Opportunities and Risks with Iran's New Government

With reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian securing a substantial victory in Iran’s emergency presidential election, immediate questions are emerging about how his government will approach relations with the United States. If he attempts to ease tensions on the foreign policy front, will the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other hardline actors constrain him? And what implications does his win hold for key issues like the nuclear program, U.S. sanctions, and region-wide attacks by the proxies that make up Tehran’s “axis of resistance”? To discuss these questions, The Washington Institute is pleased to announce a virtual Policy Forum with distinguished Iran experts Holly Dagres, Saeid Golkar, and Patrick Clawson.

Holly Dagres is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs, where she oversees the publications IranSource, MENASource, and The Iranist. She also provides regular analysis on Iran for the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office and a wide range of major media outlets.

Saeid Golkar is an associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga and a senior advisor at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). His extensive research on authoritarian regimes includes the Washington Institute study Protests and Regime Suppression in Post-Revolutionary Iran.

Patrick Clawson is the Institute’s Morningstar Senior Fellow and director of its Viterbi Program on Iran and U.S. Policy. Widely consulted as an analyst and media commentator, he has authored or edited eighteen studies on Iran, testified before congressional committees more than twenty times, and served as an expert witness in more than thirty federal cases against Iran.

The Policy Forum series is made possible through the generosity of the Florence and Robert Kaufman Family.