The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is moving to constrain Iran economically — but it is leaving a major source of regime revenue untouched. On August 18, following a series of high-level discussions with...
There was widespread condemnation on August 17 and 18 of an Iranian drone attack on the office of Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Masrour Barzani. Early on August 17, two drones...
On Aug. 14, Serving in Mission International, a Christian organization based in North Carolina, announced that its employee, Kevin Rideout, was finally released after spending nearly 10 months...
Iraq relies on oil revenue for over 90 percent of its budget. With exports hovering at around half of the usual 3.4 million barrels per day (bpd) that were exported before Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz,...
All the noise around Iran’s supposed stranglehold on oil supplies transiting through the Strait of Hormuz is missing the point. The reality is that the combination of Operations Midnight...
America’s leaders refuse to do their homework
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group that has been engaged in a more than three-year civil war against the state’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), announced a recalibration of its forces...
Tehran faced two rounds of new U.S. sanctions in as many days. On July 29 and July 30, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued back-to-back sanctions targeting the...
US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff attend the inaugural Board of Peace meeting...
President Donald Trump made waves the day after his administration announced a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. He conditioned the deal on Riyadh joining the Abraham...
Baghdad’s failure to address drone attacks from Iran-backed Iraqi militias is forcing other countries to act. American and Saudi forces, in a first for the ongoing war with Iran, launched joint...
President Donald Trump says he has “plenty of time” for talks with Iran. That works because Washington, DC, is 7,000 miles away from the Strait of Hormuz. But if you are in Dubai,...
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on July 27 that he will “declare Qatar an enemy state” if re-elected to lead the government. Bennett, who is running in the October 2026...
As U.S. bombs struck Iran’s military, Treasury targeted the financier who helped keep it funded. The U.S. Treasury Department on July 24 sanctioned four individuals and nine entities sustaining...
The European Union continues to tailor its sanctions net around Russia’s war effort. On July 23, Brussels rolled out its 21st package of economic sanctions targeting Russia. This package, the...
Following the announcement of a U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement, President Donald Trump is now raising doubts over it. In a Truth Social post on July 23, one day after news of the agreement,...
Iran has spent more than four decades building Hezbollah into a force capable of making war against Israel in hopes of one day destroying the Jewish state. Israeli forces have inflicted tremendous damage on Hezbollah’s leadership, arsenal, and manpower, yet the terror group is rebuilding, thanks in no small part to its globe-spanning illicit finance network. To shed greater light on this crucial subject, FDD has invited Israeli expert Dr. Iftah Burman to provide a robust overview of the transnational web of enterprises, stretching across the Middle East — and from Latin America to West Africa and into cyberspace — that sustains Hezbollah’s aggression. This work provides information essential to intelligence and law enforcement agencies in every country, including the United States, that recognizes the severity of Hezbollah’s threat to peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is no stranger to the machinery of repression. He has throttled internet providers, monitored political opponents, and folded once-independent media into a loyalist...
The choreography in Ankara last week was impressive, even by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s standards. Cannons fired, mounted honor guards paraded, and jets flew overhead trailing red, white, and blue smoke...
Iran’s repeated attacks on commercial shipping may ultimately force the United States to take a more aggressive posture by reviving its maximum pressure campaign against the Tehran regime. Following...