international relations

Iran: Love Me, Love Me Not?

Tehran Has Shunned Washington for Over 30 Years. Is the Ice Melting?

In 1979, George Lewis was an NBC correspondent in Iran covering the hostage crisis. Thirty-four years later and thousands of miles away, at a Zócalo event co-presented by Occidental College at MOCA Grand Avenue, Lewis asked a panel if the breakdown in U.S.-Iran relations he witnessed firsthand might finally be on the road to repair.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, have spoken by phone. It appears that Rouhani, a moderate, wants to negotiate and change the two countries’ relationship. Lewis asked the panelists if he has …

by Sarah Rothbard |

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Sum Up Iran In Two Words

We’re Beyond the Era Of “Great Satan,” “Axis of Evil,” and Other Nasty Nicknames. So What’s a Good Two-Word Description Of Persia Today?

Back when relations between the United States and Iran were really bad, not just kind of bad, the Ayatollah Khomeini called the United States the “Great Satan” and a “wounded snake.” Today, …

We’re Winning in Afghanistan (At Least With Vaccines)

U.S.-Funded Public Health Programs Make the World Safer For All of Us. Why Aren’t They More Integrated Into Our National Security Strategy?

by Charles Kenny |

Forget the Affordable Care Act—by far the biggest impact of the Obama Administration on global health has been in funding incredibly cheap, effective health interventions overseas at a fraction of …

A Hot Cyber Arms Race and a Thawing Iran

Alec Ross and Afshin Molavi on the Future of Global Geopolitics

Hosted by Anne-Marie Slaughter |

Alec Ross, former senior adviser on innovation in Hillary Clinton’s State Department, talks with Anne-Marie Slaughter about the great contemporary arms race to see which nation can dominate cyber warfare—as …

How I Knifed The Swiss Army

Twenty-Five Years Ago, Young Swiss Activists Used a Ballot Initiative to Try to End My Country’s Military. They Won, Because They Knew How to Lose.

by Bruno Kaufmann |

Some people in my home country of Switzerland keep trying to weaken the Swiss Army, which is famous worldwide for its neutrality and knives. The latest attempt—a national ballot initiative …

The Revolution Iran Missed

Focusing on Ideology, Nuclear Power, and Crushing Its Enemies Has Denied the Nation an Economic Transformation

by Afshin Molavi |

Iran’s 1979 revolution still reverberates across the world. A revolution in the truest sense, it swept away the old order, delivered a new one, reordered regional and global geopolitics, and …


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