Iran in Three Dimensions
Monday, May 19, 2008 | 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
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About This Event

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2005 election and the consolidation of power of the hard-line Principalist faction in the most recent parliamentary elections have altered the Iranian political landscape. In addition, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is wielding its influence more boldly outside of its traditional military role--increasingly in domestic political Listen to Audio


Download Audio as MP3 and economic spheres. Iranian security forces have launched a new cultural crackdown to target Western influences and Iranians deemed insufficiently loyal to the Islamic Republic’s founding principles.

As U.S. policymakers and presidential candidates debate policy toward the Islamic Republic, it is worthwhile to assess and debate the extent to which human rights and democracy have deteriorated in Iran. Has IRGC influence undercut or enhanced the Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership? How have these institutional and systemic changes affected Iran’s foreign policy? What does this mean for the future of U.S.-Iranian relations? Please join AEI for a discussion of the multidimensional and often ambiguous character of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Agenda
9:00 a.m.
Registration
9:15
Introduction:
Danielle Pletka, AEI
9:30
Panel I: The Ahmadinejad Presidency and Its Impact on Iranian Civil and Political Society
Presenters:
Mohebat Ahdiyyih, Open Source Center
Ali Alfoneh, AEI and the University of Copenhagen
Hormoz Hekmat, Foundation for Iranian Studies
Tom Parker, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center
Moderator:
Michael Rubin, AEI
10:45
Panel II: Iranian Foreign Policymaking and the West
Presenters:
Patrick Clawson, Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Danielle Pletka, AEI
Alex Vatanka, Jane’s Information Group
Moderator:
Michael Rubin, AEI
12:00 p.m.
Luncheon
12:45
Panel III: The Transformation and Rise of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Presenters:
Ali Alfoneh, AEI and the University of Copenhagen
Kenneth Katzman, Congressional Research Service
Discussant:
Mohsen Sazegara
Moderator:
Danielle Pletka, AEI
2:00
Adjournment
Event Materials
Iran in Three Dimensions
Transcript of the event.
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AEI Participants

 

Ali
Alfoneh
  • Ali Alfoneh's research areas include civil-military relations in Iran with a special focus on the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in the Islamic Republic. Mr. Alfoneh has been a research fellow at the Institute for Strategy at the Royal Danish Defence College and has taught political economy at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Southern Denmark.
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Danielle
Pletka

  • As a long-time Senate Committee on Foreign Relation senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia, Danielle Pletka was the point person on Middle East, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan issues. As the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, Pletka writes on national security matters with a focus on Iran and weapons proliferation, the Middle East, Syria, Israel and the Arab Spring. She also studies and writes about South Asia: Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.


    Pletka is the co-editor of “Dissent and Reform in the Arab World: Empowering Democrats” (AEI Press, 2008) and the co-author of “Containing and Deterring a Nuclear Iran” (AEI Press, 2011). Her most recent study, “Iranian influence in the Levant, Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” was published in May 2012. She is currently working on a follow-up report on U.S.–Iranian competitive strategies in the Middle East, to be published in the summer of 2013.


  • Phone: 202-862-5943
    Email: dpletka@aei.org

  • Assistant Info

    Name: Alexandra Della Rocchetta
    Phone: 202-862-7152
    Email: alex.dellarocchetta@aei.org
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Michael
Rubin

  • Michael Rubin is a former Pentagon official whose major research area is the Middle East, with a special focus on Iran, Turkey, Arab politics, Afghanistan and diplomacy. Rubin regularly instructs senior military officers deploying to the Middle East on regional politics, and teaches classes regarding Iran, terrorism, and Arab politics on U.S. aircraft carriers. Rubin has lived in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Yemen, both pre- and post-war Iraq, and spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. Encounter Books will publish his newest book, Dancing with the Devil, a history of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes and terrorist groups in early 2014.


  • Phone: 202-862-5851
    Email: mrubin@aei.org

  • Assistant Info

    Name: Ahmad Majidyar
    Phone: 202-862-5845
    Email: ahmad.majidyar@aei.org
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