The US and Israel entered the war with three goals, and these goals were in tension from the start.
The central failure of Operation Epic Fury is strategic. Five weeks in, neither of its declared objectives – regime change as framed by U.S. President Donald Trump, nor the elimination of an existential threat as framed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – is within reach. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. Iran’s leadership has reconstituted under Mojtaba Khamenei. The diplomatic track that might have constrained escalation has been shattered.
As a fragile cease-fire takes hold in the Middle East, countries are jockeying to shape the peace. But one group remains largely absent: US ambassadors.
Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow Amb. (ret.) Robert S. Ford to examine what is at stake for Iraq in the Iran war. The only country to have been hit by both sides, Iraq is caught in the middle of a regional conflict, with the local Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) carrying out attacks on American interests and personnel — and the US responding. This escalation comes at a period of internal political transition in Iraq, which has been locked in negotiations to form a new government since the November 2025 elections. Ford, who served as Deputy and later Acting Ambassador in Baghdad from 2008 until 2010, unpacks how Iraq is navigating the current moment, how the Kurdistan region fits into this equation, and what this all means for the future of US-Iraqi relations.
Trump’s active Middle East policy reflects a striking paradox. The United States is more visibly engaged in the region than the “America first” rhetoric suggests, yet its influence over regional outcomes continues to erode.
An operation that Donald Trump said could take Iran out “in one night” has now turned into a regional war that has just entered its sixth week, with the US president appearing increasingly frustrated over the situation.
The United States and Israel have done significant damage to Iran’s military and security apparatus. Senior commanders have been killed at a pace rarely seen in modern warfare.
Iran’s leadership did not take long to respond to President Donald Trump’s latest address on the war. Regime-linked media dismissed the April 1 White House speech as a repetition of earlier claims, while officials and commentators close to the Iranian government framed it as further evidence that Washington remains uncertain about its own course. In the battle over messaging, Trump’s ambiguity is giving Iran’s narrative the edge.
This special episode of Middle East Focus features a conversation from MEI’s Virtual Briefing Series. Host Alistair Taylor is joined by former National Security Council Senior Director Stephen Flanagan and MEI Senior Fellow Iulia-Sabina Joja to discuss the impacts of the Iran war on US-European relations. The conflict has hit Europe’s economy hard and created deep divisions across the continent, even as some European countries play a quiet supporting role to the US. President Donald Trump has called for NATO member states to help secure shipping through the Iranian-blocked Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for international maritime trade. Flanagan and Joja explore the prospects for stepped-up European military involvement, the knock-on effects on the war in Ukraine, and the potential longer-term impact on the future of the US-European alliance.
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.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are confronting the greatest threat to their economic security and energy strategy since their formation. The economic fallout of the US-Israeli war with Iran is severe, but uneven across the Gulf. So too is each state’s ability to sustain energy exports and protect critical infrastructure—both of which have been targeted unequally by Iran.
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.
The most recent cross-border hostilities between Afghanistan and Pakistan show how tensions have crossed a dangerous threshold.
