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United States Institute of Peace

Robin Wright

Distinguished Scholar

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Please submit all media inquiries to interviews@usip.org or call 202.429.3869.

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Robin Wright, a foreign policy analyst, author and journalist, is a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center. Wright has reported from 144 countries on seven continents for The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, TIME, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal and CBS News. Wright won the National Magazine Award for The New Yorker. 

Wright’s book Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World won the 2012 Overseas Press Club award for best book on international affairs. Her eight books also include The Iran Primer: Power, Politics and U.S. Policy and The Islamists are Coming: Who They Really Are.

Wright has been a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Yale, Duke, Stanford, Dartmouth and the University of California. She won the U.N. Correspondents Association Gold Medal for coverage of foreign affairs, the Overseas Press Club Award for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initiative," and the National Press Club Award for best diplomatic reporting. The American Academy of Diplomacy selected her as the journalist of the year.

Publications By Robin

The Growing Flashpoints Between the U.S. and Iran

The Growing Flashpoints Between the U.S. and Iran

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

By: Robin Wright

Tension between Washington and Tehran has been a growing undercurrent of the war in Gaza, even as both countries tried to prevent it from sparking a direct confrontation during the first six months of fighting. Robin Wright, a joint fellow at USIP and the Wilson Center, explores the evolving flashpoints in the world’s most volatile region as well as the challenges for U.S. diplomacy, the new triggers for a wider regional conflagration and the historical backdrop.

Type: Question and Answer

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

Iranian Human Rights Activist Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Iranian Human Rights Activist Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Friday, October 6, 2023

By: Robin Wright

The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned Iranian scientist, journalist and human rights activist, for her principled and persistent campaign against the increasingly repressive regime in Iran. The award also acknowledged the broader Iranian women’s movement, which last year spearheaded the first counterrevolution in history triggered, led and sustained by females, many in their teens. “This year’s Peace Prize also recognizes the hundreds of thousands of people who, in the preceding year, have demonstrated against Iran’s theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women,” the Nobel Committee said.

Type: Analysis

Gender;  Human Rights

Why Now? The Tortured History of Iran’s Hostage Seizures

Why Now? The Tortured History of Iran’s Hostage Seizures

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

By: Robin Wright

In January 1981, I stood at the foot of the Air Algerie flight that flew 52 American diplomats to freedom after 444 days as hostages in Iran. Some of them were my friends. I still remember their gaunt appearances after being caged and cut off from the world for so long as they quietly disembarked. That original hostage crisis was a turning point in U.S. history in the 20th century — and has shaped angry American views of the Islamic republic ever since.

Type: Analysis

Mediation, Negotiation & Dialogue

Whither Iran on the Revolution’s Anniversary?

Whither Iran on the Revolution’s Anniversary?

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

By: Robin Wright

Iran marks the anniversary of the Islamic revolution in February amid increasingly existential challenges at home and in relations with the outside world. Four months of nationwide protests — triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022 — reflected deepening discontent among Iran’s Gen Z. Young women on streets and at schools abandoned the headscarves required by law, as shouts of “woman, life, freedom” and “death to the dictator” echoed across campus grounds. The protests were a brazen rejection of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and, more broadly, the theocracy’s basic belief that god’s law supersedes human laws. The scope of fury was reflected on October 8, when female students at Al Zahra University in Tehran shouted “Clerics, get lost” during a visit by President Ebrahim Raisi.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

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