Iran

You Probably Have the Iran War Backward

The blockade proves the success of sanctions. If the U.S. keeps its chokehold, Tehran will likely break.

Tehran’s Transnational Repression Strategy Is Evolving

The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands have exposed an Iranian regime spyware campaign targeting Iranian dissidents around the world. In a September 15 advisory, they warned...

Letting the Houthis Control the Red Sea Coast Would Be a Gift to Tehran

What happened to not negotiating with terrorists? American officials met with a Houthi delegation in Oman in the days after the Iran-backed group’s advance on Yemen’s west coast, which...

Confronting Authoritarians around the Globe

America has never been subservient to Israel

The fact remains that what brings the democratic allies together is worth far more than the issues dividing them.

Can anyone stop the Houthis?

Yemen’s civil war is set to go global

8 Questions Facing the United Nations at UNGA 81

The United Nations was formed “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Yet more armed conflicts rage worldwide today than at any point since the world body’s formation at the end...

The Three Quiet Victors of the Iran War

Turkey, Pakistan, and Qatar have played their hands well since February 28, without disrupting their relations with either the United States or Iran.

The War Inside the War

Review of 'In The War Room' by Yonah Jeremy Bob & Elliot Kaufman

Syria’s military is rebuilding, but foreign influence may slow security progress

Foreign influence in the Syrian military, chiefly Turkish and Russian, combined with the continued presence of extremist elements within its ranks, will constrain Damascus’s ability to take steps consistent...

Saudi Arabia Picked a Fight With the Two Nations That Could Help It the Most Against the Houthis — Israel and the UAE

Riyadh is running out of options, and more importantly, it is running out of time.  In less than two weeks, Iran and its proxy militia in Yemen have effectively checkmated Saudi Arabia by severing...

Dark Transits are a Stopgap not a Solution

Washington has accomplished an important feat by stealthily moving oil through the Persian Gulf despite Iran’s proclaimed closure. But the means it has relied on can’t become normal maritime...

Have We Lost the Iran War?

Has the United States lost the Iran war?  The Iranian regime certainly thinks it has.  The big Iranian funk that came after the 12-Day War in June, which climaxed the Israeli multi-front offensive...

Previewing the Trump-Xi Summit 

The Abraham Accords at Six: How a New Paradigm Outpaced the Old Peace

Six years after the Abraham Accords were signed on the White House lawn, perhaps the clearest evidence of how profoundly they have changed the Middle East came not at another diplomatic ceremony, but behind...

Iraq continues investigating attack on Saudi Arabia from Iraqi territory

In the wake of several drone strikes on Saudi Arabia’s East-West Crude Oil Pipeline on September 11, the Iraqi government confirmed that the attack came from Iraq. “Iraq said it...

Security Challenges in the Western Balkans

Briefing delivered to the Counter-Kleptocracy Caucus

Arming the U.S. military for the new cold war

More money necessary but not sufficient

Houthi attacks expose Iran’s desperation — here’s how Trump must respond

Tehran saw its leverage slipping away — and expanded the battlefield to attack the United States and its allies from a different angle. That’s the takeaway from this week’s fighting in Yemen,...

America’s Must-Win Battle of Hormuz

The only hope to win the war is to deprive the Islamic Republic of control over the crucial strait.