Iran and the United States have had no formal diplomatic relations since 7 April 1980. Instead, Pakistan serves as Iran's protecting power in the United States, while Switzerland serves as the United States' protecting power in Iran. Contacts are carried out through the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the US Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. In August 2018, Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei banned direct talks with the United States.
Kermanshah province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran, bordering Iraq. Its capital is the city of Kermanshah.
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an American federal institution tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide. It provides research, analysis, and training to individuals in diplomacy, mediation, and other peace-building measures.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a political writer and conservative activist.
The state of Democracy in Middle East and North Africa can be comparatively assessed according to various definitions of democracy. De jure democracies in the Middle East and North Africa are according to system of government:
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA) or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), is a geographic region which comprises the Middle East and North Africa together. However, it is widely considered to be a more defined and apolitical alternative to the concept of the Greater Middle East, which comprises the bulk of the Muslim world. The region has no standardized definition and groupings may vary, but the term typically includes countries like Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the UAE, and Yemen.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), also known simply as The Washington Institute (TWI), is a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington, D.C., focused on the foreign policy of the United States in the Near East.
Martin Sean Indyk was an Australian-American diplomat and foreign relations analyst with expertise in the Middle East.
The Iraq Study Group (ISG), also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission, was a ten-person bipartisan panel appointed on March 15, 2006, by the United States Congress, that was charged with assessing the situation in Iraq and the US-led Iraq War and making policy recommendations. The panel was led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic congressman from Indiana Lee H. Hamilton and was first proposed by Virginia Republican Representative Frank Wolf.
Military action against Iran is a controversial topic in Israel and the United States. Proponents of a strike against Iran point to the threat presented by Iran's nuclear program as a casus belli. Many Israelis, and particularly hardline politicians such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, American neoconservatives, Iranian dissidents support military action to stop the program or go further to overthrow the regime. Opposition to military action is often based in pacifism, but some who are opposed to military action against Iran are opposed for other reasons.
Barbara Plett Usher is a Canadian-born UK journalist with experience in the Middle East and the UN. She has worked for the BBC in Jerusalem, Islamabad and the United Nations.
Ella Habiba Shohat is an Iraqi-born Israeli-American professor of cultural studies at New York University, where she teaches in the departments of Art & Public Policy and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies. She has written and lectured on the topics of Eurocentrism, orientalism, post-colonialism, trans-nationalism, diasporic cultures, and Iraqi-Jewish culture.
The Middle East Report is a magazine published by the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP). Since 2022, its executive editor and managing editor have been based at the University of Exeter.
Gerd Nonneman is a professor of international relations and Gulf studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University's campus in Qatar, where he served as dean from 2011 to 2016. Before joining Georgetown University, he held the Al-Qasimi Chair in Gulf Studies, and a chair in international relations and Middle East politics, at the University of Exeter. He is a former director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies (IAIS) and of the Centre for Gulf Studies (CGS) at that university. He is also a former executive director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES).
James A. Paul is a writer and non-profit executive who has worked throughout his career in the field of international relations and global policy.
Joe Stork is an American political activist and Deputy Director for Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs/Middle East Studies from Columbia University.
Jadaliyya ("dialectic") is an independent ezine founded in 2010 by the Arab Studies Institute (ASI) to cover the Arab World and the broader Middle East. It publishes articles in Arabic, French, English and Turkish, and is run primarily on a volunteer basis by an editorial team, and an expanding pool of contributors that includes academics, journalists, activists and artists.
Eric James Hooglund is an American political scientist and an expert on contemporary Iran. Since 2010 he has been a senior research professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden.
Jonathan Cook, born circa 1965, is a British writer and a freelance journalist formerly based in Nazareth, Israel, who writes about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He writes a regular column for The National of Abu Dhabi and Middle East Eye.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker)-founded organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. AFSC was founded in 1917 as a combined effort by American members of the Religious Society of Friends to assist civilian victims of World War I. It continued to engage in relief action in Europe and the Soviet Union after the Armistice of 1918. By the mid-1920s, AFSC focused on improving racial relations, immigration policy, and labor conditions in the U.S., as well as exploring ways to prevent the outbreak of another conflict before and after World War II. As the Cold War developed, the organization began to employ more professionals rather than Quaker volunteers. Over time, it broadened its appeal and began to respond more forcefully to racial injustice, international peacebuilding, migration and refugee issues, women's issues, and the demands of sexual minorities for equal treatment. Currently, the organization's three priorities include work on peacebuilding, a focus on just economies, and humane responses to the global migration crisis.
