No Breaks for Israel

Israel is far from “regionally isolated.” In fact, Iran’s greatest concern at the moment is the burgeoning rapprochement between Israel and the Sunni Gulf States — especially Saudi Arabia.
Bennett’s Doctrine: Fight Iran, Not Only Its Proxies

Using a simple parable, Education Minister Naftali Bennett illustrated precisely why solutions for Iranian sponsored terror have been unsuccessful and what must be done to solve the problem.
The US is Quietly Sidelining a Turkey in Decline

Turkey’s invasion of Afrin, like so many of its other actions in recent months and years, make it clear that it can no longer be considered a U.S. ally.
Why is there Opposition to a Qatar Investigation?

I appreciate how complicated and nuanced Qatar’s relationship with radicalism is, as is Saudi Arabia’s.
Planning to Win

Some things are just too unpleasant to contemplate, too far in the future, or too complicated to demand attention. Or too scary. Or conflict with other things we know – or think we know.
Iraqi Kurdistan Four Months After the Referendum

Four months on from the referendum which they had hoped would be a foundation stone for the building of statehood, Iraq’s Kurds are demoralized and facing an increasingly uncertain future.
Netanyahu Thanks Pence in Israel for saying, ‘Israel’s capital, Jerusalem’

“This is the first time that I’m standing when both leaders can say ‘Israel’s capital, Jerusalem,” Netanyahu said while greeting Pence.
Turkey, the Arab World is Just Not That into You

He runs around in a fake fire extinguisher’s outfit, holding a silly hose in his hands and knocking on neighbors’ doors to put out the fire in their homes. “Go away,” his neighbors keep telling him.
Wanted: A Counter-Iran Strategy

A common but mistaken reading of the current strategic situation in the Middle East presents the region as approaching the end of a period of instability. The “return of the Arab state” is one of the more arresting refrains that this perspective has produced.
Iran: An Interim Assessment

The protests in Iran appear, for now at least, to be subsiding. The key moment was the decision to task the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with security in the three provinces that formed the center of the unrest – Hamadan, Isfahan and Lorestan.