Five panels of leading experts on Iran will assess the last three decades of revolution, the troubled history of U.S.-Iranian relations, and the future.

When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emerged from seemingly nowhere to capture the Iranian presidency in 2005, American officials were dumbfounded. Whereas his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, sought to assuage the West with talk of ‘dialogue of civilizations’, Ahmadinejad was crude and coarse.

Upon the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led Friday prayers at Tehran University. His sermon would carry the weight of an American State of the Union address. With time, Khomeini and his successor Ali Khamenei designated a substitute prayer leader from amongst the regime hierarchy.

Iran is using soft-power tactics that come from economic or cultural means to combat U.S. influence and win over the minds of the people in Afghanistan.

The Islamic Republic of Iran's propaganda on the occasion of the 31st anniversary of the November 4, 1979, seizure of the United States Embassy in Tehran provides significant insight into the regime that produced it.

Inspired by the Pakistani role model, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is transforming Iran into a military dictatorship, where the IRGC is not only constitutionally tasked with "safeguarding the revolution and its achievements," but also rules Iran.