Nader Habibi

In this Crown Conversation, we spoke with Nader Habibi, Henry J. Leir Professor of the Economics of the Middle East at the Crown Center; and Amir Mahdavi (GSAS MA ‘19), an Iranian journalist, former member of the central council of a reformist party in Iran, and currently a PhD candidate of political science at the University of Connecticut, about the Iranian government’s domestic and foreign policies and what they reveal about the direction in which the Islamic Republic is headed.

On March 27, Iran and China signed a 25-year strategic accord that calls for China to invest a reported US$400 billion in Iran’s energy, banking, telecommunications, transportation, and other sectors in exchange for a regular, and presumably discounted, supply of Iranian oil. The partnership also envisions increased bilateral trade and deepening military cooperation between the two countries. In this Crown Conversation, we spoke with two Crown Center experts on Iran—Nader Habibi, Henry J. Leir Professor of the Economics of the Middle East at the Crown Center, and Hadi Kahalzadeh, doctoral fellow at the Crown Center and PhD candidate in social policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis—about factors that led to the agreement, opposition to it inside Iran, and what it means for the region.