The CIRS Long View: Understanding Regional Dynamics Iran, the US, and Israel in Context with Mehran Kamrava | March 19, 2026

In this episode, Professor Mehran Kamrava traces the origins of the enduring triangle of enmity between the United States, Israel, and Iran that has shaped Middle East politics for nearly five decades. Moving beyond immediate events, he situates the current war within its deeper historical and strategic context, examining how this structure of conflict was formed, how it hardened over time, and why the present escalation can be understood as the culmination of its internal logic. Drawing on decades of scholarship, he offers a long-view perspective on Iranian foreign policy and the forces driving the region’s current trajectory.

Speaker: Professor Mehran Kamrava, Professor of Government, Georgetown University Qatar.

Mehran Kamrava is Professor of Government at Georgetown University in Qatar. His research focuses on the modern political history and contemporary politics of the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Cambridge.

He is the author of numerous books, including How Islam Rules in Iran: Theology and Theocracy in the Islamic Republic (2024), Righteous Politics: Power and Resilience in Iran (2023), A Dynastic History of Iran: From the Qajars to the Pahlavis (2022), Triumph and Despair: In Search of Iran’s Islamic Republic (2022), A Concise History of Revolution (2020), Troubled Waters: Insecurity in the Persian Gulf (2018), Inside the Arab State (2018), The Impossibility of Palestine (2016), Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (2015), The Modern Middle East: A Political History Since the First World War (3rd ed., 2013), and Iran’s Intellectual Revolution (2008).

His edited volumes include The Sacred Republic: Power and Institutions in Iran (2023), The Routledge Handbook of Persian Gulf Politics (2020), The Great Game in West Asia (2017), Fragile Politics (2016), Beyond the Arab Spring (2015), The Political Economy of the Persian Gulf (2012), The Nuclear Question in the Middle East (2012), and The International Politics of the Persian Gulf (2011).

Moderator: Maryam Daud, Administrative Assistant, CIRS