U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal will be a critical cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. For the last few decades, debates about the future direction and orientation of U.S. foreign policy have dominated the […]
President Trump is widely expected to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal by refusing to issue a sanctions waiver this week. One of Trump’s central attacks on the Obama administration has been the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) […]
Sometimes the biggest challenge for policy makers is not the diagnosis of the problem, but the lack of a proper strategy to fix it; nowadays one of the biggest hurdles in Washington. After failures, errors, mistakes and deliberations, there is […]
For years now there has been a debate about the future of the international system. Especially after the Iraq War some members of the international community started to feel nervous about the irresponsible unilateral use of force by the U.S. […]
The U.S. strikes on Syrian chemical weapons facilities have delivered the Assad regime a strong message but a very narrow one. Assad can continue to attack the Syrian people with conventional weapons without fear for the end of his rule. […]
After a week full of speculations and discussions, the US-led coalition conducted limited airstrikes against the Syrian regime’s chemical weapon production and storage sites on Friday evening. President Donald Trump made a statement explaining the rationale of the military strikes […]
It has been a week since the most recent chemical weapons attack in Syria. On Thursday, it was reported that an investigation confirmed the presence of a chemical weapons attack on the civilians in the country. Since the spread of […]
Assad is at it again. His regime used chemical weapons against civilians in Eastern Ghouta, which has been under attack for weeks. It was about a year ago that Assad used chemical weapons to which President Trump responded with a limited […]
It was August 2012, then U.S. President Barack Obama during a press conference at the White House responded a question in regards to the allegations of the chemical weapon movements in Syria. He was very straightforward in responding to the […]
In the recent past, the foreign policy decision-making mechanism in Washington, D.C. probably has never been this complicated. In the last week, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement that he is willing to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, the complexity […]
It was only in January when former Secretary of State Tillerson announced a Syria policy with several goals (ensuring no return of Daesh, countering Iran, and the return of refugees) but with no clear strategy to achieve them. President Trump made his […]
The U.S. and Turkey have been pursuing conflicting strategies in northern Syria for a while now. Turkey adamantly pursued to end the U.S. support for the YPG while the Trump administration has seen the group as its “local partner” in […]
The latest departure from the Donald Trump administration is National Security Adviser Gen. H. R. McMaster. It was announced Thursday that McMaster will be replaced by John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. McMaster was considered one of […]
President Trump’s dismissal of Rex Tillerson via a Twitter message together with the appointment of Mike Pompeo to head of the State Department has raised many questions about the future course of U.S. foreign policy. So far, the Trump administration […]
In a 2016 book “How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from Pentagon,” while mentioning the increased blurring of the border between war and peace, Rosa Brooks also wrote about the U.S.’s increasing use of military instruments […]
The quote “Great power rivalries are first and foremost contests for allies” is from a book on alliances written by Weiss A. Mitchell, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and last year reviewed in the Wall Street Journal […]
The United States have poured millions of dollars and considerable amount of human capital into its public diplomacy in the Middle East. In its early days, the Obama administration was intent on overcoming negative perceptions of the United States in […]
Since the failed coup attempt on July 15, Ankara has been full of angry voices against the Obama administration. One can find a deep-seated, and perhaps understandable, disappointment with Washington’s reaction. Obama administration’s stance on the Egyptian coup and its […]
For a few weeks we have been following an increasing amount of information regarding the arrest of the Uyghur Professor at Beijing Central Minorities University, Ilham Tohti. Despite several calls from Western governments and human rights organizations, Beijing has not […]