STRAIT OF HORMUZ (Aug. 12, 2019) Amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4), Fleet replenishment oiler ship USNS Tippecanoe (T-AO 199) and amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha (LPD 26) transits the Strait of Hormuz. Navy photo
When American administrations develop a deterrence strategy for Iran in the Middle East, a model to follow could be how Israel runs a covert military campaign against Iran in Syria while pursuing public diplomacy with Russia, a new report states.
The Iranian public’s revulsion over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shootdown of a Ukrainian commercial aircraft could be critical reason tension between Tehran and Washington did not escalate after an American airstrike killed one of its top military leaders, the former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency said Monday. Read More
The Bashar al Assad regime’s ever-tightening circle on Syrian resistance fighters could send a million or more refugees into Turkey and scatter thousands of Islamic extremists around the region, France’s ambassador to Washington warned Monday. Read More
The Iranian Quds Force organizes, equips and finances the 50,000 Shia militia in Syria that provides the ground troops for the Russian and Iranian effort to prop up the Bashar al Assad regime, a retired senior Israeli Defense Force general said on Wednesday. Read More
The following is the Oct. 11, 2017 Congressional Research Service report Arms Sales in the Middle East Trends and Analytical Perspectives for U.S. Policy. Read More
Nabil Fahmy, then Dean at the School of Public Affairs, American University in Cairo in 2011. Chatham House Photo
One of the Middle East’s foremost diplomats warned the region remains on the precipice of implosion — split along sectarian, cultural and political lines. Read More
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.). Naval Institute Photo
The Chinese “have got a right to talk about” their destiny to be a powerful nation, but “what about our destiny,” the chairman of a key House Armed Services Committee asked Tuesday. Read More
File photo of Jonathan Pollard
Jonathan Pollard, the former intelligence analyst who stole more than a million pages of classified documents and sold them to Israel “should stay in jail,” Ron Olive, the federal agent who caught him, told USNI News on Wednesday. Read More
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as he arrives at a hotel in Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2014, for a second day of meetings about the future of his country’s nuclear program. US State Dept. Photo
The Art of War says “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.” Forty-seven members of the U.S. Senate seemed to have forgotten this timeless truth from the ancient war theorist Sun Tzu. Examining how well we know the enemy (Iran), and how well we know ourselves, is always a good place to start before taking actions that many believe are setting a course for war. Read More
By cutting through some of the noise surrounding the most recent debate over Iran — spurred by Benjamin Netanyahu’s pending speech before Congress — two schools of thought emerge that fall into the classic geopolitical camps of hawks and doves. Read More
