Suspended Between Escalation and Exit: The U.S.–Iran War’s Strategic Deadlock
Entering the second month of the war with Iran, the United States has delivered substantial military effects without articulating a viable political end state—a familiar pattern in which battlefield success fails to produce strategic clarity and increasingly risks an exit without resolution.
US-Iran War Gives Syria’s Global Economic Pitch More Urgency
When the United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran a month ago, the Middle East was plunged into debilitating conflict. Nevertheless, Syria has remarkably just completed its most stable month in 15 years. Damascus and its international partners must capitalize on this opportunity.
The US-Israeli war against Iran has created the largest disruption to global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies in modern history. There is a tremendous amount of economic uncertainty for Gulf states to navigate, and it will reshape the way they engage with one another and with Iran, Israel, and the United States for years to come. But this war has also laid bare how urgently the United States needs to update its own approach toward the Gulf states when it comes to energy.
Lebanon’s stability requires steadier US engagement
As most eyes stay trained on Iran, another front is presenting a crucial challenge to Middle East regional stability: Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon and the status of Hezbollah, Iran’s decades-long proxy partner.
Post-Saddam Iraq at 23: The War It Never Wanted Is Back
On the anniversary of the 2003 invasion, Iraq finds itself trapped between the same external powers that have defined — and destroyed — its last quarter-century.
The decision U.S. President Donald Trump made to attack Iran was a high-stakes gamble. The gamble is not really in the military campaign itself. It is whether a massive air campaign can trigger a popular rebellion that takes down the regime in Tehran. This could pay off brilliantly, but it could also fail miserably.
Iraq’s oil paralysis: A self-inflicted wound and a gift to Tehran
With the Strait of Hormuz closed and oil production from Iraq’s south in free fall, Baghdad’s failure to maximize the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline is no longer a policy dispute. It is a national emergency.
As the war with Iran consumes regional attention, Gaza is again being pushed aside. That is not just a humanitarian failure. It is a strategic mistake that could squander a rare opening for political transition while allowing Hamas to weaponize abandonment once more.
Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns: The US-Israeli War on Iran
Modern wars are fought not only with weapons but with assumptions—and the most dangerous assumptions are often invisible to those making them. Donald Rumsfeld’s distinction between known unknowns (questions we recognize but cannot answer) and unknown unknowns (risks we have not even framed as questions) captures something essential about the current confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran.
