Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to the just-formed Persian Blog of Kings!

My name is Jonathan Leslie, and I am a PhD candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. My research focuses on Israeli-Iranian relations and securitization in the Middle East. My prior academic training includes a master’s degree in strategic studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), as well as an undergraduate degree in politics from Princeton University.

I started this blog as a place to post analysis and random musings on Iran, the Middle East, and global politics. I don’t intend to use this introductory post to launch into a long, soul-searching post about all the reasons I thought signing up for a free WordPress website to post my two cents is somehow a historical watershed moment in the field. I’m not arrogant enough to think that my IMPORTANT takes are what’s missing from the chaos of Internet political commentary, nor do think that my arrival into the forum is going to correct some horrible deficiency or blindspot within the Middle East analysis community. Instead, I’m simply here to involve myself in the conversation on a more public level, and hopefully provide some unique insight along the way.

That said, let’s begin…