Alliances Strengthen Defense Against Attack on Israel: Implications for U.S. Policy in Ukraine and Beyond

The multilateral defense of Israel against Iran’s drone and missile attacks, which included not just U.S. but also European and Arab participation, reminds us that the leading bilateral conflicts of our day play out on a broader geopolitical landscape. It is a lesson Washington should apply to multiple other fronts. Of the estimated 350 missiles …

The U.S. Must Re-Focus on Curbing Iran’s Nuclear Program

Iran’s latest nuclear and ballistic missile advances make Israel’s war with Hamas and America’s skirmishing with Iranian proxy forces look like regional sideshows of a far more ominous main event. The current situation in the region gives Iran “a unique opportunity and amplified internal justification for building nuclear weapons while the United States and Israel’s resources to detect and deter Iran …

Why is the Biden Administration Scared of Iran?

With Israel and Hamas still vowing to destroy one another, and with full combat resuming after a tenuous truce, Washington says it doesn’t want to do anything to provoke Iran into a wider regional conflict. That’s reportedly why, in recent days, Washington and its European allies chose not to censure Iran over its growing defiance of International …

Israel’s Critics Sidestep Bigger Threats Elsewhere

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week signaled a partial reversal of his coalition’s plan that would threaten the nation’s democratic character by letting the Knesset override judicial decisions, calling the effort a “mistake.” The signal was a heartening one to the plan’s opponents at home, and to nervous audiences abroad who fear Netanyahu and …

US Needs More Holistic Response to Emerging Axis

With NATO’s latest gathering this week in Vilnius, Washington is understandably focused on what the United States and its allies should do next to help Ukraine rebuff Russia. Moscow’s invasion, however, is part of a larger, multi-nation challenge to which Washington has not yet developed a comprehensive response. That challenge is the axis of deepening …

A Roadmap for Taking on Tehran

With Washington resuming indirect talks with Tehran over its nuclear program, opponents of the 2015 nuclear deal in the United States and abroad are raising legitimate fears that Washington will provide the Islamic Republic with sanctions relief while getting little, if anything, in return. And who can blame them? To be sure, both sides deny they’re close …

Iran looks for signals of US resolve

“The Fuhrer beams,” Joseph Goebbels said of Hitler after Germany reoccupied the Rhineland in the spring of 1936 and the West did nothing. “England remains passive. France won’t act alone. Italy is disappointed and America uninterested.” As it turns out, Robert Kagan explains in “The Ghost at the Feast,” his new book about America’s global role between 1900 and …