excruciating discomfort for many US politicians and generals. GSN has been exposed to some of the thinking going on inside the Pentagon, as well as in the think tanks and State Department offices charged with charting a path through this dangerous territory.
Issue 848, 27 February 2009. more
Tehran/Crescent gas dispute
The row over gas sales between Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum and Iran has resurfaced as both sides continue to dispute the contractual terms of an agreement to export Iranian gas to the UAE (GSN 812/12). Under pressure to meet rising domestic demand, the dispute began when the Islamic Republic decided that the agreed price for its gas was too low.
Issue 848, 27 February 2009. more
Iran and Israel dance around issue of ‘game changing’ air defence systems
Reports of an upcoming sale of the Russian-built SA-20 systems to Iran will focus Israeli minds on the need to acquire F-22 fighter aircraft technology, whose export is currently banned by US law.
Issue 846, 30 January 2009. more
Risk Management report
Obama sets Ahmadinejad a new set of challenges, economy nose-dives
Issue 846, 30 January 2009. more
Iran monitor
Potential presidential election candidates
US policy
Economy: Tackling subsidies
Issue 845, 16 January 2009. more
TOP
Iran would hit US warships if attacked
Iran has said enemy warships in the Gulf would become prime targets in the event of any attack.
Issue 842, 5 December 2008. more
Trade finance: What’s possible in a tough market
Capacity constraints for Iranian transactions are largely due to the standoff between Tehran and Washington, backed by European governments, on the nuclear question, which has cut US-based insurers and underwriters with US-based treaty reinsurance out of the market.
Issue 842, 5 December 2008. more
What to do about Iran: key appointments will point the way
Until Barack Obama makes key appointments to his foreign policy team, there is little way to gauge exactly how he is thinking about Iran.
Issue 841, 21 November 2008 . more
Iran’s development of a new Strait of Hormuz base is no surprise – and no great threat
The Iranian navy’s new naval base had been brought to active service near Jask, at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. But analysts believe the base would not be operational during any US-Iran showdown.
Issue 841, 21 November 2008. more
Tehran’s inefficient policies and sanctions hold back much-needed gas sector development
Iran has ambitious plans for developing its huge gas reserves, including exporting gas to GCC member states and Europe and a $4bn Pars pipeline, but bureaucracy and US sanctions remain significant challenges.
Issue 841, 21 November 2008. more
The big gas ‘troika’
It remains to be seen if anything concrete will emerge out of mid-November talks between Iran, Qatar and Russia about developing the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) as an organisation to co-ordinate gas projects and pricing world-wide, and to develop schemes between the three country ‘troika’. Some big players, including Algeria, remain distinctly luke-warm to developing the GECF, and even within the ‘troika’ there are still tensions to be overcome, particularly between Qatar and Iran.
Issue 841, 21 November 2008. more
GSN view: ‘Military action’ against Iran
There was a lull in the speculation over the potential bombing of Iran by the United States or – more likely – its ally Israel, with the world transfixed by Barak Obama’s victory in the US presidential election. Talk of significant offensive action against Tehran became intense during the late summer, with two theories circulating on the eventuality of a strike to knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities and perhaps other targets. One theory was that the outgoing Bush administration would sanction a strike as its last neo-conservative hurrah; and, two, that Israel would be emboldened to act. In September, UK daily The Guardian, added to the debate by publishing details of documents showing how Washington had sought to rein in Israeli hawks who were ready to attack.
Issue 840, 7 November 2008. more
Iran’s Ahmadinejad seeks refuge in radicalism as key to second term, Khamenei seems to agree
With Ahmadinejad finding a second wind as Khamenei endorses nationalist populism, his conservative pragmatist rivals who now dominate the Majlis risk being outmanoeuvred as president and supreme leader unite in defying international opinion over the nuclear issue and continuing a high-spending domestic policy recipe that has fuelled surging inflation.
Issue 838, 10 October 2008. more
Iran’s policy wars: Jahromi outplays Mazaheri
Bank Markazi (Central Bank of Iran) governor Tahmasb Mazaheri has been replaced, at least on a temporary basis, by the bank’s general secretary Mahmoud Bahmani, who is generally regarded as more malleable.
Issue 838, 10 October 2008. more
Iran’s GCC and European business ties a concern for US Treasury
With the international community’s spotlight pointing firmly at Iranian financial institutions for their potential links to so-called weapons of mass destruction proliferation and terrorist financing activities, the view from Washington is that Iran is making increased use of its business ties with the GCC countries, and branches of its banking institutions in Europe and elsewhere to disguise illegal activities.
Issue 838, 10 October 2008. more
Risk Management report
Rivalry for presidential elections intensifies as Khatami talks about standing
Issue 838, 10 October 2008. more
Government commits more resources to gas development
With France’s Total adding to Iranian woes by suggesting it will pull back from its planned investment in the South Pars gas field – the latest sign that major companies that can offer significant technology and finance have given up on the Islamic Republic – the Tehran government seems increasingly keen to encourage energy investors.
Issue 833, 11 July 2008. more
Larijani and Qalibaf early favourites to challenge president
Even before the latest Shihab-3 test, the outside world seemed totally focused on Iran’s plans for nuclear energy and missile defence. But viewed from Tehran it is his espousal of an eccentric policy approach that serves only to fuel rising prices that could cost President Ahmadinejad most dear. There are plenty of domestic questions to resolve, as Iranians tire of ideology and the religious leadership assesses its options in the run-up to the 2009 presidential elections.
Issue 833, 11 July 2008. more
Bush accelerates covert war in Iran
There is little firm evidence in the public domain, but a spate of killings and bombings within Iran – and especially in its marginal regions populated by Baluchi, Kurdish and Arab minority groups – may have received official American backing as the George W Bush administration has sanctioned increased covert operations against the Islamic Republic. Claims of ‘foreign involvement’ in such events, increasingly common in reports from Tehran, have been given substance in recent reports from the United States, notably by The New Yorker magazine’s veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
Issue 833, 11 July 2008. more
Iran and its Arabian neighbours: ties that bind and tensions that persist
Closer ties with the GCC states are developing into a key priority for Iran as it seeks to promote an agenda of regional solutions to regional problems, in the hope that its Arabian Peninsula neighbours will become gradually less reliant on what Tehran sees as US and Western security policy direction. But the Iranians will have to defuse GCC exasperation with the more ideological and sectarian facets of their strategy – a mistrust that is deeply rooted even among Arabian advocates of pragmatic engagement, GSN’s soundings have found.
Issue 832, 30 June 2008. more Iran remains united on one issue: the nuclear challenge
President Ahmadinejad’s domestic support may be withering as Iranians come to terms with rampant inflation and some poor economic policy calls, but GSN’s soundings in Tehran found solid support for his position on the issue central to Iranian international relations: its nuclear industry.
Issue 831, 16 June 2008. more
Petraeus minimises strike threat
General David Petraeus played down the prospects of any US-led or sanctioned strike on Iran, when he faced – and sailed through – the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing that cleared his way to take over Central Command (Centcom).
Issue 830, 30 May 2008. more
Ambitious EGFI leads growth in credit insurance
Export Guarantee Fund of Iran has set an official target that it will be insuring 10% of non-oil exports, equivalent to the average coverage provided by ECAs globally, by March 2015, when the government’s Fifth Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP) ends.
Issue 829, 16 May 2008. more
This time, Iran is serious about doubling refining
Lack of downstream capacity means the world’s fourth largest oil producer is still forced to import and ration fuel. With consumption growing, Iran is looking to double its refining capacity to meet domestic and export demand.
Issue 827, 21 April 2008. more
Perennial winner Khamenei covers the table in election-time Iran
Results from the Majlis (parliament) elections to be held in Iran on 14 March will provide the international media with an opportunity to comment on domestic politics in the Islamic Republic, but any analysis will be shaped through the distilled prism of one man - President Ahmadinejad.
Issue 825, 14 March 2008. more
Iran continues its penetration of Iraq, and woos Moqtada towards Qom
With Moqtada Al-Sadr under intense pressure to unleash his militiamen from their six-month truce which expired in late February, Iran’s hand is growing noticeably stronger in Iraq. The trend was visible in Tehran’s high-handed decision to walk away from a long-overdue third round of trilateral talks with Iraq and the United States. Iran may return to the negotiating table – and it will do so from a position of growing assurance.
Issue 824, 3 March 2008. more
GSN View: Ahmadinejad has reason to beware Iran’s ides of March election
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reason to worry about the 14 March parliamentary elections. Analysts warn that the vote may reflect a changing mood – with Iran’s downtrodden, marginalised reformists potentially making modest gains as public dissatisfaction builds over the president’s poor policy decisions and failure to deliver on his promise to redistribute oil money to the Islamic Republic’s poorer citizens.
Issue 822, 1 Febuary 2008. more
Too close for comfort: US and Iranian navies tossed about in political storm
Interpretations of the threatened clash between US and Iranian naval forces contained more than their share of spin, but the incident was nevertheless a worrying sign of what could happen in the Gulf’s crowded waters.
Issue 821, 21 January 2008. more
2010 Iran archive
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2006-2007 Iran archive
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