Iran

It has been just over 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the last great additions to the world’s list of independent nations. As Russia’s satellite republics staggered onto the global stage, one could be forgiven for thinking that this was it: the end of history, the final major release of static energy in a system now moving very close to equilibrium. A few have joined the club since — Eritrea, East Timor, the former Yugoslavian states, among others — but by the beginning of the 21st century, the world map seemed pretty much complete.

Welcome to our weekly series, highlighting the most newsworthy events under the Open Technology Initiative’s three key areas: Freedom of Expression, Telecom Policy, and Privacy and Security. Contact us with story ideas at blog@opentechinstitute.org.

Peter Bergen discusses the Obama Administration's covert drone war in Yemen, White House information leaks, and the president's kill list. Evgeny Morozov explores the peaceful side of cyber warfare and the American cyber attacks on Iran. Elizabeth Weingarten Hosts.

The massacre in al-Houla, where Syrian military forces and allied militiamen massacred more than 100 civilians in cold blood, leaves no doubt about the intentions of President Bashar al-Assad's regime: survival at any cost and through any means. Assad does not have a Plan B.

The implications of two global summits, the NATO Conference in Chicago and the Iranian nuclear talks in Baghdad are explored this week as Jennifer Rowland and Tom Kutsch join host Elizabeth Weingarten.

Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program resume in Turkey this weekend, attended by delegates from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany. Not much is likely to happen.

The big obstacle is this: The Iranians want a pocketful of nuclear weapons. Or, more to the point: The Iranians have always aspired to be the major power in their region. Several of the region’s powers—Israel, Pakistan, and India—have nukes, so Iran wants some too.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former president Mohammad Khatami have little in common. Mr Ahmadinejad, a rabble-rousing populist hardliner, is a world apart from Mr Khatami, a mild-mannered reformist with a bent for philosophy and a distaste for confrontation.

They are unlikely to be found breaking bread together, but if they did, talk might turn to something they have in common: the Supreme Leader as their supreme nemesis.

The intensity of background spin emanating from Washington and Jerusalem threatens to leave very little to the imagination in advance of the March 5 meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Various U.S. officials, current and former, named and anonymous, have shared their skepticism regarding Israel's ability to inflict decisive damage on Iran's nuclear-enrichment program, as well as their trepidation at the costs, consequences, and retaliatory attacks that might follow from an Israeli strike.

Afshin Molavi and Sam Sherraden discuss The tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear development program, the state of manufacturing jobs in the US, and how China’s growing influence is affecting economic and political relations around the world. Pamela Chan hosts.

In the State of the Union address of 1954, which Dwight Eisenhower delivered less than a year after he had secretly ordered the C.I.A. to overthrow Tehran’s left-leaning government, he celebrated “the forces of stability and freedom” at work in Iran. In 1980, Jimmy Carter delivered his annual address amid the whirlwind of Iran’s Islamic and anti-American revolution, which was inflamed in part by Iranians’ memories of Eisenhower’s coup. “We will face these challenges,” Carter declared.