Iran is at the center of global attention as thousands have died demonstrating against an increasingly unpopular and brutal government. Rising inflation, authoritarian rule, and mounting public frustration have converged with longstanding demands for political reform and personal freedoms. These events raise important questions about the country’s political future and its global role.

On Thursday, January 15, at 1 pm PT, the Pacific Council will host Professor Sahar Razavi, Associate Professor of Political Science at California State University, Sacramento, in conversation with Dr. Jerrold D. Green, Interim President & CEO and Middle East Senior Fellow at the Pacific Council. This webinar will examine recent protests, restrictions on access to information, and the struggle of the Iranian people, offering insights into how these developments are affecting life in this strategically important country of 92 million people.

Why it’s important:

• National economic strain intensified after September last year, when the United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
• More than 544 people have been killed over the course of the demonstrations, including 483 protestors and eight children under the age of 18.
• President Trump is considering a variety of options as a retaliatory measure against Iran’s response to protesters, including potential military intervention.

Please send questions in advance to events@pacificcouncil.org.

To register for this webinar, visit the Zoom Registration Page.

Guest Speaker

Professor Sahar Razavi is an Associate Professor of Political Science, the Director of the Iranian and Middle Eastern Studies Center, and the Faculty Scholar at the Southwest Asian and North African Center at Sacramento State. She earned her PhD in Political Science at Northern Arizona University. She teaches a range of courses in Comparative Politics, including courses on revolutions, nationalism, and the Middle East. Her past research has centered on conflicts of state and society in Iran, including the 1953 coup d’etat and the 1979 revolution. Currently, she is conducting a mixed-methods study on Iranian American racial identity, deploying the first-ever national survey of the Iranian diaspora in the United States. She is also co-authoring a textbook on the geopolitics of the Middle East and North Africa. Recent publications have focused on the Women, Life, Freedom movement, the intracommunity tensions among Iranian-Americans resulting from it, and Iranian national identity in the Pahlavi and post-revolutionary periods.

Presider

Dr. Jerrold D. Green is the Global Advisor to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, a Los Angeles-based healthcare organization, and a Senior Fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations. He is also the Interim President and CEO of the Pacific Council on International Policy, a position he previously occupied for 16 years while serving as a Research Professor of Communication, Business, and International Relations at the University of Southern California. Green was a Partner at Best Associates in Dallas, Texas, a merchant banking firm with global operations. He also occupied senior management positions at the RAND Corporation, where he was awarded the RAND Medal for Excellence. Dr. Green has a B.A. (summa cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts/Boston, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. His academic career began at the University of Michigan, and he subsequently joined the University of Arizona, where he became a Professor of Political Science and Sociology as well as Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

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To register for this webinar, visit the Zoom Registration Page.