Iran
Reports
The exile: The stunning inside story of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in flight
Elections in Iran: Prospects for Rouhani, reform, and the nuclear deal
What does success in the Middle East look like for the next president?
Richard Nephew
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative
Suzanne Maloney
Deputy Director - Foreign Policy
Senior Fellow - Center for Middle East Policy, Energy Security and Climate Initiative
[Targeting Rouhani’s brother] is a very convenient way to cause pain to the family without necessarily provoking a crisis of office. The general message that the rest of the system is trying to send to Rouhani is not to get too far ahead of himself, to not allow his decisive election victory to give him illusions of greater autonomy and authority than his position actually has.
There's often a temptation to look for some kind of logic [in the arrests of students and dual nationals in Iran]... I think that this particular case [of Xiyue Wang] highlights the fact that the logic is simply the paranoia of the Islamic Republic—its judiciary and its security services in particular.
This is just a system [in Iran] that views individual foreigners who come to the country, particularly people with some language capabilities, as inherently suspect.
I think [Rouhani] seems to be prepared to leave no stone unturned in terms of warning of the possible consequences of an election that is engineered against him, but also trying to rally those who might be sceptical about the utility of their vote to come out and cast a ballot.