Publications

Like every news event that shared last week with the U.S. presidential elections, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's visit to Japan was swallowed up by American electoral headlines. What attention his summit with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe did attract centered on the consummation of a long-pending nuclear cooperation deal. For a host of reasons covered extensively elsewhere, the deal is symbolically and practically significant for both countries.

The United States’ relationship with Iran tops the list of foreign policy issues that will confront President-elect Donald Trump when he takes office in January. Like many of the other Republican presidential candidates, Trump was an early and staunch opponent of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the controversial nuclear deal concluded last summer between six world powers and Iran. But Trump took up contradictory positions on the deal over the course of his campaign, at times promising to tear it up and at others suggesting he would simply amend it.

The United States faces critical challenges in the Middle East. Whether instability in Syria fomenting a refugee crisis, the spread of the Islamic State group and its extremist ideology, or the rising power of Iran, conditions in the region are more threatening than they were when President Barack Obama took office. The new Trump administration will have its work cut out for it.