Lobe Log

"The bad effects of corruption in high places in both Israel and the United States include compromising the national security interests of each country.” Read more from Paul Pillar on the Trump-Bibi partnership

Netanyahu and Trump, Joined at the Hip By Paul Pillar Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under indictment for corruption, has been launching vociferous counterattacks that sound quite familiar to anyone (including editorial pag…

Iran isn't a North Korea-style dictatorship which means that often times experts offer misinformed views about how its foreign policy gets decided

Iran Isn’t A ‘Unitary State,’ Domestic Politics Play A Role In Its Foreign Policy By Jalil Bayat A nearly 40-year absence of ties between Iran and the United States has culminated in misunderstandings and mistakes between the two governments and an insufficient understanding bet…

Didn't someone write about about how soccer explains the world?

Can A Soccer Tournament Help End The Gulf Cooperation Council Crisis? By Khalid Al-Jaber and Giorgio Cafiero Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain’s football associations recently announced that they would participate in the Arabian Gulf Cup footb…

Paul Pillar examines the devolution patriotism from meaning loyalty to country to fealty to political party

Impeachment and Its Lessons About Patriotism By Paul R. Pillar Sometimes an accusation that a mote is in someone else’s eye (to paraphrase a biblical quotation) ought to underscore the significance of the beam that is in the accuser’s eye. D…

An important poing that often goes unnoticed: Trump’s “maximum preasure campaign” is empowering the IRGC and margianlizing modertes in . By National Iranian American Council's Shervin Ghaffari

Trump’s Sanctions Have Solidified the IRGC’s Economic Empire By Shervin Ghaffari In June 2017, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a speech that “we have given the economy to a government that is armed with guns [that] nobody dares to compete with it.” …

"Ultimately, this new American policy affirms that there is no longer any realistic possibility for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.” Mitchell Plitnick breaks down the Trump admin’s new policy on Israeli settlements

Pompeo Buries The Two-State Solution With New U.S. Policy On Israeli Settlements By Mitchell Plitnick In the latest reversal of long-standing United States policy in the Middle East, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared this week that Washington no longer views Israeli settl…

The Democratic presidential primary circus is drowning out some important conversations

The Democratic Presidential Candidates Have Foreign Policy Differences, We’re Just Not Hearing About Them By Najum Mushtaq A day after Paul Pillar expressed his concern on these pages about the Democratic presidential primary’s “unreal quality” of not focusing on a president’s power to enact foreign po…

"When we look at the overall dynamics of ’s resurgence in the Middle East and Africa, trade statistics and arms sales have limited explanatory power, and do not tell the most important part of the story.”

Russia’s Middle East Resurgence Isn’t Just About the Money By Samuel Ramani and Theodore Karasik Russian foreign policy had a Great October. Last month, Russia brokered a safe zone agreement with Turkey in northern Syria, watched its President Vladimir Put…

Defenders of Israeli settlements in the West Bank predictiably howled “antisemitism” after the European Court’s label ruling. Mitchell Plitnick picks their claims apart

Israeli Settlement Defenders Once Again Turn To False Antisemitism Claims Amid European Court Decision By Mitchell Plitnick For many years, the Israeli government has waged what we might call a campaign of normalization regarding its military occupation of the West Bank. Israel has spared no effort…

Iraqi protestors are demonstrating against Iranian influence, but all Iran’s leaders can see is U.S./Saudi/Israeli meddling.

It’s time for some self-reflection in Tehran

Tehran, It’s Time to Listen and Take A Realistic View Of The Protests In Iraq By Neda Bolourchi More than a month after protestors first took to the streets across Iraq, Adil Abdul Mahdi surprisingly remains the country’s prime minister. In what has been a movement against h…

There are a few greatest hits arguments that proponents of endless war constantly turn to. The WSJ conveniently put them all in one article and the Quincy Institute's Adam Wunische dismantled them

WSJ Article Runs Through The Greatest Hits of a Dysfunctional Foreign Policy Debate By Adam Wunische The unrivaled and unchallenged exertion of American military power around the world, or what’s known as “primacy,” has been the basis for U.S. Grand Strategy over the past 70 years…

Hard to keep up with the firehose of the apocolypse? has you covered

Apocalypse Approach Update By Robert Wright Keeping track of Donald Trump’s contributions to the coming of the apocalypse is a job too big for any one person. The best I can do is check in every month or so and list a few of…