With six Arab states having established relations with Israel, a new Middle East is taking shape. But the diplomatic progress, facilitated by the Donald Trump administration’s compensation to those states, has its limits.
Read Here | Council On Foreign Relations
That Israel has been so successful in conducting such sophisticated operations on Iranian soil—going as far as allegedly hitting a high-profile target identified publicly by Netanyahu in the countryside outside of Tehran—exposes once again the failure of the Iranian regime’s internal security and the country’s vulnerability to foreign covert action. This presents Iran with a dilemma.
Read Here | Foreign Policy
As arguably the greatest beneficiaries of U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman now seek to insulate themselves against indications they’ll soon be shunned by the Biden White House as rogue actors.
Read Here | Foreign Policy
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad chief Yossi Cohen met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Neom, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, Israeli sources confirmed.Netanyahu used a private plane belonging to businessman Udi Angel, which he has used for past diplomatic trips.
Read Here | Jerusalem Post
Also Read | Netanyahu trip to Saudi Arabia shows importance of Israeli-Saudi ties
China and Russia are now integrally involved in Iran’s affairs, from its oil and port infrastructure to its defense capabilities. The result of this deepening collaboration has been to make Iran far less susceptible than it once was, either to Trump’s campaign of “maximum pressure” or to Biden’s hoped-for engagement.
Read Here | Foreign Affairs
The UAE has not released data on its defense budget since 2014, but back then it already outspent the United States in per capita terms, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Most of that money goes to buying the flashiest items on the market. But if a sale is not approved, the UAE is not at much of a loss; a growing portion of its budget is going toward developing its own technologies.
Read Here | Foreign Policy
Over the past few months, Iran has been working with China on a sweeping long-term political, economic, and security agreement that would facilitate hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in the Iranian economy. It is also pursuing a long-term partnership with Russia. Politicians in Tehran see the agreements as a necessary means of combating U.S. hegemony and hostility.
Read Here | The Diplomat
The imminent establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and two Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, is part of an on-going process of security cooperation going back many years. While that robs the event of some drama, it also increases its significance. It means that the process of ending the era of Arab-Israeli confrontation will continue, culminating perhaps in a political upheaval in Iran. That is the road that the Middle East may now be on.
Read Here | The National Interest
Despite Iran’s severely weakened economy its gross mishandling of the coronavirus, the religious-security establishment in Tehran seems firmly in charge of the country and has shown no hesitation to squash any opposition… The United States and its regional allies have to accept that the Islamic Republic is here to stay and find a way to live with it.
Read Here | The National Interest
Iran’s view of the Taliban has largely been derivative of its analysis of the relationship of the Taliban to the top threat to the Iranian state, the United States. In this respect, Iranian policy toward the Taliban resembles U.S. Cold War policies that evaluated groups in other countries as a function of their relationship to the Soviet Union.
Read Here | WarOnTheRocks
