The main goal of the sanctions is to bring about a basic change in Iran's nuclear program and keep the balance of regional power by using such means as threat of force or sanctions

Note: Previously there was a clear boundary between “diplomacy”, as the most important instrument of foreign policy, and “defense”, as the most significant tool of defense policy. At the same time, military forces made no interference in political affairs. They involved themselves in politics only upon the emergence of diplomatic impasses. This was a classic approach towards the issue of strategy...

Dr. Salehi: One of the major aims of this organization is the implementation of previous programs. Because the programs and activities which had been initiated before now in the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran are quite enough to make every newly appointed chief in this organization busy for a long time. The new administrative team in the Atomic Energy Organization has a new outlook towards in...

What follows is an interview conducted by Mosallas (Triangle) magazine with Kayhan Barzegar, Director of the Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies and a faculty member at the Science and Research Branch of the Islamic Azad University in Tehran.

Persia Quarterly: We all heard Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign promising he would negotiate with adversary countries such as Iran and Cuba. He pledged he would sit at the negotiating table with Iran without any preconditions and in dealing with Iran’s nuclear file, contrary to his predecessor, he would make efforts to solve the issue peacefully. But we all have seen that he practically could no...

Global conditions in the concluding months of the past Iranian year (ended March 20, 2011) have had great bearing on Iran and the United States’ role and influence in the Middle East region. There is no doubt that forecasting the prospect of the Iran-US relations in the Iranian New Year (March 2011–March 2012) will be of great significance. Dr. Kayhan Barzegar is faculty member at the Science and...

Mosallas Weekly: What is the main problem dividing Iran and the United States after the lapse of more than three decades? Dr. Barzegar: The main problem is the simultaneous existence of ideological and strategic discrepancies. The 1979 Islamic Revolution was an ideological phenomenon seeking to make Iran politically independent of the greatest hegemonic power of the time, the United States. Befor...

IRD: Opponents of Turkey’s constitutional referendum accuse the ruling AK party of restricting democratic freedoms and Islamizing the country. How valid are their claims? RQ: The basis of most of the opposition to the referendum, even if implicit, was that a ‘yes’ vote to the constitutional reform would bolster the position of AK Party and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. No one is against the core of the r...

Stephen Walt: My views would be relatively similar to everybody else’s: there was a condition of rough balance in the Persian Gulf region prior to the American invasion. Iraq was weaker than it had been in the past-it had been weakened by the first Gulf war and by a decade or more of sanctions-but it was still something of a counter-weight to Iran in the Persian Gulf region. You could argue that ...

Dr. Velayati: There are two different assessments about damages of the war on Iran. According to assessments made during President Hashemi Rafsanjani’s tenure, the imposed war damages were estimated as 1000 billion US dollars. However, according to another assessment carried out by the United Nations, these damages were estimated as 100 billion US dollars. There were two articles in the United Na...