U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States was “locked and loaded” for a potential response to the attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, after a senior U.S. administration official said Iran was to blame. Trump also authorised the use of the U.S. emergency oil stockpile to ensure stable supplies after the attack, which shut […]
Iran has dismissed accusations by the United States that Tehran was behind drone attacks that set ablaze two major Saudi Aramco oil installations, as Saudi Arabia raced to restore operations at the damaged facilities. Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for Saturday’s assault on Abqaiq – the world’s largest oil processing plant – and the Khurais oilfield. The […]
Conventional wisdom holds that intelligence data is collected and safeguarded to gain an advantage on the battlefield if and when war breaks out. In recent years, however, Israel has come to increasingly rely on deliberate public disclosure of intelligence data as an instrument of influence and coercion. Read Here – WarOnTheRocks
When President Donald Trump finally followed through on his threats and withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, it looked like he was after something far more ambitious. Shortly after the announcement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined 12 conditions for the U.S. to lift the sanctions At the Group of Seven summit in France, […]
Iran’s foreign minister flew into the French resort hosting a G7 summit on Sunday, an unexpected twist to a meeting already troubled by differences between U.S. President Donald Trump and Western allies over a raft of issues, including Iran. Read Here – Reuters Also Read: The G-7 Gathers in Biarritz For A Dysfunctional Family Reunion […]
President Donald Trump had hoped to head into the 2020 campaign season as the world’s consummate deal-maker. He may instead enter his reelection campaign not just empty-handed, but vulnerable to the charge that his policies have helped sow chaos across the globe. Read Here – Politico
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin may be the world masters of the tactic, but Boris Johnson also understands the appeal of diversionary foreign policy. He made a career out of picking fights with the European Union — winning validation in the 2016 Brexit referendum and, very likely, in soon becoming his party’s choice to succeed […]
The Strait of Hormuz links the majority of the world’s people who live along the shores of Asia and East Africa to the heart of the Middle East. Long before the discovery of oil, it was the world’s carotid artery. Cut off the blood supply almost anywhere else and the world would adapt. Here, however, […]
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 30-year reign at the helm of Iran reveals a dual Machiavellian modus-operandi as supreme leader—puppeteer for the elected and patron for the unelected—and explains the current power dynamic in Tehran. Read Here – The National Interest
Geography tells a more important story in the Gulf region: The current tensions are less about Iran and the Persian Gulf than about China and the Indian Ocean. Whether the Trump administration realizes it or not, what is occurring in the American-Iranian standoff is about something much vaster. Read Here – The New York Times
looking beyond borders 