Turkey has since the summer been publicly flirting with a $3.4 billion deal that would see Ankara purchase missile defense assets from the China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp (CPMIEC), a company that among other things is currently under U.S. sanctions for violations of the Iran, North Korea and...

Analysts have recently begun analyzing the Middle East as a function of three emerging regional blocs: an Iranian-led bloc that includes Syria and Hezbollah, an extremist Turkey/Brotherhood bloc with which Qatar often aligns, and a U.S.-allied bloc that includes Israel and moderate Arab states. The interactions between these camps vary...

There have been halting suggestions that the U.S. – in order to encourage, or evaluate, or test Iranian intentions – should reevaluate whether to press economic sanctions against Iran. Commenting on those suggestions yesterday, Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL) expressed himself unimpressed: “The Senate should not aid and abet a European...

Recognition of Israeli innovation has become mainstream enough that even the United Nations – where anti-Israel member states are usually described as having an automatic majority – lets the Jewish state take the lead on the issue. Jerusalem oversees thriving computer technology and biotech industries. Israel’s start-up culture contributed to...

Iranian state media is crowing that it has been elected by a vote of the United Nations General Assembly to be the rapporteur of the U.N.’s Disarmament and International Security Committee. The election, according to Iran’s state-linked Fars news agency, was a defeat for the “Zionist regime representative” who had...

Spillover and chaos driven by the Syrian conflict threatens to reverse the critical gains made by the U.S. and its allies during the Anbar awakening. The cooperation of tribal leaders in that region allowed the U.S. to hand Al Qaeda a battlefield defeat. Deepening sectarian tensions in Iraq, coupled with...

An October 2010 deal between Iran and Egypt to resume direct flights between the two countries was described by Iran at the time as part of “a prelude to the resumption of ties between the two countries.” Iran had been seeking to shrug off international efforts to isolate Tehran, and...

Iran has been making sustained efforts to boost its cyber-warfare capabilities for years, developing what had once been at-best rudimentary cyber-war assets into what General William Shelton, commander of the US Air Force Space Command, described in 2010 as a “force to be reckoned with.” Iranian expertise was subsequently leveraged...

Hezbollah has long been criticized for creating inside Lebanon what is effectively a state-within-a-state, where the Iran-backed terror group’s power and weaponry functionally eclipse Beirut’s sovereignty. Lebanon’s Future bloc – the largest faction of the country’s Western-aligned March 14 Alliance – made the criticism a little more pointed this week:...

Turkey’s heavy-handed response to summer anti-government protests – which saw the use of tear gas, live fire, beatings, and so on – was criticized during and after the riots. Arrests and injuries reached the thousands, and Turkey’s European NATO partners in particular demanded investigations into who was responsible and how...