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1. Reforming Iran’s Energy Policy: Strategies for Sustainability, Subsidies, and Global Integration

Author:
Behdad Gilzad Kohan and Hamid Dahouei
Publication Date:
04-2025
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
Iran’s energy sector, rich in natural gifts and brimming with potential, struggles to realize its promise due to systemic inefficiencies, heavy dependence on fossil fuels, outdated infrastructure, and the weight of international sanctions. These challenges plague Iran with recurring energy crises, including seasonal energy shortages, environmental degradation, and socio-economic discontent. This article investigates the root causes of Iran’s energy challenges and offers a comprehensive analysis of the critical deficiencies of Iranian energy policies. Based on these insights, the article proposes a strategic roadmap with immediate, medium-term, and long-term policy recommendations to stabilize the sector, most critical of which include subsidy reforms, ambitious renewable energy integration, and energy efficiency improvements. The proposed reforms emphasize the importance of transparent governance, targeted investments, and stakeholder engagement to achieve meaningful change. By aligning its energy policies with global sustainability trends and addressing domestic inefficiencies, Iran can transform its energy sector into a model of innovation and equity.
Topic:
Sanctions, Reform, Fossil Fuels, Sustainability, Subsidies, and Energy Sector
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East

2. Politicization, Ratification of International Agreements, and Domestic Political Competition in Non-Democracies: The Case of Iran and the Paris Climate Accords

Author:
Reşat Bayer and Bijan Tafazzoli
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
While some degree of competition is present in many authoritarian regimes, the implications of such controlled competition on international issues have not received much consideration, including towards international environmental accords. We attempt to rectify this through a framework where we focus on internal political competition in a hybrid, nondemocratic system where national elections are held regularly. Specifically, we argue that the presence of multiple actors competing in elections in nondemocratic settings results in them assuming positions on various issues, justifying their positions, and attempting to mobilize their supporters with considerable implications for international environmental policies. We display our argument in the context of Iranian debates on the ratification of the Paris Climate Accords. Our findings demonstrate that the competing Iranian sides rely on different justifications for their environmental positions, resulting in extensive (negative) competitions of rhetoric where the international dimension emerges as an important feature in the internal competition. Overall, we show that political competition within non-democracies is likely to add to the complexity of international (environmental) negotiations and cooperation.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Politics, Treaties and Agreements, Sanctions, Authoritarianism, Elections, Paris Agreement, Narrative, and Regime Survival
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East

3. Unsealed Indictment Shows Iranian Agents Acquired Controlled Camera with Nuclear Weapons Application from United States

Author:
Sarah Burkhard, Chloe DeVere, and Kendall Roach
Publication Date:
08-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
In the spring of 2023, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment from 2012, which shows that in addition to the previously known high-speed cameras Iran purchased from Russia, brokered by Mohsen Vanaki, 2 Iran also acquired another camera with applications in nuclear and ballistic missile testing at the same time from the United States. 3 From 2006 to 2009, five agents residing in Iran, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Canada worked together to purchase the camera, which required an export license, from a U.S. company. They then shipped the camera via Canada and the UAE to an Iranian customer with known ties to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program. While a first attempt to purchase the camera failed, a second attempt succeeded, requiring an elaborate scheme with multiple transshipment points, front companies, and falsified end-user information. Ironically, the Iranian end user experienced multiple technical issues with the camera post-shipment, requiring prolonged back-and-forth communication among the network and with the manufacturer. Despite efforts taken by the multiple agents to ship the camera and conceal its end use, this case reveals red flags and missed opportunities to stop the initial shipment or the repair and technical consultations post-shipment. While it is difficult to determine in what way the camera could have contributed to Iran’s nuclear weapons efforts, there are several indications that Iran was continuing nuclear weapons related activities previously conducted under the Amad plan during that time frame, and multiple governments agreed at the time that Iran’s nuclear weapons program was likely ongoing. The case highlights that Iran seeks controlled high-speed cameras for nuclear and military applications. It also serves as an important reminder that Iran does have the type of sophisticated equipment needed to conduct various aspects of nuclear weapons development, then and today. Additionally, this case again shows the value of dual-national and other Iranian procurement agents located outside of Iran, especially in Western countries. Moreover, if they are arrested and prosecuted, Iran has effectively developed a strategy of trading them for innocent Western hostages it has arbitrarily seized inside Iran.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, Sanctions, Weapons, and Trade
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

4. Sanctions and Postcolonial Statecraft in Iran: Resisting the Iran Libya Sanctions Act and Beyond

Author:
Andrew Thomas
Publication Date:
07-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Though economic sanctions are designed to weaken and isolate their target for the stated purpose of policy change, in the case of Iran they have often invigorated its desire to defy Western coercion and domination. Since the Islamic revolution this has led to multiple political standoffs, including notably during the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration and the post-nuclear deal standoff with the United States (US). Through sanctions, the West has often been unwilling to accept little less than a grand bargain on Iranian foreign policy, which has informed and contributed to a postcolonial narrative of resistance in the Iranian state. This narrative has served as an integral tool of Iranian statecraft in an effort to bolster the leadership’s legitimacy. By looking at elite discourse and Iranian government responses to the Iran Libya Sanctions Act during Ahmadinejad’s government and the Trump Administration’s Maximum Pressure campaign, this article highlights narratives of postcolonial resistance in Iran’s response to US sanctions, in an effort to explain why sanctions often push them further away from acquiescence to international norms.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Sanctions, Iran, and Resistance
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Libya, and United States of America

5. De-escalation Efforts: What Tehran wants from a prisoner swap deal with Washington?

Author:
FARAS
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
Abstract:
US National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Waston, in a statement on August 10, 2023, affirmed that Iran has released from prison five Americans who were detained and has placed them on house arrest. US citizens Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, Emad Shargi, and two others were released from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison to house arrest. The US official described their release as “an encouraging step” and stressed that Washigton will continue efforts to bring them “all back home in the United States.”
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, Sanctions, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

6. Trade sanctions and informal employment

Author:
Ali Moghaddasi Kelishomi and Robert Nisticò
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper examines how trade sanctions affect the allocation of workers across formal and informal employment. We analyse the case of the unexpected and unprecedented trade sanctions imposed on Iran in 2012. We use a difference-in-differences approach and compare the probability of working in the informal sector before and after 2012 for individuals employed in industries with pre-existing different levels of exposure to international trade. Combining employment data from the Iranian Labour Force Survey and trade data from Iran’s Customs Administration database for the years 2008–14, we find that workers employed in industries initially facing higher exposure to trade are significantly more likely to experience informal employment in the years after 2012 than workers employed in industries with lower trade exposure. This result suggests that, in the short run, the informal sector may absorb a significant fraction of workers displaced by the trade shock caused by the sanctions. We estimate that the increase in informal employment is highest for poorly educated workers, highlighting the unequal labour market consequences of trade sanctions. We exclude that industries differentially exposed to international trade were already following a different trend in the share of informal employment in the years prior to 2012, thus providing empirical support for the validity of our identification strategy. Moreover, we show that our main result holds when accounting for potential sorting issues by an instrumental variable approach. Our findings shed light on a potentially important dimension of labour reallocation whereby trade sanctions can affect the economy of the target country. They also provide important implications for policies designed to address informal employment and to assist trade-displaced workers.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Sanctions, Employment, Trade, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East

7. Biden’s Middle East Balancing Act: Iran’s Nuclear Program and Saudi-Israeli Ties

Author:
Leon Hadar
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
This summer, the Biden administration decided to negotiate a temporary deal with Iran involving the release of American prisoners held by the Islamic Republic in exchange for the release of some of the funds that were held by the United States as part of the economic sanctions on Tehran. The White House expects that this package deal will open the road to talks with Iran on its nuclear program. The outline of a deal would include a pause in the accumulation of enriched uranium and an Iranian pledge not to produce weapons-grade fissile material, in exchange for the removal of US economic sanctions. But any diplomatic deal between Washington and Tehran raises fears among two of America’s allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Israel, that regard Iran as an existential threat. From that perspective, a US-led process of normalizing the relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem could help contain Iran and reinforce the American pledge to strengthen the alliance with Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Sanctions, Negotiation, and Joe Biden
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America

8. Holding the Hard-line: What is behind Iran’s seizure of Greek ships in Arabian Gulf?

Author:
FARAS
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
Abstract:
On May 27, Iran seized two Greek tankers, named “Prudent Warrior” and “Delta Poseidon”, in the Arabian Gulf. Forces from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) descended on the tankers and ordered them to sail to Bandar Abbas port. Onboard the tankers were 49 crew members. Greece described the operation as ‘piracy’. The seizure seems to be a reprisal for Greece’s role earlier in the month assisting the US impounding a Russian-flagged tanker transporting Iranian oil and carrying 19 crew.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Sanctions, Maritime, and Shipping
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Greece

9. The Inflation Weapon: How American Sanctions Harm Iranian Households

Author:
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:
This study examines the humanitarian harms of U.S. sanctions on Iranian citizens by focusing on their principal economic impact—high rates of inflation. Although nonexperimental, the study draws upon various data to present a cohesive, if not comprehensive, narrative of the economic shocks that followed the imposition of U.S. sanctions in 2012 and 2018.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Sanctions, Economy, and Inflation
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

10. Sanctions Run Amok – The Undermining of U.S. Power

Author:
Keith A. Preble
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Well into its second year, the Biden administration has continued to grapple with persistent foreign policy challenges while new ones have emerged: North Korea has not curtailed its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs; negotiations with Iran on resuscitating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remain stalled; and a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine may signal a potential invasion and full-scale conflict. In confronting these and other challenges, the United States continues to use economic sanctions as a mean of punishing, signaling, and coercing rivals into changing their foreign policy behaviors. As a tool of American economic power, policymakers often see sanctions as “Goldilocks” instruments that are “just right,” albeit ones that require time and patience to facilitate policy change.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Sanctions, and Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Iran, North Korea, North America, and United States of America