Kayhan Barzegar

Kayhan Barzegar is an assistant professor at Islamic Azad University and a senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran — an institution that articulates and disseminates the Islamic Republic's strategic worldview for international audiences. He has also held a fellowship at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

Barzegar's work packages regime foreign policy rationales in the language of academic international relations. His output on Iranian strategic interests, nuclear policy, and regional security consistently reflects and legitimises Islamic Republic positions while gaining credibility through association with Western academic institutions.

His Belfer Center fellowship allowed him to engage with US policy circles directly. This combination — Tehran-based institutional affiliation with the Centre for Middle East Strategic Studies, plus Harvard access — makes him an effective articulator of regime positions in Western policy and academic contexts.