Policy Analysis

Given this month’s shifting threat picture, the administration should push for another compromise deal similar to the June MOU—though getting Iran back to the table will require accepting certain escalatory risks and providing more concrete security guarantees to increasingly vulnerable Gulf partners.

Although the unprecedented decision to jointly prohibit trade with settlements raises difficult diplomatic and political questions amid a weighty Israeli election cycle, the announcement will also have important effects beyond that date, signaling that many countries will prioritize this issue in their relations with whatever government voters choose.

As the September 30 disarmament deadline for PMF militias approaches, Washington should support the Zaidi government’s efforts and ensure that the militias’ concessions are real.

Ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman have provided a helpful export alternative for regional oil producers, but this shuttle trade will likely remain a target for Iranian attacks.

Some textual concerns persist, such as how to handle the risk of Saudi cheating and avoid setting bad precedents, but the official agreement has several worthwhile provisions that reduce the intrinsic risk of nuclear trade.

Given the heavy damage inflicted on more vulnerable facilities closer to Iran, Jordan has emerged as perhaps the most critical center for America’s regional military activities for the current crisis and beyond.

Acts of violence by extremist settlers have risen sharply in scale and severity, shifting from largely reactive incidents to a more proactive, strategic effort aimed at displacing Palestinian communities and seizing territory.

Authorities should view the end of UNIFIL not as a prelude to a security vacuum, but as a chance to establish a workable U.S.-led transition mechanism that brings in Arab, European, and international partners, with the ultimate goal of helping Lebanon exercise full sovereignty over its territory without the support of foreign forces.

Tehran will likely double down on missiles and drones—its most effective weapons during recent conflicts—creating path dependencies that could become critical vulnerabilities if U.S. and partner countermeasures improve further.

As Baghdad moves to the next phase for IS-linked detainees transferred from Syria, Washington should encourage repatriation, fair trials, and cooperation between partners on building a sustainable longer-term framework.

The conditions that created the war will likely recur if Sudan’s military stays fragmented between so many semi-autonomous armed groups.

Despite its underwhelming results, the war has demonstrated that many American partners in the region are able and willing to shoulder a greater burden in securing common interests—though that may not mean much without a more careful and collaborative U.S. policy planning process.

The latest Houthi offensive has shattered the status quo along Yemen’s west coast, upended a years-long truce, and set the stage for further consolidation of their control in the north—but the victory is also Iran’s.

America’s institutional knowledge about global jihadist terrorism took decades to accumulate, but it could disappear much faster.

The United States is safer from catastrophic terrorism, but emerging technologies, weakened international partnerships, and allied military drawdowns in Africa are creating new blind spots.

Three top former counterterrorism officials look back on a quarter-century of combating the global terrorist threat, discussing how their setbacks and successes can help Washington fill gaps in its current CT approach.

Hezbollah and Amal are already manipulating where donor funding goes and who gets credit for reconstruction, so Washington and its partners should coordinate ways to bypass them before the country’s wider reconstruction effort begins in earnest—starting with the first batch of “pilot zones.”

Given the lack of Lebanese political will on display so far, the Trump administration and Congress need to take a tough-love approach.

Although America’s defensive and preventive mechanisms are much stronger today, the global jihadist situation in 2026 is uncomfortably similar to the 1990s, when the movement was treated as a manageable nuisance even as it quietly consolidated sanctuaries, built financial autonomy, and experimented with new methods of attack.

Faced with brain drain, ideological distortion, and a wavering strategic focus, U.S. counterterrorism officials are being asked to do more with less today than their predecessors post-9/11.