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June 1, 2020 China’s Coercion Threatens ROK-U.S. Alliance The White House released a report on May 20 outlining U.S. efforts to counter China’s threat to American interests and the sovereignty of nations and individuals worldwide. Among the strategic challenges... June 1, 2020 Wanted: A Strategy for Long-term Peacetime Competition With China The Trump administration last week released a report detailing the administration’s whole-of-government approach to China. The document marks an important step for framing the Chinese Communist Party’s... May 29, 2020 COVID-19 in India India is slowly emerging, after suffering severe economic damage, from its anti-virus lockdown. The country’s enormous economic and strategic potential as a U.S. partner and counterweight to China now... May 28, 2020 COVID-19 and the U.S. Air Force COVID-19 is testing every aspect of U.S. national defense readiness and mission execution. The Air Force is preparing for what the chief of staff, General David Goldfein, termed a “reset,” requiring... May 27, 2020 Israel Awards Desalination Plant Construction to Domestic Firm Over China Israel announced this week that it is awarding a $1.5 billion bid to build the world’s largest desalination plant to Israel’s IDE Technologies. Reports indicate that IDE Technologies offered to complete... May 26, 2020 The Fallout From China’s Hong Kong Power Play In a surprise move last week, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced plans to impose a controversial national security law in Hong Kong. The CCP’s decision follows months of unrest in the special... May 26, 2020 Treasury Sanctions China-based Logistics Company Supporting Mahan Air The U.S. Department of the Treasury last week sanctioned Shanghai-based Saint Logistics Company, a Chinese general sales agent for the U.S.-sanctioned Iranian airline Mahan Air. The move marks a warning... May 22, 2020 COVID-19 in Latin America: Organized Crime Gains and States Weaken COVID-19 cases in Latin America are surging as the region heads into the Southern Hemisphere winter. Across the region, the pandemic has created opportunities for organized crime to step into the void left... May 21, 2020 Erdogan’s Fourth Attempt to Take Over Turkey’s Largest Private Bank Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on May 12 asked the central executive committee of his Justice and Development Party to speed up plans for the government to take over a 28 percent stake in Isbank,... May 20, 2020 Oil Prices – More Like Post-9/11 After a precipitous drop, the oil market has rebounded significantly over the past month, much like it did during the post-9/11 period, when oil prices recovered as travel returned to normal levels. As... May 19, 2020 U.S. Government Releases Reports on North Korean Hacking Tools The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, FBI, and Department of Defense jointly released three Malware Analysis Reports (MARs) on May 12 detailing North Korea’s hacking tools. These reports... May 18, 2020 Tunisia’s ‘war against an invisible enemy’ Tunisia appears to have contained its COVID-19 outbreak despite a weak healthcare system and has begun to ease its anti-virus restrictions. Nine years after the ouster of the Ben Ali regime, successive... May 14, 2020 COVID-19 in Russia President Vladimir Putin announced on Monday that Russia would begin easing its partial lockdown, even as the country’s caseload continues to soar. The virus-related lockdown, together with record low... May 8, 2020 The JCPOA Has Not Improved Iran’s Human Rights Record The Obama administration routinely argued that the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran could spur Tehran to moderate, thereby reducing its systematic human rights abuses. But this forecast has proven unfounded:... May 7, 2020 COVID-19 in Bahrain As low oil prices and the pandemic strain Bahrain’s state budget, Manama may seek economic assistance from its Gulf neighbors. Less certain, however, is whether those neighbors will come to the island... May 6, 2020 The JCPOA May Not See Its Five-Year Anniversary Two years after the United States withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the agreement’s future hangs in the balance as Washington threatens to restore all UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic, thereby... May 6, 2020 The Impact of Sanctions Two Years After U.S. Withdrawal From the Nuclear Deal Two years into President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran, U.S. sanctions – when enforced – have pushed Iran into a deep, multi-year recession, slashed... May 5, 2020 COVID-19 in Northeast Syria The reported number of coronavirus cases in northeast Syria remains in single digits, in part because healthcare workers have so little ability to test for the virus. Local authorities are preparing for... May 1, 2020 USCIRF Denounces Iran’s Religious Freedom Violations Religious freedom conditions in Iran “remained egregiously poor” in 2019, according to an annual report released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on Tuesday. The report... May 1, 2020 Nuclear Fuel Working Group Recommends Key Steps to Safeguard U.S. Uranium Supply The Department of Energy (DOE) on April 23 released a long-awaited report by the president’s Nuclear Fuel Working Group (NFWG), which recommends key steps to assure an independent, continued supply of... April 30, 2020 COVID-19 in Qatar As Qatar’s COVID-19 epidemic worsens, the country’s dismal human rights record has returned to the spotlight. Doha has locked down crowded labor camps that house expatriate workers, leaving them few... April 27, 2020 Gaza’s Militant Groups Battle COVID-19 With local authorities in Gaza woefully unprepared to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, Hamas has turned to its familiar strategy of leveraging violence and international pressure to extort Israel into providing... April 27, 2020 Historic Oil Price Crash Highlights Holes in U.S. Energy Security U.S. oil prices went into negative territory for the first time last Monday, underscoring the extent to which the oil market is oversupplied. The price rout indicates that more pain lies in store for U.S.... April 27, 2020 COVID-19 in Egypt As political and economic difficulties from COVID-19 challenge the stability of the Egyptian government, Cairo has responded by tightening control – an effort that opposition forces claim is designed... April 23, 2020 COVID-19 in Libya The coronavirus has barely affected Libya, according to official statistics, but the true number of cases is likely underreported. An ongoing civil war, a large refugee and migrant population, and a deficient... April 23, 2020 Lebanon, Hezbollah, and COVID-19 In response to the pandemic, the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah has waged an aggressive public relations campaign aimed at displaying its primacy within Lebanon. This campaign has also demonstrated... April 23, 2020 Algeria’s ‘Revolution of Smiles’ Democracy Movement Hit Hard by COVID-19 The coronavirus outbreak has provided Algeria’s regime a pretext to consolidate its political control by repressing independent media and activists affiliated with the Hirak democratic protest movement.... April 22, 2020 How to Fight COVID-19 in North Korea While Maintaining Sanctions Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) last week introduced the Enhancing North Korea Humanitarian Assistance Act in their respective chambers, in an effort to expedite medical aid to North... April 21, 2020 COVID-19 and the Economy in Regime-Held Syria The pandemic has worsened the currency crisis and inflation that have afflicted Syria since the economy in next-door Lebanon began to collapse last September. The cash-strapped regime of Bashar-al Assad... April 20, 2020 Iran Seeks to Block Investigation of January’s Ukrainian Airliner Crash Radio Farda reported on Tuesday that Tehran sent Ukraine a draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) that, if signed, would protect the Iranian government from judicial action for the downing of a Ukrainian... April 20, 2020 Washington Uses Sanctions and Indictments Inconsistently When Combating Malicious Cyber Activity Over the past decade, the United States has relied heavily on sanctions and indictments to combat malicious cyber activity that originated in China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran. An analysis of the frequency... April 17, 2020 Israel Renegotiates COVID-19 Testing Lab Deal With China Amidst the severe economic downturn stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, countries are desperate to increase the availability of testing kits, a prerequisite for lifting stay at home orders. China, whose... April 17, 2020 COVID-19 in Yemen Yemen registered its first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus last week, threatening to add a COVID-19 epidemic to what the United Nations already calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. While... April 14, 2020 COVID-19 in Regime-Held Syria The regime of Bashar al-Assad continues to report implausibly low numbers of COVID-19 cases, while evidence mounts of deliberate deception. The presence of tens of thousands of Iranian-backed militia fighters... April 13, 2020 COVID-19 in Israel and the Palestinian Territories Israel’s COVID-19 outbreak has profoundly impacted the country’s domestic political and economic situation. Israel’s relationship with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is better than expected, but a... April 9, 2020 COVID-19 in Iran Iran’s coronavirus epidemic is the worst in the Middle East. Yet the Islamic Republic has downplayed the epidemic, substantially boosted funding for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and state... April 7, 2020 COVID-19 in the Gulf The coronavirus pandemic and Russian-Saudi oil price war have triggered an historic drop in oil prices, shaking the economic and fiscal foundations of the oil-dependent Arab Gulf states and stretching their... April 7, 2020 Despite Coronavirus, U.S. and Israel Conduct Combined F-35 Exercise Despite growing coronavirus concerns in both countries, the United States and Israel conducted a combined air-power training exercise on March 29, marking the first time U.S. and Israeli F-35s have trained... April 6, 2020 COVID-19 in Iraq The timing of the COVID-19 outbreak in Iraq has been particularly unfortunate, arriving concurrently with several other major crises, including a collapse in world oil prices, the absence of a functioning... April 3, 2020 COVID-19 in Afghanistan As U.S. forces prepare to depart Afghanistan next year, the Taliban has seized on the COVID-19 crisis to present itself as an entity capable of governing more effectively than the elected and internationally... April 3, 2020 Taiwan Continues to Lead in Fight Against Coronavirus Taiwan announced on Tuesday that it will provide 10 million masks to countries hit hardest by the coronavirus crisis, including Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This responsible... April 3, 2020 Turkish Public Lender Pleads Not Guilty for Evading Iran Sanctions Halkbank, a public lender majority-owned by the Turkish government, pleaded not guilty at a Manhattan court on March 31 to criminal charges that it helped Iran illicitly transfer tens of billions of dollars... April 2, 2020 Washington Targets Tehran’s Petrochemical Trade by Sanctioning Military Pension Fund The U.S. State Department recently designated a tranche of entities that are tied to, or directly engage in, the sale or supply of Iranian petrochemical products. Iran’s petrochemical sector accounts... April 2, 2020 Khamenei Uses Iran State TV to Turn a Profit Amid COVID-19 Outbreak Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is profiting during the coronavirus outbreak from contracts with state entities complicit in torture, according to a newly leaked video of a meeting of Iran’s... April 1, 2020 COVID-19 in Turkey Turkey’s coronavirus epidemic is one of the most serious in the world; it has the second-largest number of confirmed cases in the Middle East, behind only Iran. With the country’s public health crisis... April 1, 2020 Turkish Court Indicts Saudi Nationals in Khashoggi Murder The Istanbul chief prosecutor indicted 20 Saudi nationals last week for the murder of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose killing in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul sparked global outrage.... April 1, 2020 North Korea Turns to Cyber Disinformation Attacks Amid Global Coronavirus Outbreak Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) released a new report on March 26 revealing North Korean hackers’ persistent cyberattacks on news outlets to spread disinformation. This new development in North... March 31, 2020 It Is Time for Al Jazeera to Register Under FARA The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) registered as a foreign agent this month, after the Department of Justice (DOJ) determined that the network engages in political activities to advance... March 30, 2020 Treasury Sanctions Quds Force Fronts in Iraq The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday sanctioned 20 people and companies in Iraq and Iran with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF), Tehran’s elite foreign... March 26, 2020 IMF Should Reject Islamic Republic’s Loan Request The Islamic Republic of Iran has requested a $5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Tehran confronts a perfect economic storm combining President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure...

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