Iran Update March 14, 2025
Andie Parry, Ria Reddy, Carolyn Moorman, Siddhant Kishore, Alexandra Braverman, Nicholas Carl
Information Cutoff 2:00 pm ET
The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) publish the Iran Update, which provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. CTP-ISW publishes the Iran Update every weekday.
Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations, and here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of the ongoing opposition offensive in Syria. These maps are updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
Iran, China, and Russia issued a joint statement on March 14 effectively condemning the US “maximum pressure” strategy vis-a-vis Iran.[1] The statement came from a meeting of the Iranian, Chinese, and Russian deputy foreign ministers in Beijing.[2] The statement called on “relevant parties”—a reference to the United States—to “lift all illegal unilateral sanctions” on Iran. The statement described Iranian nuclear activities as “exclusively for peaceful purposes,” despite numerous indications that Tehran has restarted its nuclear weapons program.[3] Iran currently has enough high-enriched uranium to build six nuclear weapons, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.[4] The statement also emphasized the parties’ commitment to strengthening their cooperation through BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Tehran wants to use these institutions to undermine US sanctions and build a parallel economic order to the US-led one.
The Iran-China-Russia statement underscores that Russia is unlikely to play a constructive role in mediating between the United States and Iran. Western media reported that the Kremlin has offered to mediate in recent days.[5] CTP-ISW has assessed that Russia is unlikely to secure US interests via such mediation, especially in negotiations focused on Iranian nuclear activities and the Axis of Resistance.[6]
The Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) rejected the draft constitution that Syrian President Ahmed al Shara adopted on March 13.[7] The SDC is the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). The AANES similarly stated on March 13 that the constitution was too like the Bashar al Assad regime’s constitution and noted that the focus on Arab identity is a “de-facto falsi...
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