Iraq

To hide its fingerprints on future attacks against U.S. interests, the regime is focusing on its regional 'Shia Liberation Army' and potentially seeking to radicalize lone actors.

Three experts discuss how Washington can manage escalation and catalyze diplomacy while still using its military instruments to apply pressure.

Various displacement scenarios may unfold as the fighting escalates, each carrying a high risk of negative humanitarian and economic consequences even if the parties live up to their promises.

The surest way to counter Iran’s malign influence is to proactively focus on human rights issues that the new prime minister can actually affect, such as organizing free elections and preventing further violence against protestors.

Iraqis have expressed broad political, religious, and public support for checking the militias more quickly, so the U.S. government should take several steps toward that end.

On January 15, 2020, Ambassador Barbara Leaf testified at a hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security on the homeland-security implications of ongoing tensions between the United States and Iran. The following are her prepared remarks. Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Rogers, Distinguished members of the Committee, Thank you for

Mass funerals aside, his image as the quintessential Iranian nationalist made most Middle Easterners wary or actively hostile toward him, so the United States is unlikely to face popular reprisals following his death.

Last year’s Washington Institute forum on post-Soleimani succession suggested that the IRGC would lose a unique coordinating capability and its most important totem once he left the scene.

Khamenei and other regime officials have been quick to swear revenge, but for now they may focus more on stoking patriotic and militaristic sentiment at home.