Publications

The taps are running dry in Tehran. Iran's capital is now experiencing a massive and deepening water shortage. After months of drought and scorching heat, the five reservoirs feeding the city of more than 10 million are mostly empty.

Big changes are afoot in the South Caucasus. Back in August, in a move that passed largely unnoticed in the American press, the Trump administration pulled off a major diplomatic coup when it brought together Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to ink a joint declaration formally ending decades of hostility between the two regional rivals. 

A regime stalwart who has long carried Putin’s water (and boosted his neo-imperial agenda), Lavrov has been conspicuously absent in recent days from a number of high-profile functions. The Foreign Minister, usually a fixture, failed to attend a meeting of Russia’s National Security Council on November 5th – purportedly “by agreement” (presumably with Putin). He was also cut out of Russia’s delegation to the upcoming G20 meeting in South Africa later this month, with a much more junior official, Deputy Chief of Staff Maxim Oreshkin, tapped to lead the Russian team instead.