Connect on Twitter
OP-Ed Archive 1
New York Times
In tomorrow’s world, we should not worry if some roads to peace go through Beijing, New Delhi or Brasília. So long as all roads to war do not go through Washington.
March 22, 2023
Responsible Statecraft
Unlike any of his predecessors, the president seems to be openly courting the idea of Israeli military confrontation with Iran.
February 21, 2023
Foreign Affairs
Washington has long feared growing Chinese influence in the Middle East, imagining that a U.S. military withdrawal would create geopolitical vacuums that China would fill.
March 15, 2023
The New Repbulic
Does the war in Ukraine enable the United States to strategically defeat Russia on the cheap? This has become a central argument for countering pressures to end the war or cut its funding.
January 20, 2023
MSNBC
Biden lobbied against a resolution that would've ended U.S.'s complicity in Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen.
December 15, 2022
MSNBC
Biden’s recent diplomatic interventions in the Russia-Ukraine war have given Washington whiplash. In just the past two weeks, the Biden administration has had discussions with Ukraine and engaged in secret direct talks with Russia to prevent nuclear escalation.
November 15, 2022
MSNBC
Joe Biden has a lot of reasons to be furious with his national security team who, against his better judgment, systematically pressured him for 18 months to do an about-face on Saudi Arabia.
October 6, 2022
MSNBC
What the shah did in 1978 is what the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran refuse to do today as Iranians express outrage at Mahsa Amini’s death.
Oct 4, 2022
Responsible Statecraft
The level of anger and frustration in Iran today — on display in dozens of videos across social media — appears far greater than in 2009, when Iranians took to the streets to protest a stolen election and push for reform.
September 22, 2022
MSNBC
Russian President Vladimir Putin's declaration of the partial mobilization of military reservists — a decision he's hesitated to make up to this point — signifies the depth of Russia's military setbacks in Ukraine. But he has also been taking political hits on the international stage.
Sep 21, 2022
Foreign Affairs
As war rages on in Ukraine, diplomacy is on the cusp of prevailing in Vienna. Against the odds, negotiators are poised to revive the Iran nuclear agreement and block Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon—a crucial U.S. interest.
August 26, 2022
MSNBC
The last thing America needs right now is a three-front foreign crisis. Yet here we are.
Aug 7, 2022
MSNBC
If there was any doubt that President Joe Biden should not have visited Saudi Arabia, let alone fist-bumped its de facto dictator, the oil giant’s thinly veiled threats that it might cut rather than increase oil output should settle that issue once and for all.
Aug 25. 2022
June 18, 2022
MSNBC
All the latest headlines about President Joe Biden’s July trip to Saudi Arabia focus on a deal to push down gas prices. In reality, he is making a much more sinister and dangerous calculation than most realize: He is reportedly planning to offer the dictators in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — where all but two of the 9/11 terrorists came from — a defense pact that commits American lives to defend their regimes. What could go right?
MSNBC
How long can Biden stick to Trump’s failed Iran policy without having to take ownership and responsibility for its continued failure?
May 19, 2022
American Prospect
An indefinite security guarantee for Saudi Arabia to gain its cooperation on a problem that could be resolved quite soon doesn’t seem like a fair trade.
May 17, 2022
MSNBC
But now the U.S. is demanding that countries in the Global South make massive and costly sacrifices to save an order the U.S. itself has been at the forefront of eroding. This is equivalent to asking the Global South to make unbearable sacrifices to uphold American exceptionalism.
April 11, 2022
MSNBC
Shifting toward “weakening Russia” rather than “defending Ukraine” is particularly problematic. Unlike other leaks or announcements, the White House has done little to walk this one back. And the former Secretary-General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen has both confirmed and endorsed the shift.
May 6, 2022
Responsible Statecraft
Consequently, failure to secure the nuclear deal will very likely lead to unpredictable and possibly uncontrollable escalation only months before the midterm elections in November. The political costs will be immense. The political costs to both the United States and Iran of either delisting the IRGC or dropping the demand to delist, respectively, pale in comparison.
March 31, 2022
Responsible Statecraft
March 11, 2022
Stunning news today as European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borell announced a “pause” in the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna, citing “external factors.” Diplomats say this refers to the eleventh-hour demand by the Russians, one of the original JCPOA signatories, to relieve some of its sanctions over the Ukraine invasion in exchange for its support on a renewed deal.
MSNBC
Biden is right in seeking to prevent war in Ukraine. But the path in which he chooses to do so — by further eroding international law and norms through the reliance on American primacy or by leading by example by showing renewed respect for international law and the principles underpinning the U.N. Charter — will help determine whether there will be more or fewer Ukraines down the road.
February 22, 2022
New York Times
February 1, 2022
U.S. troops in Iraq quietly thwarted two separate drone attacks on bases hosting American soldiers in the first week of 2022. The attacks, attributed to Iraqi Shiite militias, are no surprise: America’s presence in Iraq is increasingly unwelcome. More attacks are bound to come as long as the Biden administration decides to keep forces there. With each passing day, the risk of a deadly attack increases.
And for what?
The New Republic
January 13, 2022
Last February, in his first major foreign policy speech, President Biden declared, “The war in Yemen must end.” But nearly a year later, the U.S.-enabled death and destruction in Yemen continue apace.
MSNBC
A"return" to the basics of America’s hegemonic Middle East policy will not produce "America, the Peacemaker," but rather more of "America, the War Enabler" because the basics are the problem.
January 25, 2022
MSNBC
However commendable the viral exchanges between journalists and government officials this past week were, they still only scratched the surface of what needs to be questioned.
February 10, 2022
Foreign Policy
February 1, 2022
New evidence has surfaced that China is assisting Saudi Arabia in building a ballistic missile program. Although initial reports about the program emerged in 2019, the Saudi capability to successfully launch missiles had remained uncertain. We now have the “first unambiguous evidence,” researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies told CNN, that China is helping Riyadh to develop such advancements.
IPS
One year into the Joe Biden administration and most of the world has accepted two realities. First, America is not back, and Biden’s slogans notwithstanding, there simply is no going back to the pre-Trump era. Secondly, whether America keeps troops in various parts of the world or brings them home, America’s will to fight is by and large no longer there. Its implications for the trans-Atlantic relationship will be profound. Europe would be wise to pro-actively adjust its defence policies accordingly.
January 8, 2022
January 13, 2022
MSNBC
As the possibility of war looms in Ukraine and Taiwan, a recognizable cry can be heard all over Washington: The United States’ alleged loss of credibility following President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan pullout has emboldened Russia and China.
December 29, 2021
January 8, 2022
The American Prospect
Convinced that the U.S. has lost faith in the strategic value of the Middle East, prime ministers and kings alike are scrambling to find their strategic footing in the region. Amidst the confusion and uncertainty of a world without American protection, two models are emerging.
December 15, 2021
Responsible Statecraft
Biden’s immense efforts to appease Israel in hopes of tempering the latter’s opposition to the JCPOA have not only failed but were likely based on faulty assumptions and were thus a mistake from the outset.
December 12, 2021
MSNBC
While escalation toward conflict remains the most likely outcome if diplomacy is abandoned, changing circumstances have also allowed another potential outcome to emerge: The JCPOA would all but die, but the parties would pretend that it is still alive to avoid the crisis that its official death would spur.
December 6, 2021
The Nation
One month after the Afghanistan pullout, it is still unclear whether we witnessed the beginning of a series of military withdrawals—as part of Biden’s proclaimed end to the era of regime change wars—or if Afghanistan will remain a mere one-off.
October 26, 2021
Responsible Statecraft
New information obtained by Responsible Statecraft reveals that that impasse is not because of an Iranian sense of immunity to pressure, but largely because President Joe Biden refused to commit to keeping sanctions lifted on Iran for the rest of his term.
October 20, 2021
.png)
Responsible Statecraft
Rather than chaos, the Baghdad summit provided a different message: As the U.S. steps back militarily, regional states are compelled to step forward diplomatically.
September 20, 2021
Foreign Policy
There is virtually no cost to withdrawing from the perspective of a future U.S. administration that opposes the deal. The US is too powerful to be isolated politically. It has no economic stake in the survival of the Iran deal. It suffers no financial cost if it betrays it.
August 17, 2021
American Prospect
Five of the six most interventionist powers in the Middle East are armed and politically supported by Washington.
August 9, 2021
Quincy Institute
A qualitative and quantitative view of the region’s conflicts over the past 10 years shows several states to be interventionist to roughly the same degree, contradicting the argument that regional instability is primarily caused by a single “malign actor.”
July 19, 2021
Responsible Statecraft
Donald Trump may no longer be president but he looms large over Iran’s presidential elections. He has proved Iran’s hardliners right for once: the United States cannot be trusted. And the consequences of his policies are now shaping Iran’s increasingly farcical elections.
June 15, 2021
Foreign Policy
Biden’s desired pivot away from the Middle East means that this U.S. option has, at a minimum, become unreliable. Suddenly, regional diplomacy has become the preferred option for Washington’s security partners in the Middle East.
April 9, 2021
.png)
Responsible Statecraft
Donald Trump may no longer be president but he looms large over Iran’s presidential elections. He has proved Iran’s hardliners right for once: the United States cannot be trusted. And the consequences of his policies are now shaping Iran’s increasingly farcical elections.
April 6, 2021
Foreign Policy
Corn is Iran’s main agricultural import, and it imported $2.11 billion-worth of corn in 2018. Although the US is the largest producer of corn in the world, it doesn’t sell a single bushel of corn to Iran. The country’s corn is primarily produced in Republican-controlled states.
April 9, 2021
Time Magazine
If Biden chooses to stay, every dead soldier, every family broken and every opportunity wasted to build back better at home will rest on his shoulders and taint his legacy. America’s endless war in Afghanistan will become Biden’s war.
March 23, 2021
Responsible Statecraft
The idea that Iran would talk directly with the United States while Washington maintained its current level of sanctions was tried by President Trump for three years. It didn’t work then, and it likely won’t work now.
February 28, 2021
The Guardian
"Diplomacy is back!” President Joe Biden declared at the Munich Security Conference last week. But so is bombing Syria, apparently.
February 26, 2021
Foreign Affairs
For the House of Saud and its Emirati allies not to play spoilers in regional diplomacy, the United States must first remove any doubt that the era of American hegemony over the Persian Gulf is coming to an end.
February 23, 2021
Quincy Institute
By all metrics, Pax Americana in the Middle East has failed. The region has become progressively more unstable and violent under U.S. military hegemony. In 1998, it suffered from five armed conflicts. By 2019, 22 violent struggles had engulfed the area
January 21, 2021
Responsible Statecraft
No one thought President Donald Trump would leave quietly. But would he go so far as to start a military confrontation with Iran on his way out?
December 30, 2020
.jpeg)
Newsweek
The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was not just a particularly daring attack against Iran. It was also Neyantahu's opening salvo against President-elect Joe Biden in what is already set to be an uneasy relationship.
December 10, 2020
Responsible Statecraft
The election of Joe Biden provides a four-month window to restore the historic 2015 nuclear agreement. But the months before Biden enters the White House may be even more important.
November 16, 2020
Foreign Affairs
Contrary to the calculations of the Trump administration and its allies in Israel, Biden may now seek not only to rejoin the nuclear deal but also to improve relations with Iran in order to insulate the agreement from Saudi, Emirati, and Israeli efforts to kill it.
November 10, 2020
Middle East Eye
If Joe Biden was right and the 2020 presidential elections were a contest over the soul of America, then his victory is bittersweet. With almost half of the votes cast for Donald Trump, he is undeniably very much a part of the American soul.
November 9, 2020
Responsible Statecraft
With less than seven weeks left until the U.S. presidential elections, the faction within the Trump administration aligned with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seems to be preparing the ground for an October Surprise — a confrontation with Iran that will be cast as both defensive and lawful.
September 16, 2020
The New Republic
What binds Israel and its new Arab allies is not the threat from Iran but the threat of the U.S. military leaving the Middle East.
August 20, 2020
Quincy Institute
July 17, 2020
Foreign Policy
The idea of the Americans and Iranians talking to each other so offended Bolton that he prepared a two-sentence letter of resignation if the meeting were to go ahead.
June 25, 2020