Articles

These days, American policy toward the Middle East tends to be dominated by two regional crises.

The first is the long-running showdown with Iran over its nuclear program. Despite mounting Western financial pressure, the Islamic republic shows no signs of changing course. To the contrary, Iran’s leaders have defiantly tightened their fiscal belts and redoubled their efforts to cross the nuclear Rubicon. Meanwhile, negotiations between Tehran and the West have concluded predictably, without any tangible progress on bringing the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions to heel.

The apprehension of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ends a five day reign of terror in the Boston area. Taking him alive allows authorities the opportunity to find answers to critical questions surrounding the deadly April 15 Boston marathon bombing. Most important of this is, why did Dzhokhar and his brother Tamarlan allegedly do it?

Western thinking about freedom and democracy is marked by a set of optimistic assertions, which include the following:

First, the global advance of freedom and democracy marches ever-onward. Second, economic and political freedoms in a particular nation walk hand in hand, each reinforcing the other. Third, the more a society (particularly its middle class) enjoys economic growth and the higher living standards that normally come with it, the more citizens will push for greater political freedom.

Secretary of State John Kerry made news recently by referring to the venue of the latest nuclear talks with Iran as the fictional country of "Kyrzakhstan." That off-the-cuff comment was a telling indicator of the general lack of concern for Central Asia that prevails in official Washington.

With international pressure over its nuclear program mounting, and the recent collapse of its latest round of negotiations with the West, this might seem like a strange time for Iran to pick a fight with its neighbors. Yet on at least one front, that is exactly what it appears to be doing. Recent days have seen a marked downturn in the already-troubled relationship between the Islamic Republic and Azerbaijan, its neighbor to the northwest.