The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg at age 87 has intensified the political battle now raging in Washington and, in the view of some observers, markedly increased the chances of President Trump’s re-election. While the Republican-held Senate is attempting to confirm a replacement ...
The seemingly dormant conflict between Tehran and Washington returned to the fore again this week when U.S. President Trump implicitly confirmed reports that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps was planning the assassination of American officials in retaliation for the killing of former IRGC c...
The Trump administration’s bid to trigger snapback sanctions through the UN has thrown into sharp relief the already grim economic predicament gripping Tehran. Senior officials are publicly signaling that sanctions have crippled Tehran’s ability to obtain even basic necessities, while the best pub...
On Thursday, Secretary Pompeo formally initiated the mechanism known as “snapback sanctions,” a feature of the 2015 JCPOA and its sister UN resolution, UNSCR 2231, in a bid to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran. Tehran and its allies may be expected to fight the measure tooth and nail, but the outcome se...
On August 14, the UN Security Council rejected a resolution that would have prolonged the UN arms embargo on Iran for the foreseeable future, amid reservations from Washington’s European partners that an indefinite extension would incur vetoes from Russia and China. This seems likely to force Wash...
Joe Biden’s long search for a partner to complete the Democratic presidential ticket has finally concluded, settling on the candidate long considered the presumptive favorite by Washington observers, Senator Kamala Harris of California. Although the two clashed early in the nomination process, she a...
Joe Biden’s search for a Vice Presidential nominee to complete the Democratic ticket has continued longer than expected. Amid dissatisfaction with the leading contenders, Biden’s camp has begun to look further afield for potential candidates. This has opened an opportunity for the President’s reelec...
The presumptive Democratic nominee for President, Joe Biden, has run a novel campaign that departs from precedent in several key respects. Perhaps foremost among them is the salience of his choice for Vice President, which looms larger now than in any campaign in recent memory. Biden’s eventual sele...
While the world reels from the ongoing impact of the coronavirus, the Israeli-Iranian confrontation has ascended to a new pitch of escalation. A string of as-yet-unexplained explosions has struck sites in nearly a dozen Iranian cities in the last six weeks. Most prominent among them, an explosion...
In the last few days, Tehran and Beijing have made substantial progress towards an economic and military partnership just short of a formal alliance. While Iran stands to gain much from closer ties with China, the price has been steep. Joint economic ventures with India have been scrapped, future oi...
