All Policy Analysis by Michael Singh

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While the United States and Israel are winning based on measures like the degradation of Iran’s naval force and missiles, a broader victory will require securing domestic support and avoiding the maximalism that has hindered past American military efforts.

Rather than choose between a narrow nuclear deal and open-ended war, the United States should conduct limited military strikes against Iran’s missile program and security services and double down on a pressure strategy that was working.

President Trump’s recent military adventures seem driven less by confidence and canny strategy than by fear of America losing status on the world stage, including in the Middle East.

U.S. envoys should be focused less on making a deal and more on how they can use the prospect of imminent military strikes to secure concessions on the nuclear issue, missile threats, treatment of protesters, and other matters.

As protests grow, regime leaders have no clear options for scaring Iranians off the streets, intimidating foreign powers, or escaping their wider strategic crisis.

Barring sustained U.S. efforts, Gaza’s de facto division into Hamas and Israeli zones will likely persist, and the ceasefire will be remembered as just the prelude to the next conflict.

Given the group's hostile long-term goals, the Trump administration needs an empowered envoy to lead several projects in parallel, from developing a capable Palestinian security force and replacing the PA’s leadership to curtailing Israeli fringe elements and resuming Arab normalization talks.

Actually enforcing them will require hard work by Western diplomats and experts in the face of opposition from Tehran, Beijing, and Moscow.

From insisting on zero enrichment to making the ceasefire conditional, officials should ensure that any post-conflict negotiations with Tehran fully address U.S. policy imperatives, including the need to prevent reconstitution of the nuclear program.

A compilation of views on the next round of prospective talks with Iran, sanctions relief options, military and technical considerations, the international role, and more.

The breaking of the national security state is indeed a crisis, but it also represents an opportunity to build a compromise approach tailored to the world’s present-day threats, similar to the situation policymakers faced immediately after World War II.

Definitive conclusions about the post-October 7 environment remain elusive, but it is not too early to draw lessons and consider the problems and opportunities that may arise from the recent upheaval in 2025.

The Institute’s managing director testified before a Senate panel on U.S. policy post-Assad, explaining how patience, pragmatism, and a willingness to lead can help Washington avoid its past vacillation between excessive intervention and exasperated neglect in the Middle East.

Watch congressional testimony by two Institute scholars focusing on U.S. policy options in the face of Syria's evolving reality.

Rather than choosing between diplomacy and military action, the Trump administration should think of these options as mutually supportive, sequencing its actions in hopes of achieving the best and least costly outcome.

Policymakers would be wise to view Pezeshkian’s rise not as a development that will change Iran, but as a reflection of a regime that is struggling to stave off domestic troubles.

A treaty would pave the way for better security integration among U.S. partners in the region and reduce the need for direct American intervention.

The true U.S. strategy debate in the Middle East is not about whether we should stay or go; it’s about how to continue advancing the interests pursued by successive administrations even as hostile competitors and unresolved threats combine to throw U.S. regional policy off balance.

Beijing doesn’t care that its “Palestinian unity” agreement is a nonstarter or that a Hamas victory would undermine Chinese interests in stabilizing the Middle East—it just wants the United States to lose.