His research areas include international security and Middle East politics. He is the author of Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran (Columbia University Press, 2017). Dr. Tabaar has been a fellow or a visiting scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, Harvard University’s Center for the Middle East, Cambridge University’s Centre of Islamic Studies, and George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies. He is a recipient of several grants from the Luce Foundation, the Levant Foundation, and the Bodman Foundation. His articles have appeared in Security Studies, P.S. Politics and Political Science, and Journal of Strategic Studies. He has also written for Foreign Affairs’ Snapshot, Foreign Policy’s Middle East Channel, Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, and the New York Times Magazine.