Why won’t Iran cut a deal? Its regime has taken an uncompromising line in renewed talks over its nuclear program. Although that has left the United States and its allies bewildered and frustrated, the regime has solid reasons for doing so. After all, it is currently managing to weather the tough U.S. and global economic …
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President Joe Biden has revamped U.S. goals in Ukraine from de-escalation and negotiations to a Ukrainian victory and the “degrading” of Russia’s military, reflecting a long-overdue reappraisal of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war aims. It is not the first time of late that Washington has come to see that conventional wisdom about a …
Continue reading “Will Russia’s Ukraine War Prompt An American Awakening On Iran?”
North Korea tested a powerful new intercontinental ballistic missile late last month, ending its five-year moratorium on long-range testing. Earlier this month, meanwhile, a majority of members in Iran’s parliament wrote to hardline conservative President Ibrahim Raisi, urging the regime to secure “stronger guarantees” from the United States as part of the ongoing negotiations in …
Continue reading “West’s response to Russia could augur a more nuclear world”
Foreign policy does not allow for compartmentalization when you’re the world’s leading power. What America does in response to any significant global challenge has important implications for other dilemmas and crises. With authoritarianism rising and freedom shrinking around the world for nearly two decades now, the United States should avoid steps that will embolden autocrats …
Continue reading “If we de-list the IRGC, what will the dictators think?”
How to Make Russia Pay – When asked, after his speech on Thursday, why the United States and its allies weren’t then kicking Russia completely out of SWIFT, the global banking communications system, over its invasion of Ukraine, President Biden said, “[It] is always an option. But right now, that’s not the position that the …
Continue reading “How To Make Russia Pay Over Ukraine: Deploy Every Financial Weapon Possible”
“Society is in a state of explosion,” an official from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned in a leaked seven-page state document that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty recently reported on, and “social discontent has risen by 300 percent in the past year.” Iran’s clerical army has good reason to be worried. Rising public discontent, …
This week’s announcement that a bipartisan group of House and Senate members have created an Abraham Accords Caucus to encourage more Arab-Israeli normalization agreements reminds us that the accords have the potential to reshape the region’s politics, economics, diplomacy, and military relationships. The question is whether, in the months to come, the Biden administration will …