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In February, the Obama administration sent a secret letter to Moscow in which it reportedly offered up its predecessor's plans for missile defenses in Europe in exchange for a more constructive Russian role on dealing with Iran's nuclear program. The Kremlin happily pocketed that proposal, but made no firm commitments as to its cooperation in squeezing Tehran. So what does Russia really think of Iran and its nuclear ambitions?

Several myths lie at the core of the arguments in favor of resuming the Syrian-Israeli peace process. The first is that the two parties were close to completing a peace deal in 2000, but diplomacy faltered over final borders—and that it would be relatively simple to solve this territorial dispute. The second is that the return of the Golan Heights is a priority for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is not only capable of making peace with Israel, but could deliver the warm relations that Jerusalem seeks in return. Lastly, there is the myth that if the West sufficiently sweetened a Syrian-Israeli peace deal, Damascus could undergo a strategic shift and even reorient itself toward the West.

Last month, as part of his plans to "push the reset button" on U.S.-Russian relations, the new president sent a secret letter to his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev. The missive reportedly contained a simple offer: America would move to scrap Bush administration-era plans to deploy missile defenses in Eastern Europe in return for the Kremlin's help in dealing with Iran's persistent nuclear ambitions.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has repeatedly called for more emphasis on this country's nonmilitary instruments of international influence, and especially for a greater role, resources and capabilities for American diplomacy. Adm. Mullen and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs ironically represent a critical weakness in this country's diplomatic establishment - institutional leadership.

The Obama administration appears to have set its sights on Syria as part of its efforts to turn over a new leaf on Middle East policy. Recent days have seen a spate of diplomatic overtures by Washington to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. These overtures represent a major shift in American policy.

The subject of diplomacy with Iran has been on Barack Obama's mind for some time. Back in October 2007, while on the campaign trail, the then-Democratic presidential contender famously announced that he would hold "direct diplomacy, without preconditions" with Iran as a counterpoint to the Bush administration's more hawkish approach to the Islamic Republic. Little has changed in Obama's outlook since. The new president has wasted no time since being inaugurated in making clear that he still seeks diplomatic engagement with the Iranian regime. He has selected a seasoned diplomat, former Israeli-Palestinian negotiator Dennis Ross, as his special envoy on the Iranian issue, and his administration is said to be moving forward with plans to set up an American interests section in Tehran.

President Obama has issued an executive order making good on his promise to close down America’s detainee facility at Guantánamo Bay, though not as rapidly as his supporters wanted. While activists will hail this as a major step towards dismantling the Bush administration’s wartime policies, the Guantánamo they object to exists more as reputation than reality. To many, the name Guantánamo screams “No Due Process!” “Torture!” and “War Crimes!” But Camp Delta is the most humane facility of its type in the history of warfare.

What should the United States do about the war in Gaza? That's the question plaguing policy-makers in Washington these days as they watch the unfolding conflict between Israel and Hamas. The cause for the current fighting – and its morality – is exceedingly clear. Since its bloody ouster of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party from the Gaza Strip 18 months ago, Hamas has established a virtual terrorist enclave there.

Is Iran seeking nuclear weapons? For some, despite the mounting evidence, this is still very much an open question. Not, however, for Delpech, director of strategic affairs at the French Atomic Energy Commission and senior research fellow at the Center for International Studies in Paris. "[T]he quest for an atomic weapon is the only credible explanation" for the pattern of delay, secrecy, and obfuscation exhibited by Iran's ayatollahs over their nuclear effort, she writes.

As the conflict in Iraq winds down, the “forgotten front” of the War on Terror, Afghanistan, has moved back into the forefront of the national security debate. Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan (hereafter OEF) is aptly named, since the conflict will endure long into the next administration. Whoever takes the oath of office in January of 2009 will face the same types of challenges in Afghanistan that have bedeviled the current administration since 2001, and to an extent have been characteristic of Afghan politics for decades.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has three phobias," according to Iranian expatriate journalist Amir Taheri. "Women, Jews and America." Forget bombs. Maybe we should send in Barbra Streisand.

As the president-elect begins to weigh the carrots and sticks he can employ when dealing with the Middle East, he will run into the question of how to handle Syria. Bashar Assad was the first to reach out with a telegram to Barack Obama on November 7 that "expressed hope for constructive dialogue so that the difficulties can be overcome which have hampered the advance of peace, stability and progress in the Middle East."

What should the next administration do about Iran? During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama advocated the need for direct negotiations as a way of addressing the Iranian regime's persistent nuclear ambitions. And since his electoral victory, the president-elect has given every indication that he intends to initiate a diplomatic dialogue with Tehran after he assumes office on Jan. 20.

During the presidential campaign Vice President-elect Joe Biden predicted, "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy." This wasn't just another gratuitous allusion to the impending Camelot 2.0, but an apt comparison. A new, young president is a standing temptation to foreign powers seeking to find his limits.

November 7 marks the first anniversary of the Georgian government's use of force to break up peaceful opposition demonstrations in the heart of Tbilisi. Opposition groups have announced renewed public action against President Mikheil Saakashvili on that date, with the added objective of bringing him to account for his disastrous military confrontation with Russia in August. Georgia's image in the West as a developing democracy will be influenced by the ability of the government and the opposition to mark this anniversary in a peaceful manner.

Give the Kremlin credit for ambition. Just weeks after its invasion of Georgia ignited a major conflict in the Caucasus and dramatically altered the status quo in the 'post-Soviet space', the Russian government appears to have set its sights on another strategic prize.

These must be heady days for Iran’s ayatollahs. Just a year ago, American efforts to contain and isolate the Islamic Republic seemed to be gathering steam. A third UN Security Council resolution censuring Iran for its nuclear advances was on the horizon, and the Bush administration could claim headway on the creation of a regional coalition of Sunni Arab states to counteract Iran’s growing clout. Today, however, things are very different. Western efforts to control and contain the Islamic Republic have clearly faltered, while Iran’s march toward the bomb gives every indication of having accelerated.

Over the past few years we have been witnessing the slow rolling defeat of the United States at the hands of North Korea. In the past six years this charter member of the Axis of Evil, a country with a nominal GDP slightly less than Aruba — and GDP per capita one-thirteenth that of the island paradise — has gone from being an isolated remnant of Stalinist political theory in action to joining the nuclear club and becoming a major weapons-of-mass-destruction proliferator. This took place while the United States asserted that North Korea should not, must not, will not be allowed to go nuclear, but obviously could not figure out how to get the North to cooperate.

When he takes office on January 20th, 2009, the next President of the United States will have to contend with a range of pressing issues, from a global economic slowdown to soaring energy prices and a domestic housing market in crisis. On the foreign policy front, however, none will be as urgent as dealing with the persistent nuclear ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran. How the United States responds to Iran’s atomic drive will, to a large extent, dictate the shape of American strategy toward the greater Middle East for the foreseeable future.ÂÂ

It is now seven years after 9/11. The attack designed to change the world has done so, but not in ways its planners predicted, or any Americans anticipated. The United States had been on autopilot in the 1990s, expecting the world to evolve on its own, believing that progress would arrive as the result of historic forces that required no leadership, demanded no sacrifice. But nature abhors a vacuum, and into the void stepped a small group of ultra-violent radicals with a program of their own. Through a combination of methodical planning, strategic audaciousness and a bit of luck, they pulled off an attack that brought about the new world in a matter of hours.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Georgia this week was intended to reinforce relations with Kyiv and Baku and to restore those with Tbilisi. Georgia's brief war with Russia has negated impressive economic progress, eviscerated the country's U.S.-built military, and shattered expectations of a better future for its people. Many Georgians feel betrayed by Washington in this crisis, but the United States has seen its advice ignored and its assistance wasted.

Romantic nationalism has been a curse in many countries in the past century, notably in 1990s Serbia. Now, Georgia pays the price. Most commentaries on the South Ossetia conflict describe this dispute as starting in 1992, with the Russian-imposed no-war, no-peace status quo destroyed by the recent fighting. This is comparable to discussing the Cyprus problem only from the 1974 Turkish invasion. History matters, and nowhere more so than in ethnic disputes.

The first days of August brought with them news that one of Russia’s great public figures, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, had died at the age of 89. There are a great many reasons to mourn his passing. During his more than six decades in the public spotlight, Solzhenitsyn was an intellectual giant, a courageous opponent of Soviet repression, a crusader against communism’s excesses, and a champion of moral truth in a system that brooked no ideological opposition. For me, however, he was also much more.

Russia chose to fight American-armed Georgia over the territory of South Ossetia - a piece of land the size of Rhode Island and containing only 70,000 people. Why? And what are the implications for the United States and Russia's neighbors?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is at it again. In late July, Iran's firebrand president used a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran as the platform for a renewed call to arms in the Third World. In his remarks before the summit, Mr. Ahmadinejad blamed the West for everything from the spread of AIDS to nuclear proliferation, and called on the NAM countries to band together to create an alternative to the United Nations as a way of becoming "the pioneer of peace and justice in the world."

With a housing crisis in full bloom, and a presidential campaign in overdrive, Americans can be forgiven for overlooking the frenetic race to salvage the US-India civil nuclear agreement now underway. First came Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's narrow triumph in a no-confidence vote in parliament last month. Manmohan stood down fierce opposition from the left and, in a chaotic and unruly session, risked his governing coalition by forcing the vote. Only weeks later, on August 1, the International Atomic Energy Agency signaled its approval of India's draft plan for inspection, clearing the second of four hurdles. Only the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), where approval is likely, and the US Congress, where nothing is guaranteed, now stand in the way.

As regular visitors to this site will notice, the American Foreign Policy Council's online presence is currently undergoing a major facelift. Once completed, our new website will feature more dynamic content, be more accessible to researchers, the public and the media, and provide greater coverage of our wide range of events and activities. In the meantime, please bear with us as we incorporate our past content into this new format. And, as always, thank you for your interest.

Give Nouri al-Maliki credit. Since assuming his post in May 2006, Iraq's embattled prime minister has been written off by more than a few observers as an agent of Iranian influence or a cat's paw of the US-led Coalition. However, since early this year, Al-Maliki has definitively proven that he is neither. In the process, he has moved his country considerably closer to lasting stability.

Officials in Europe are beginning to sound more and more like their American counterparts when it comes to Iran. In the wake of President Bush's trip to Europe, they even appear to be moving towards freezing the assets of Iran's largest bank as a way of signalling their resolve over Tehran's nuclear intransigence. In recent months, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned publicly that a nuclear Iran poses an "unacceptable risk for regional and world stability," and his government has taken the lead in calling for tougher international sanctions against the Islamic republic. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made similar noises. "If Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons, it would have disastrous consequences," Merkel told Israel's parliament, the Knesset, during her visit there in March. "We have to prevent this." In practice, however, Europeans are sending a very different signal. Indeed, recent days have seen the Old Continent deal a body blow to efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic.
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What a difference eight months makes. Last September, General David Petraeus was essentially branded a liar for reporting to Congress that the situation in Iraq was improving markedly, that the so-called “surge” strategy was achieving its intended aims. Today, the general returns with more good news: violence in the country down 75 percent; Sunni sheiks cooperating with the government and Coalition (the “Anbar awakening”); and al-Qaeda in Iraq severely weakened and on the run. Unfortunately, General Petraeus will no doubt have to contend with a barrage of questions about the recent weeks’ fighting in Basra and Baghdad.

Slowly but surely, Iraq is turning a corner. In February, the Iraqi parliament approved two major measures aimed at normalising that country's fractious political scene. As significant as it is, however, this progress represents just one part of a larger picture. Indeed, future stability in Iraq may hinge as much on what transpires on two other strategic fronts as it does on the events now taking place in the so-called 'Sunni Triangle'.

It is axiomatic that nothing in government is so long lasting as temporary measures. Policies, programs and appropriations initiated to respond to a transitory issue take on lives of their own, spawning institutions which not only outlive their purpose but themselves create new problems to justify their continued existence. On the international stage today, the most egregious example of this principle is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). An alliance created in response to the devastation of the Second World War in Europe and the onset of the Cold War is now approaching its seventh decade, two generations beyond the restoration of Europe’s economy plus a large measure of European unity and a full generation beyond Gorbachev’s acceptance of failure in the Cold War.

Has it really been five years since the advent of Operation Iraqi Freedom? The war has gone on far too long, and been far too expensive. The mistakes made in the crucial transition period from major combat operations to “Phase Four” stability operations will be reviewed and debated for decades. But as the president pointed out in his Iraq-war anniversary speech at the Pentagon Wednesday, the comprehensive “surge” strategy has been working. The surge has been a runaway good-news story. And there is no more certain sign of progress in the war than its disappearance from media coverage. Stories on Iraq comprised only 3 percent of the news in the first ten weeks of 2008, compared to 23 percent a year ago — an 87 percent drop. “Good news” has turned out to be an oxymoron. No bleed, no lede.

It has been nearly five years since President George W. Bush stood on the deck of the U.S.S Abraham Lincoln and announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq. During that time, the United States has gotten a first-hand education in the complex ideological and religious frictions that simmer below the surface in the Muslim world. And while the Bush administration’s “surge” has now helped the Coalition regain the initiative in the former Ba’athist state, it has become abundantly clear that if Washington and its allies hope to maintain—and, better yet, to expand—their influence in the region as a whole, they still have a great deal to learn about what makes its inhabitants tick.

Adam Gadahn, a.k.a. Azzam al Amriki, has come a long way since his days living on a goat farm and playing in his one-man death metal band Aphasia. The 30-year-old California native has quickly become the American face of al Qaeda. Azzam’s purpose is to make an appeal to the American people, to explain the current situation in the war and to exhort them to join in supporting al Qaeda and its cause.

In recent weeks, the White House appeared to be gaining serious ground in its efforts to cobble together an international consensus to confront Iran. Today, however, Administration officials are desperately trying to put the pieces of their Iran policy back together. The culprit is the intelligence community's new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which asserts that the Iranian regime currently is not in the business of making nuclear weapons.

After a short two-year tenure, Karen Hughes now departs as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. She concentrated on the public affairs area of her job by creating the Rapid Response Unit and regional media hubs—things that anyone would find hard to believe the U.S. government was not already doing before her arrival. Hughes inherited the detritus from the 1999 destruction of the U.S. Information Agency, and tried to put back some of the missing building blocks of public diplomacy. However, by almost every index, we are not doing well in the war of ideas. Some say we have already lost.

Timing, the old saying goes, is everything. Just ask Sen. Joseph Biden, Delaware Democrat. For years, he has been sounding the bell about the need to devolve Iraq into its constituent parts: one Kurdish, one Sunni and one Shi'ite. And for years, his suggestions about Iraqi "federalism" have fallen on deaf ears. But now, in the wake of Gen. David Petraeus' long-awaited September report on the "surge," Mr. Biden's idea for the former Ba'athist state is suddenly getting some traction.

Ever since its start six years ago, the United States has been waging the War on Terror chiefly on the Sunni side of the religious divide within Islam. The principal targets have been Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. As recently as September 2006, the White House’s counter-terrorism strategy was still focused overwhelmingly on the Bin Laden network and its offshoots, which were seen as the vanguard of “a transnational movement of extremist organizations, networks, and individuals” threatening the United States. By contrast, the vision articulated by the president in his 2007 State of the Union Address is substantially broader. It encompasses not only Sunni extremists, but their Shi‘a counterparts as well. And, for the first time, it clearly and unambiguously identifies not just “terrorism” but a specific state sponsor — the Islamic Republic of Iran — as a threat to U.S. interests and objectives in the greater Middle East.
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American politics is entering a phase in which China is likely to increase in prominence, and where the fundamentals of U.S. policy toward the People’s Republic are likely to be called into question. Over the next two years, the White House’s approach is unlikely to change. But the Democrat-controlled Congress and presidential contenders alike can be expected to critique Administration policy and offer alternatives to it.

Defying all of its critics, the Bush administration may still be hanging tough in Iraq, but on another critical front of the 'War on Terror' – Central Asia – Washington appears to be in full strategic retreat.

A storm is brewing along the Bosporus. Since late April, when Turkey’s military issued a not-so-subtle threat to intervene in national politics to curb the power of the Islamist government, the country has been mired in political crisis. The current turmoil has everything to do with Turkey’s deepening religious-secular divide.

You have to feel sorry for David Petraeus. The commander of the multinational force in Iraq already has his hands full overseeing the "surge." Now he needs to deal with another, equally pressing problem. According to Iraqi officials, Turkey has mobilized some 140,000 soldiers along its common border with Iraq, in a maneuver that many see as a prelude to some sort of military confrontation between the two countries.

Just what does Iran have to do in order to get the attention of the United States? That question must be on the minds of officials in Tehran these days. After all, their regime has embarked upon an audacious -- and very public -- strategic offensive throughout the greater Middle East. But officials in Washington, preoccupied with flagging poll numbers and the ongoing insurgency in Iraq, don't seem to be taking notice.
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With the Taliban on the march, its cities paralyzed by demonstrations and its president targeted four times for assassination, Pakistan is facing its most severe crisis since the 1999 coup that brought Gen. Pervez Musharraf to power. Over the past few months, surging Islamic extremism and widespread political unrest have erupted into violence, undermining the government's authority. Now, with elections on the horizon and the general's heavy-handed tactics aggravating tensions, Washington is being forced to reexamine one of its most critical and controversial alliances in the war on terror.

Ever since the Turkish parliament's fateful decision to deny the United States a northern front against Saddam Hussein's regime back in early 2003, Iraq has emerged as the defining foreign policy issue between Washington and Ankara. But now, a different—and potentially even more serious—challenge to strategic ties looms on the horizon.

In late February, just days after the expiration of yet another United Nations deadline, and with the UN Security Council gearing up to deliberate new punitive measures, Iran's firebrand president issued a defiant public statement. The Iranian nuclear program "is without brakes and a rear gear," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told religious leaders in Tehran in comments carried nationwide by state radio. "We dismantled the rear gear and brakes of the train and threw them away some time ago." The demarche was emblematic of the deepening crisis that has beset the international community since the fall of 2002, when a controversial opposition group disclosed previously unknown details about Iran's nuclear program. Since then, it has become abundantly clear that the Iranian regime is not simply developing a nuclear program for "peaceful purposes," as its officials stubbornly claim. Rather, mounting evidence indicates that the Islamic Republic is embarked upon a comprehensive, multi-faceted national endeavor to develop a nuclear arsenal—and that it is making serious progress towards that goal, in spite of international pressure.

A conservative, the old adage goes, is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. Today, nowhere is this saying more apt than in the case of proponents of U.S.-Iranian “dialogue,” who are getting a harsh dose of reality about the true intentions of the ayatollahs in Tehran. Just ahead of yesterday’s planned U.S.-Iranian meeting to discuss Iraq, the Islamic Republic has launched a vicious crackdown on Iranian-American scholars and activists. The most high-profile victim of this offensive is Haleh Esfandiari, the head of the Middle East program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who was rounded up May 8 on charges of trying to foment a “soft revolution” against the Iranian regime. Ever since, she has languished in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, in spite of public entreaties for her release from prominent policymakers and senior statesmen.

By now, the nearly two-week-long hostage crisis prompted by Iran's brazen seizure of 15 British sailors and marines in the Persian Gulf in late March is beginning to fade from public memory. But the incident has provided the West with an important glimpse into Iranian strategy - and an unprecedented opportunity for a reinvigorated transatlantic consensus about confronting the Islamic Republic. From the start, Iran's ayatollahs used the well-orchestrated seizure as a flagrant piece of political theater. The goal? To signal their regime's resolve in the deepening crisis over its nuclear program. The message - coming just days after the U.N. Security Council's passage of a second round of sanctions on Iran for its unauthorized nuclear work - was unmistakable: The Iranian regime is ready and willing to fight for its atomic effort.