opinion
SITTING DUCKS
Months of rocket and drone attacks against Americans in Iraq are being blamed on Iran-backed militias. Team Biden has no realistic plan to make the attacks stop.
BATTLE FOR THE SKIES
Killer-drone swarms and innovative missiles mean every country on earth is scrambling to improve its aerial defenses.
opinion
OTTOMANIA
The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken on highly destabilizing roles in almost all the region’s conflicts, and that’s the last thing this part of the world needs.
opinion
AFGHANISTAN ADIEU
Counter-terror on a shoestring will empower Washington’s major adversaries.
SUNK COSTS
He sees every foreign-policy relationship as a transaction: How much does the U.S. pay, and what does it get in return? Don’t think he won’t do the same with Israel.
opinion
BENGHAZI IN BAGHDAD?
Trump and Netanyahu have found common cause attacking an Iran-backed militia in Iraq, but Tehran's long game, expelling the U.S. from the region, is prospering.
PERIPHERAL VISION
Israel’s relations in the region are now the opposite of what they were in the 1950s. It has some Arab friends, but the most powerful emerging countries are hostile.
THE GO-TO GUY
Russia’s real goal is not to end the war in Syria, but to sustain low-level confrontations where all sides become dependent on Moscow. It’s doing much the same in east Ukraine.
opinion
DO THE WRONG THING
In the new international norm, assertions of “security concerns” mean strong countries can take over weaker neighbors and redraw ethnic and demographic boundaries.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Partly by accident and partly by mission creep, the U.S. has found itself sitting astride the most important real estate in the Middle East.