According to a Quinnipiac poll released Monday, sixty-five percent of Americans believe that any agreement with Iran should be subject to congressional approval—increasing the public pressure on the White House to ensure Congress’ role in any final agreement reached. The current bipartisan legislation before the Senate, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act...
Continue Reading >>
Hezbollah has been taking taking advantage of the power vacuum in Syria to try and create a “deterrent balance” against Israel, according to an analysis written by Avi Issacharoff and published Monday in The Times of Israel. Hezbollah has been using Druze, Palestinians and, of course, Assad’s own troops to strike at...
Continue Reading >>
Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), predicted in a speech that “the House of Saud is on the edge of disintegration and collapse,” The New York Times reported Monday. “The House of Saud is on the edge of disintegration and collapse,” General Jafari said,...
Continue Reading >>
A policy towards Iran that is based on the belief that that Islamic Republic will change its destabilizing behavior in the Middle East is mistaken, as even after signing a nuclear deal Iran will not curb the nation’s “imperial ambition,” three fellows at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy wrote...
Continue Reading >>
The Obama administration is “siding with Iran” while operating “over the heads of the Saudis” in its deliberations over the future of Yemen, Tony Badran, a research fellow for the Foundation of Defense of Democracies, wrote Friday in an analysis published on the Lebanese website NOW News. Badran noted that a number...
Continue Reading >>
IHS Jane’s, the leading publisher of defense information, has located a drone base operated by Hezbollah in northern Lebanon, Armin Rosen of Business Insider reported today. The airstrip includes a 2200-foot unpaved runway, several outbuildings, and an antenna that “could potentially be used to extend the range of a UAV...
Continue Reading >>
Conflicts in the Middle East are pushing nations in the region, led by Saudi Arabia, into an arms buying spree that could reach an unprecedented $18 billion in 2015, The Times of Israel reported Friday. “(The) Saudi-led military operations in Yemen (are) the latest manifestation of Arab interventionism, a trend that has...
Continue Reading >>
In testimony before a House of Representatives hearing Wednesday, former Treasury Department official Jonathan Schanzer warned that the sanctions relief being offered to Iran as part of ongoing nuclear negotiations threatens to make “much more terror finance” available to terror groups, The Hill reported yesterday. A former Treasury Department official raised concerns on...
Continue Reading >>
In prepared testimony (.pdf) before a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday, David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, stated that the emerging agreement with Iran over its nuclear program needs to be significantly strengthened, particularly when it comes to verifying compliance with the deal....
Continue Reading >>
In an apparent reversal, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said that it would not deliver S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Iran in the “near future.” The Times of Israel reported today: Russia will not deliver the S-300 missile defense system to Iran in the near future, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was...
Continue Reading >>
