Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

A distinctive
feature of social and
cultural life at CMC

 

Iran’s Rise and Retreat in the Shadow of American Missteps

Tue, September 9, 2025
Dinner Program
Hussein Banai

Hussein Banai, associate professor of international studies at Indiana University-Bloomington, will chart the dramatic rise and gradual unraveling of Iran’s regional influence between 2005 and 2025, a period marked by bold strategic expansion and eventual geopolitical recoil, and will examine how Iran leveraged regional instability to project power, only to face coordinated containment efforts by Israel, the U.S., and a shifting regional order. Spanning the 20 years since the Iraq War, Banai explores the interplay of ideology, deterrence, and diplomacy in defining Iran’s fortunes—and what its retreat signals for the future of Middle Eastern geopolitics.

Hussein Banai is an associate professor of international studies at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington. His research focuses on international relations and political theory, with particular focus on topics in political ideologies, conflict, diplomatic history and practice, and modern Iran and he is currently working on a multi-volume project on the logic and functions of enmity in politics. 

Banai is a distinguished non-resident fellow at the Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania, and research affiliate at the Center for International Studies at MIT. He is the author of several books and peer-reviewed articles on topics in US-Iran relations, Iranian political development, diplomatic theory and practice, human rights, and democratic theory. He currently serves as co-editor-in-chief of International Studies Review

Professor Banai’s Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at CMC. 

Photo credit: Emily Wehner

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Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

Claremont McKenna College
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