Nicholas Burns testified on August 5, 2015, before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, on "The Implications of Sanctions Relief Under the Iran Agreement."

"Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Brown and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify on the international agreement to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons power and the implications for sanctions relief.

This is one of the most urgent and important challenges for our country, for our European allies as well as for Israel and our Arab partners in the Middle East.  The United States must thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions and its determination to become the dominant military power in the region."

Nicholas Burns testified before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on Aug. 4, 2015, on "The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the Military Balance in the Middle East."

"Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Reed and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify on the international agreement to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons power.

This is one of the most urgent and important challenges for our country, for our European allies as well as for Israel and our Arab partners in the Middle East. The United States must thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions and its determination to become the dominant military power in the region."

In a Harvard Kennedy School IDEASpHERE session titled "Challenges to US Global Leadership," Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, David Gergen, David Ignatius, and Meghan O’Sullivan discussed challenges as well as opportunities facing the United States. Burns moderated the session.

Challenges include the rise of China and the future of the U.S.-China relationship, the crises taking place around the world, and the reputation of the U.S. worldwide. An unexpected opportunity is the increase in available energy sources in the United States.

Iran and six world powers clinched a deal on Sunday curbing the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for initial sanctions relief. Sounds pretty good, but of course nothing is that simple and already Israel has called it a "historic mistake." Which is it? And what's going to happen next? Harvard Kennedy School professor and GlobalPost senior foreign affairs columnist, Nicholas Burns, weighs in.

Professor Burns discusses the shift in policy and tone coming from Iran, courtesy of its new president, Hassan Rouhani, and what that means for future relations between the U.S. and Iran.

Read about the Harvard Kennedy School’s JFK Jr. Forum event that drew more than 700 people on Wednesday night to listen to an expert panel discuss Syria. The panel of Graham Allison, Joseph Nye, Nicholas Burns, Marisa Porges, and Niall Ferguson, debated on whether or not the U.S. should intervene militarily in Syria. At the end of the Forum, the audience was polled for their take, with 55 percent voting against military action.

Professor Burns discusses this week's extraordinary events surrounding the chaos in Syria and the Russian offer to broker a diplomatic end to the crisis.

As Congress was considering whether the United States should take military action in Syria against the regime of President Bashar Assad for allegedly using chemical weapons against civilians, Gazette staff writer Christina Pazzanese spoke with R. Nicholas Burns, the Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, about the unsettled situation and the military, political, and humanitarian actions that the United States and some allies might undertake in a Mideast nation torn by civil war.

The debate about how to handle the Iranian nuclear program has resurfaced since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent comments on CBS's "Face the Nation." Professor Burns looks at it from both sides and reiterates his warning that marching to war--right now--is not the right approach.

The Belfer Center's Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Ashraf Hegazy, Joseph S. Nye, and Stephen Walt consider the U.S.'s shifting foreign policy in the Middle East.