The United States and Iran are enmeshed in a no-war, no-peace deadlock that could easily escalate into an all-out war again should there be no major diplomatic breakthrough. The war that the United States and Israel initiated against Iran on February 28 has mutated into a bruising war of attrition, which has oscillated between periods […]
Shortly after the eruption of the war in Iran last winter, the Iranian regime closed the Strait of Hormuz to virtually all commercial shipping. The selective closure of this international waterway excluded allies like China and Pakistan, but inflicted severe damage on the global economy. Oil and liquified natural gas prices soared, increasing the cost […]
Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, called it a “major milestone,” heralding what could be a new chapter in Israel’s often rocky bilateral relations with Lebanon. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, described it as “a major achievement” that could well open the door to an eventual peace agreement between Israel and its northern neighbor. […]
Iran appears to have won a strategic diplomatic victory over Israel, having succeeded in placing Israel’s current conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon at the center of its talks with the United States to officially terminate their war. During the opening round of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Switzerland on June 21, which was aimed at turning a […]
Donald Trump lambasted the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which placed severe restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program. He called it “one of the most incompetently drawn deals I’ve ever seen.” After he unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018, he assured Americans that he would forge a far better deal than his predecessor, […]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has learned the hard way that his political relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump comes at a high price. While Trump has often been supportive of Israel, the United States’ chief ally in the Middled East, he has occasionally differed with Netanyahu on such hot button issues as Iran and […]
There has been a negotiated end to the war in Iran, but the volatile issues that triggered it have yet to be resolved. After nearly three months of arduous negotiations punctuated by periodic armed clashes, the United States and Iran reached a ceasefire agreement within the parameters of a memorandum of understanding on June 14. […]
Has Iran constrained Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon? That’s the burning question observers have asked following Israel’s latest clashes with Iran on June 7 and June 8. The events that led to these flareups began when Hezbollah, Iran’s chief proxy in the Middle East, fired rockets and drones into the Galilee. Israel then bombed […]
Iran’s ballistic missile attacks against Israel on June 7 and June 8 were stunning yet not surprising. Iran — Israel’s arch enemy and Hezbollah’s chief ally in the Middle East — attacked Israel in retaliation for an Israeli air strike in Dahiyeh, a suburb south of Beirut and a Hezbollah stronghold. Israeli aircraft bombed Dahiyeh […]
Israel’s relationship with the United Arab Emirates is like no other in the Arab world. Israel has forged peace treaties and normalization accords with several Arab states since it signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979. But the bilateral ties Israel has formed with the UAE remain unique, as a recent news story indicated. […]