Against the odds, the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the US and Iran appears to be holding, after threats and counter-threats. It may collapse, but it has survived a first round of talks between the two sides in Switzerland over the weekend. President Trump...
The pattern is obvious. In an overworked House office, whoever has time and capacity to produce a clean draft often decides what gets written. On defense portfolios, that is increasingly a uniformed fellow on detail from the Department of Defense. In practice,...
For more than twenty years now, American leaders from both parties have talked about turning over a new leaf in the Middle East. One president pushed hard for democracy promotion, another tried diplomatic outreach, and someone else swore we’d finally end the “forever...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing perhaps the most precarious moment of his political career. He knows it. His allies know it. And his rivals – both within his coalition and across Israel's political spectrum – are preparing to capitalize on his...
If you don’t think the Donald inhabits an alternative universe – just set your mandibles loose to chomp on his most recent missive. According to history’s most gifted practitioner of the Art of the Deal, only one thing really counts with respect to his Paperless...
Reprinted with permission from Trita Parsi’s Substack. I have spent years fighting against Trump’s push toward war with Iran, and I have the scars to prove it. When Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, I warned that it would eventually bring us to this moment. Ever...
Reprinted from The Realist Review. There are certain episodes in Cold War history that modern conservatives are expected to treat as either sinister fantasy or liberal delusion. The McCloy–Zorin Accords of 1961 occupy a curious place. Explain the concept today and...
Donald Trump’s second term has precipitated a tsunami of criticism from Democrats over his foreign policy. Yet when it comes to Washington's efforts to dominate Latin America and the Caribbean, the substantive dispute – if there is any substance remaining, once...
In diplomacy, negotiations sometimes fail not because solutions are lacking, but because objectives become too numerous. A negotiating table established to address a specific crisis suddenly transforms into a platform for fulfilling a wide array of geopolitical...
For more than 7 decades, leaders of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) have emphasized that their countries maintain an exceptionally close political, economic, and security relationship. Mao Zedong even stated during the...
