Biography
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar, Ph.D., is a fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute. His research focuses on U.S.-Iran relations, nuclear politics and the politics of ideology.
Tabaar is also an associate professor in international affairs at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service, where he teaches courses on U.S. foreign policy in the Persian Gulf and Middle East politics. He has previously taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Georgetown University and George Washington University. He has also been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, George Washington University, and the University of Cambridge. He is the author of “Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran” (Columbia University Press, 2018), and his articles have appeared in Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Tabaar received his Ph.D. in comparative politics and international relations from Georgetown University, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York City, and a B.A. in social sciences from the University of Tehran.
Contact him at mat15@rice.edu or (713) 348-3754.
Recent Publications
The Folly of Iran’s Hard-Liners
The demonstrations sparked by the killing of Mahsa Amini signal a tipping point in Iran, where many feel they have exhausted all electoral — and possibly nonviolent — ways of pursuing change, writes Middle East fellow Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar.