Articles

Last month's conflict between Israel and Iran has only just concluded, but its results are already being felt throughout the Middle East—and beyond.

Israel has begun a little-noticed foreign policy transformation. Against the backdrop of its ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem has launched a new initiative in strategic communications. 

Trump faces a pivotal moment: Capitalize on Iran’s unprecedented weakness by supporting Israel, avoiding overreach, and building bipartisan backing, or risk squandering a rare strategic advantage.

Over the past several days, all eyes have been on the Middle East. Last week, Israel initiated "Operation Rising Lion," its unilateral military campaign to roll back Iran's nuclear program. The effort marks the end of a quarter-century during which Israeli policymakers desperately urged Western governments to take the threat of the Iranian atomic effort more seriously – and to take concrete steps to mitigate it.

It is not too early to start thinking about monuments to those personages associated with Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

Not all that long ago, warnings about a creeping Islamist infiltration in Europe were widely ridiculed as conspiracy theories or, worse, "Islamophobia." In previous years, when politicians like Geert Wilders of the Netherlands and Britain's Michael Gove, or authors like France's Michel Houellebecq raised alarms about the growing prevalence of political Islam on the Continent, they were routinely dismissed as cranks, alarmists, or simply as racists.

These days, though, such concerns are getting harder to refute. Just ask the French.

With the State Department’s new vows to halt visa interviews for all foreign students until it beefs up its social media screening and to “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students, the United States is heading down a precarious path. By doing so, it risks ceding its longstanding global advantages in terms of “soft power.”

Israeli leaders must be suffering whiplash as they watch the dizzying events of recent days across the Middle East, with President Donald Trump sidelining the Jewish state and cozying up to some of its bitter rivals.

As President Trump explores a nuclear deal with Iran, he would be wise to recognize that Tehran probably comes to the negotiating table less because it fears Washington than because it smells opportunity.

In recent days several Russian bloggers—both loyalists and oppositionists—have hinted about plots to remove Putin. Even though most such reports are based on little more than gossip, they serve the useful function of reminding us that Putin’s clock is running down.

As every tourist who has strayed into a bazaar or souk knows, Middle Easterners drive a hard bargain. And the Iranians, with their long history of strategy and commerce, are among the region's most savvy negotiators. President Trump's pointman for the region, Steve Witkoff, is finding this out the hard way.

America needs to design and implement an effective strategy for Greater Central Asia to enhance the United States's competitive position in a region that will affect the Russia-China relationship, the geopolitical competition in Asia, and key resource markets, particularly uranium, oil, and natural gas.

Kadyrov's Chechnya presents a deepening dilemma for Russia's federal state. Putin relies on Kadyrov for stability in exchange for unprecedented autonomy—a system where "personalized loyalty substitutes for institutional coherence." This arrangement has created a parallel power structure where Kadyrov implements religious legal codes, commands his independent Kadyrovtsy militia, and pursues contradictory foreign policies.

The paradox is clear: Moscow's strategy to suppress separatism has created a regional actor whose "loyalty is conditional and whose power increasingly transcends the bounds of federation." This precedent could inspire other republics like Tatarstan and Bashkortostan to seek similar arrangements. With Russia facing pressure from sanctions and war costs, Moscow's options are limited if Kadyrov's loyalty wavers.

Trump’s tariff agenda is not simply a policy preference; it is essential for the security and safety of the United States in the decades to come.

If its imperial vision isn’t decisively defeated, any peace agreement with Russia over Ukraine is guaranteed to be merely temporary.

Once upon a time, the Middle Eastern media environment was predictable and staid, dominated by a few prominent outlets that in Arab countries were often owned and operated by the governments’ information ministries.  No longer.

“Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia [and] who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.”