After years of negotiations, world powers have reached a historic deal with Iran, limiting their nuclear activity in return for the lifting of international economic sanctions.

The deal has been met with a mixed response – some celebrate it as a diplomatic triumph, while others describe it as a precursor to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

For the first First Wednesday after the summer break we will be debating what the Iran deal means for the country, the region and relations with the West.

Chaired by Azadeh Moaveni, a former Middle East correspondent for Time magazine, she has reported on Iran and the region for much of the past decade. She is the author of Lipstick Jihad, Honeymoon in Tehran, and co-author, with Shirin Ebadi, of Iran Awakening.

The panel:

Kasra Naji is special correspondent for BBC Persian TV and author of Ahmedinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader.

Saeed Kamali Dehghan is a staff journalist with the Guardian. He has previously written from the Iranian capital, Tehran. He is now based in London and was named 2010 Journalist of the Year at the Foreign Press Association awards.

James Rubin is a writer, commentator and lecturer on world affairs and US foreign policy. He contributes a weekly column to The Sunday Times. He served under President Clinton as assistant secretary of state for public affairs and chief spokesman for secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright from 1997 to May 2000.

Con Coughlin is The Telegraph‘s defence editor and chief foreign commentator. He is the author of several books including Churchill’s First War: Young Winston and the fight against the Taliban, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, and Khomeini’s Ghost: The Iranian Revolution and the Rise of Militant Islam.

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The atomic bomb and meltdowns like Fukushima have made nuclear power synonymous with global disaster, but what if we’ve got nuclear power wrong? A growing number of leading environmentalists are acknowledging the difficult reality that the world will never agree on how to reduce its energy consumption.

Without denying the horrors of nuclear meltdowns such as Fukushima, Pandora’s Promise asks whether the one technology we fear most could save our planet from a climate catastrophe, while providing the energy needed to lift billions of people in the developing world out of poverty.

Director Robert Stone documented the intensely personal stories of environmentalists and energy experts, who have undergone a radical conversion from being fiercely anti- to strongly pro-nuclear energy, risking their careers and reputations in the process. The result is a thoughtful film that changes the conversation about the myths and science behind this deeply emotional and polarising issue.

Oscar and Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker Robert Stone has developed a steady international reputation with a range of unique and critically acclaimed documentaries about American history, pop-culture and the mass media. After chronicling the history of the environmental movement in Earth Days (2009),  his most recent (and most controversial) film, Pandora’s Promise premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and won the Green Award at Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Directed by Robert Stone
Duration: 87′
Year: 2013

Pandora’s Promise is released by November Films

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/iran-a-new-chapter

In June 2013, Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran, running with a mandate of “moderation and wisdom”. He promised to free political prisoners and guarantee civil rights, to return “dignity to the nation”.

He has also made promises of reform, of saving the economy and working to lift international sanctions by ending the nuclear standoff. But in a country where the elected leader is overshadowed by the unelected Supreme Leader and the Council of Guardians, will Rouhani be able to bring about effective change?

As dialogue with the US and other world powers continues to improve, we will be exploring the changes this new leader is enacting both on the international stage and within Iran.

Chaired by Elizabeth Palmer, CBS News correspondent.

The panel:

Ramita Navai is a British-Iranian Emmy award winning foreign affairs journalist. She has reported from over 30 countries and has made 20 documentaries for Channel 4’s critically acclaimed current affairs series Unreported World. She was the Tehran correspondent for The Times from 2003-2006 and she has reported for the United Nations in Iran, Pakistan and Iraq. Her first book, City of Lies, about Tehran, will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2014.

Sir Richard Dalton was British ambassador to Iran 2002-2006 and is associate fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.

Kelly Golnoush Niknejad is founder and editor-in-chief of the award-winning Tehran Bureau, which is hosted by The Guardian. She is also the inaugural recipient of the Innovator Award from Columbia Journalism School for “inspiring, creating, developing, or implementing new ideas that further the cause of journalism”.

Arron Reza Merat was formally The Economist‘s Tehran correspondent and is currently working on Iran at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Shashank Joshi is a Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a doctoral student of international relations at Harvard University’s Department of Government. He specialises in international security in South Asia and the Middle East.

Analysts and experts treated the audience to rare accounts and informed insight into the North Korean regime’s mindset on Tuesday 15th April at the Frontline Club.

BBC East Asia Editor Charles Scanlon hosted the discussion on the hot topic of North Korea’s threat – is it imminent, or is it overstated? – with former British Ambassador to North Korea John Everard, Cambridge lecturer Dr. John Swenson-Wright and Andrea Berger, a Research Fellow in Nuclear Analysis at the Royal United Services Institute.

(L-R) John Swenson-Wright, Charles Scanlon, Andrea Berger and John Everard.  Photo: Alex Glynn

Everard reflected on Kim Jong-Un’s behaviour and what it meant:

“Given the way the North Koreans continued the escalation – even after the US had offered them a ladder to climb down by famously postponing their missile test – at that point, if it had just been a point of Kim Jong-Un trying to show he is strong, he could’ve claimed victory. . . . But he didn’t do that – it leads me to think that the North Koreans want the US to finally recognise them as a nuclear state; they want them to cease their hostile policy to North Korea and they want aid”

On the other hand, Swenson-Wright, who had recently returned from Seoul, spoke about how the North’s actions were so intrinsically linked to South Korea:

“Some of us thought that the North Koreans were looking to test the new relationship with Park Geun-hye [the new South Korean president] and that’s a consistent pattern we’ve seen when there is a transition in South Korean politics.”
“There is an argument that we should be ignoring this country. The problem there is that if you try and put North Korea in a box and try to contain it, you give them the opportunity to engage in these efforts to proliferate and enhance its capabilities,” he added.

Scanlon asked Berger, who had recently been to North Korea spending time with military generals and the Worker’s Party, if there is any substance behind the threat. She replied:

“For the threats to be credible there has to be capability and intent. On the capability side there is a very large question mark over their nuclear capabilities and ballistic missile capabilities. We don’t think they have the capability to hit [as far as they claimed]. But North Korea certainly seems like it’s working to develop its [military] capabilities. So even though they might not be there yet, they look like they want to reach that ability.”

An audience member asked the panel what the likelihood was of either side opening fire and causing deaths. There was a slight disagreement:

Berger felt it was unlikely because the North would be scared of the South’s reaction. She cited an incident while Lee Myung-bak was in power in the South where the North caused the death of South Koreans: “The current leader in South Korea has made very clear that that situation will not be repeated and I think the North has heard that message.”

Everard disagreed, stating:

“I think that the probability is quite high. They have in the past have got away with sinking a South Korean vessel and shelling South Korean gun placements on an island. I’ve got a sinking feeling they think they can get away with this again.”

Alex Glynn is a freelance journalist currently doing a Newspaper Journalism MA at City University.

You can watch the video of last nights event and listen to or download the podcast below:

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/north-korea-sabre-rattling-or

Join us with a panel of experts to break down the escalating rhetoric and examine the intentions of DPRK. We will be asking if Kim Jong-un, the 29-year-old inexperienced leader, is just attempting to bolster his image at home or if there is any weight behind his threats.

Chaired by Charles Scanlon, BBC East Asia editor. He was BBC Korea correspondent from 1994 – 1997 and Japan and Korea correspondent 2000 – 2007.

With:

Dr John Swenson-Wright is Fuji Bank University senior lecturer in Modern Japanese Studies at the East Asia Institute, University of Cambridge. He is a senior consulting fellow at the Asia Programme, Chatham House.

Andrea Berger is a research fellow for nuclear analysis at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and deputy director of the UK project on nuclear issues.

John Everard is a retired British diplomat, who served as British Ambassador to North Korea. He is author of Only Beautiful, Please: A British Diplomat in North Korea and is now a consultant for the UN.

EXTERNAL EVENT HELD AT THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, SHEIKH ZAYED THEATRE

As he is about to embark on his second term, President Barack Obama’s relationship with Israel is already being tested. But while all eyes are on events in Gaza, Obama is facing major decisions that could lead to the beginning of a new conflict.

Israel’s threat of military action against Iran has already raised tensions in the Middle East and in the summer of 2013, the US and its allies will decide whether or not to attack Iran’s nuclear sites and if Israel should be given the go ahead to start a war.

While leaders of these countries continue their brinkmanship, recent and increasingly biting sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union have had a significant impact, choking the country’s economy and provoking growing unrest on the streets. Iranians are facing ever increasing hardship as a result of the devaluation of the currency, food shortages and lack of medical supplies.

Join us to discuss what the future holds for relations between Iran, Israel and the US in the year ahead.

Chaired by Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow.

With:

Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian – Israeli Middle East analyst. He teaches the contemporary Iranian politics course at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya. He is also the co-author of president Ahmadinejad’s biography The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran and a regular contributor to The Diplomat, Al Monitor, as well as BBC Persian.

Azadeh Moaveni, a former Middle East correspondent for Time magazine, and has reported on Iran since 1999. She is the author of Lipstick Jihad, Honeymoon in Tehran, and co-author, with Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, of Iran Awakening. She writes widely on Iran and the Middle East for Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and other publications.

Scott Peterson, the Istanbul Bureau Chief for The Christian Science Monitor, a photographer for Getty Images and author of Let the Swords Encircle Me: Iran – A Journey Behind the Headlines. He has reported and photographed conflict and human narratives across three continents for more than two decades, which include thirty extended reporting trips to Iran since 1996.

Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor of London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, an independent, pan-Arab daily newspaper since 1989. He is the author of The Secret History of al-Qa’ida, A Country of Words, his memoir and his new book Al-Qa’ida, the Next Generation. He was born in Gaza but has lived in London since 1979.

By Thomas Lowe

International disagreement on the aims of the Iranian government was well represented on the discussion’s panel. Does Iran seek regional hegemony? Are its motivations aggressive or defensive? And the pointed question at the heart of the debate – what will Israel do next?

Martin Fletcher, associate editor of The Times took the reigns.

Author and contributor to a number of leading newspapers, Christopher de Bellaigue says we need a little more empathy.

“We wilfully misunderstood Iran then and we are in the process of wilfully misunderstanding Iran now. We have to make that leap of imagination – put ourselves in the shoes of our opponents… If we say that they are bent on Israel’s destruction then frankly I’m not convinced. If we think that they want to shore up their authority – I find that much more convincing.”

Ran Gidor of the Israeli embassy in London accepts that if Iran developed a nuclear weapon it would be unlikely to drop it on Israel tomorrow. His immediate concerns are different.

“A nuclear Iran would be better placed to destabilise the entire region. It’s not about hegemony… It’s putting together the trajectory of Iranian behaviour since 1979 plus give the Ayatollah weapons of mass destruction… the formula is a catastrophic one.”

In this Gidor found a sympathetic, if nuanced, ear. Former Italian Ambassador to Iran, Roberto Toscano seeks the middle ground. How should Israeli fears that Iran would be able to exert its influence differently with a nuclear weapon be addressed?

“Iranian regional hegemony is not acceptable but Iranian exclusion is not possible. Can you have some politically enlightened diplomatic tool to exclude hegemony and to allow for inclusion? This is the name of the game.”

And Iranian economic exclusion, says Iranian-American writer Azadeh Moaveni is allowing the government to push the narrative that Iran is being humbled by the West.

“I think that the actual reality of sanctions is being felt so acutely in almost every Iranian’s daily life and… that resentment is now being squarely directed at the West… there’s a feeling that Iran is being persecuted in a way."

One member of the audience asked a simple question completely passed over in the first half of the discussion: Would a strike against Iran be legal anyway? Yes, says Gidor.

“According to the acceptable definitions of self-defence under international law that would include, sometime a pre-emptive strike if and when the threat were considered to be imminent… This is why familiarising ourselves with the technicalities is so important… to determine first of all how imminent is the threat and secondly what should be done about it.”

Finally, and unsurprisingly, the elephant-in-the-room question of Israel’s own weapons capacity would not budge.

Ran Gidor I’m sure you don’t want me to talk about Israeli’s WMD capability tonight because I want to keep my pension #FCBBCA

— Frontline Club (@frontlineclub) March 16, 2012

Another blog post about this event written by Richard Nield can be found here.