Publications

Israel's growing diplomatic, military, and economic ties across the Middle East Africa, and Asia should shatter an enduring myth: that the Israel-Palestinian conflict will make Israel an international pariah.

These ties reflect not only the foresight of Israel's leaders, the doggedness of its diplomacy and the strength of its economy, but also the rise of Iran in the region and the spread of terrorism beyond it.

Back in 2008, at the height of the global economic meltdown, Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Obama's designee for chief of staff, summed up his guiding political philosophy. "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," he told the Wall Street Journal. "Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with."

Machiavelli counseled, "never do an enemy a small injury." Ralph Waldo Emerson rendered the same thought as, "never strike a king unless you are sure you shall kill him." The coup plotters in Turkey can ponder these aphorisms from their cells while they await their potentially grisly fates.

Before the nuclear deal between Iran and the countries of the P5+1 (the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, France and Germany) was concluded a year ago today, the true extent of the compromise struck over Iran's nuclear ambitions wasn't yet publicly known.

As the global nuclear deal with Iran marks its one-year anniversary this week, Tehran is maintaining its fierce anti-Americanism, receiving $100 billion-plus in sanctions relief with which it can better confront the United States in its region and beyond, and apparently trying to cheat its way to nuclear weaponry.

You could say that Serhiy Kvit is a man on a mission. The soft-spoken 50-year-old former journalist may no longer be Ukraine's minister of education and science, having stepped down from that post back in April as part of a governmental reshuffle that accompanied the resignation of controversial Prime Minister Arsenii Yatsenyuk. But he nonetheless remains at the forefront of the fight for the intellectual future of his country.

Late last year, Captain Khatoon Ali Krdr, 36, the commander of an all-female Kurdish peshmerga unit, visited a family in the village of Kocho in northern Iraqi Kurdistan to see a woman who'd had nearly everything taken away by the Islamic State (ISIS). Like Khatoon, the woman and her surviving family members are Yezidis, an ethno-religious Kurdish minority group. ISIS has long enslaved, tortured, and killed, Yezidi women. Khatoon tried to speak to the woman, but she could not answer. These days, she is mute and can only stare ahead.

Slowly but surely, a strategic reorientation is underway in Israel. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a high-profile state visit to Russia. The trip, Netanyahu's fourth in the past year, was a public sign of the rapidly expanding ties between Jerusalem and Moscow.

Last week's vote by England to formally leave the European Union has touched off nothing short of a political earthquake, both in Europe and in the United States. In the aftermath of Thursday's referendum, which saw a slim majority (52 percent) of Britons vote in favor of "Brexit," there has been no shortage of recriminations from the chattering classes on both sides of the Atlantic, which have been quick to label Britons as both xenophobic and foolish for their choice.

Jihadists are hailing the mass shooting at the Orlando gay nightclub Pulse as an Islamist victory. The Islamic State terror group has claimed credit for the atrocity, saying "a soldier of the Islamic State has carried out the attack." President Barack Obama said that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was "filled with hatred" and that the investigation "will go wherever the facts lead us." They will lead directly to radical Islamism.

Israel responded to a Palestinian terror attack in Tel Aviv which claimed four lives by revoking 83,000 travel permits for Palestinians to enter the country during Ramadan. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights suggests that response amounts to "collective punishment" and is, thus, illegal under international law.

Pakistan returned to the headlines last month, after a U.S. air strike eliminated Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Mansour inside Pakistani territory. It marked the first ever U.S. strike on an Afghan Taliban leader inside the group's Pakistani sanctuary of Baluchistan, which had been off-limits to U.S. drones as part of an informal arrangement with Islamabad. Washington has touted the drone strike as an important victory for the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. However, it will prove symbolic and short-lived unless it prompts more fundamental reform of America's Pakistan policy. To effect real change, Washington must increase pressure not just on the Taliban residing in Pakistan, but on Pakistan itself.

Nearly a year after its passage, the nuclear deal with Iran - formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - remains a political football in Washington. In response to pressure from Tehran, the Obama administration continues to seek ever-greater sanctions relief for the Iranian regime. The justification propounded by administration officials, from Secretary of State John Kerry on down, is that Iran has yet to reap real benefits from the deal and, therefore, a further sweetening of the pot is necessary to ensure its continued compliance with the terms of the deal.