Security Cooperation with Iran: Challenges and Opportunities

This project seeks to improve US and European security policy making toward Iran by increasing public and official understanding of the concerns and perspectives of Iran’s leaders and citizens. What are Iran’s security concerns and objectives? How do the Iranian government and public view the actions and motivations of other regional actors, including the United States and European powers? And how do Iranian religious beliefs and public opinion affect official policy decisions, to the extent that they do at all? The project also addresses how the assumptions of American, European, and other officials and publics about Iran affect their willingness and ability to communicate and cooperate with Tehran. In particular, how do domestic political and security concerns in these countries affect the ability of officials to pursue desirable policies with Iran?

CISSM’s Iran project has had three main components to date. It began with a 2013 analysis of how Western news coverage not only reflects, but also shapes, US and European policy debates about Iran’s nuclear program. In 2014 CISSM initiated a series of public opinion studies of American and Iranian publics. Some of these studies have focused primarily on the nuclear negotiations and agreement between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia (the so-called P5+1); others have looked at broader security, political, and economic issues. For instance, CISSM's research on Iranian attitudes toward Europe were featured in the 2017 Munich Security Report. CISSM has also helped to facilitate religious exchanges between American and Iranian clergy. It also relates to several broader projects at CISSM, such as the Nuclear Past, Present, and Future project and the Morality and Security project.