The global push to stop the bloodshed in Gaza is understandable. But a push that solely pressures the original victim of attack (Israel) and demands nothing significant of the perpetrator (Hamas) will just embolden the latter.
And at home, Iranian regime officials—who not long ago were on the back foot in the face of sustained grassroots protests—have redoubled their domestic repression, launching a sweeping national plan to enforce restrictions on female dress and conduct. What accounts for this reversal of fortune? A great deal can be attributed to permissive American policy.
All proposed solutions to the deterrence problem on the Taiwan Strait require the United States to modernize and expand manufacturing facilities and infrastructure to increase the production and availability of military hardware.
Our most significant achievement during those years was fostering unmediated contact between Western scholars and Soviet social scientists working in the vast network of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The effect was like opening the window of a sealed room.
Instead of hasbara, Israel would do well to embrace a new approach to strategic communications built around speed, engagement, and influence.
While Moscow claims that it wants to replace the “rules-based international order” with a fairer system for all, Russia’s day-to-day behavior seems more appropriate for a rules-free system—one where right is determined simply by muscle and the nerve to use it.
If the Biden administration is intent on keeping the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in place, it would do well to make its existence contingent on a meaningful crackdown against Hezbollah.
Israel and the United States cannot afford to dismiss Iran’s escalatory strike on Saturday as a mere demonstration.
In tandem with its military offensive against Hamas, however, Israel has experienced a deeper strategic shift. A sea change is now taking place in Israel’s approach to security affairs, informed by the errors and miscalculations that made the atrocities of October 7th possible.
Iran is making a serious play for Sudan, and it merits attention from Washington.
Holding back support of aid to Ukraine for fear of worse to come from Russia is a surefire way to ensure that Moscow presses its advantage and engages in still more rogue behavior.
The growing demonization of Israel is not unstoppable.
Cumulatively, these factors will help determine what lies ahead for the Palestinians. But if Team Biden ignores them in favor of quick fixes, or worse still, empty pandering to its constituents, it will only end up perpetuating their misery.
It stands to reason that the sooner the House of Saud launches a serious campaign to convince its own subjects rapprochement with Israel is in their long term interest, the better off the Kingdom will be.
The March 22 attack in Moscow may be a potential portent of things to come. Russia’s Mideast policy has given foreign Islamist militants several excuses for conducting murderous attacks, and Russia’s Muslim minority groups are feeling alienated from, and sometimes hostile to, the prevailing political order.
Rather than part company with reality, U.S. officials and opinion leaders should embrace it. Long-term Israeli-Palestinian peace requires, among other things, a destroyed Hamas, an overhauled Palestinian Authority, and a spirit of co-existence that’s nurtured among the Palestinian people.
The Kremlin, in other words, isn't interested in a negotiated settlement that establishes a new modus vivendi between Moscow and Kyiv. Instead, more than two years into the current conflict, it's never been clearer that the fight between Russia and Ukraine is a life-or-death struggle over identity, independence and indeed Ukraine's very existence.
The app gives the Chinese Communist Party its greatest asymmetric advantage over the U.S.
The conflict once called the “War on Terror” has well and truly returned.