Confronting Genocide In Our Time
In my last column, I wrote about my gra...
John Kerry
Obama Administration Helps Iran Get Its Money Back
On March 19, the FBI arrested Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab upon his arrival in Miami for evading...
Op-eds
A death in Damascus, a funeral in Beirut
Five years ago, during the hopefully named Arab Spring, Syrians staged peaceful protests against the ruling dynasty that had long oppressed them. President Bashar al Assad responded brutally: In...
Op-eds
Done Deal?
All administrations are short-sighted. Even the brightest, most reflective people can develop acute tunnel vision when they join the paper-pushing, crisis-a-minute senior ranks of the National Se...
Op-eds
Money Laundering For The Mullahs
The Islamic Republic of Iran has mounted a full court press to persuade the global financial community to overlook its long rap sheet of financial crimes. In recent weeks, two of the Islamic Repu...
Op-eds
Iran: Former IRGC Commander Reveals Its Meddling in Elections
Mansour Haghighatpour, an Iranian parliamentarian and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander,...
Op-eds
Why Bashar al-Assad, the ‘Teflon Don’ of the Middle East, Can’t Be Touched
John Gotti may have once held the title, but the late Gambino crime family boss had nothing on the “Teflon Don” of the Middle East, Bashar Assad. Had Gotti li...
Op-eds
As Israel asserts Golan control, the move is a civil war’s one point of agreement
With Syria’s civil war raging on in its sixth year, neighboring Israel has largely managed to keep a comfortable distance from the bloody conflict, in no small part thanks to the Jewish sta...
Op-eds
Why is President Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia important now?
US President Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia this week for meetings with King Salman and other leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council appears first and foremost to be about reassuranc...
Op-eds
A Clinton Iran approach Republicans could support
Hillary Clinton, who is in the course of a fierce struggle for the affection of the Democratic base, is not about to disown the JCPOA, President Obama’s signature second-term accomplishment...
Op-eds
Iranian boots on the ground
The first deployment of foreign regular army ground troops to the front lines of the five-year-long battle between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad came with rather le...
Op-eds
A Dire Situation in Iraq
With Iraq’s political crisis worsening as chaos erupted in parliament on Wednesday over Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi plan to reshuffle his cabinet and combat corruption, The Cipher Br...
Op-eds
Tensions Rise Over Granting Iran Access to U.S. Dollar
Treasury Department officials are moving to reassure Congress that Iran will not be granted access to U.S. financial markets following comments by top Obama administration officials suggesting su...
Op-eds
Our World: Obama’s nuclear contrition
On Monday, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Hiroshima. While there meeting with this G-7 counterparts, Kerry strongly hinted that his visit was a precursor to a visit to the site of the f...
Op-eds
Terrible Things Are Happening
Americans just can’t take the Iranian tyrants seriously. If you ask us what Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei means when he leads his weekend crowds in a chant of “Death to America,...
Op-eds
Two More ‘High’ Risk Detainees Transferred from Gitmo
Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Republic of Senegal today “for offering humanitar...
Op-eds
Dollarizing the Ayatollahs
The bruising battle between the president and Congress surrounding the Iran nuclear deal is over. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, despite its many troubling flaws, is already being implem...
Op-eds
What the United States Is Really Doing in Syria
Whether they support or oppose it, most observers converge on viewing President Barack Obama’s Syria policy as generally marked by passive detachment. After all, th...
Op-eds
How the United States Mislabels Israel
Co-written by Asaf Romirowsky In a move uncharacteristic of U.S. policy as it has been carried out for decades, the Obama administration recently endorsed Europe’s version...
Op-eds
Can Iran Change For The Better
We are apparently unwilling to listen to the plain meaning of Iranian words. I invariably get an uncomfortable silence when I ask listeners “what do you think the Iranians mean when they ch...