Dr. Walter Posch is the Deputy Head of the Middle East and Africa research division at Stiftung Wissenschaft and Politik (SWP) in Berlin. He holds a PhD in Iranian Studies from the University of Bamberg, Germany. From 2000-2004, he was a researcher at the National Defense Academy in Vienna, Austria. After that, Posch held the position of Senior Research Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), Paris. His research expertise encompasses foreign and security policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian domestic policy, political system and ideology of the Islamic Republic, and European-Iranian relations. He is currently focusing on the development of Iran's "neo-fundamentalist" political current.