Middle East & North Africa

15 Items

 Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

Iran and Gaza Escalation

| Nov. 16, 2023

Assaf Zoran argues for all regional nations and international players to engage in continuous dialogue with the involved and fighting parties in order to mitigate the risk of escalation. Such talks should establish political, economic, and military disincentives for further escalation while fostering opportunities for de-escalation.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad  during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, October 20, 2015.

Kremlin.ru

Analysis & Opinions - Moscow Times

Russia Must Abandon Assad to Fight Terrorism

| November 13, 2015

"The key to a solution to both — the quagmire that has unfolded in Syria and the threat posed by Islamic terrorism — is to deprive the terrorist groups of their main propaganda tools and to form a new Syrian government that excludes Assad (and his foreign Shiite allies) but includes representatives from all of the non-fundamentalist groups involved in the civil war."

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

How Iran Became the Middle East's Moderate Force

| March 20, 2015

"There is only one country in the Middle East that is truly in alliance with the United States in its fight against the ISIS and that is Iran. The military presence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) elite forces in defense of the territorial integrity and political stability of Iraq has already expanded from the Kurdish city of Erbil to the multiethnic capital city of Baghdad."

Fighter aircraft from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and the United States attacked oil refineries in eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Sept. 24, 2014.

DOD

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

The Deeper Meaning of the Iran Nuclear Talks: ISIS, the Middle East and Beyond

| November 24, 2014

"ISIS cannot be defeated with airstrikes, and that's all the West seems prepared to do. The coalition needs local and regional support. It must be prepared to send in large numbers of ground forces for a long time. Only Iran will be both able and willing to do that."

Analysis & Opinions - The Times of Israel

A Nuclear Deal with Iran is Best for Israel

| November 20, 2014

"In the past few years, the threat of an Israeli attack became a major concern for many Iranians. For them, that's a terrifying prospect. The last time Iran was involved in a war, it was a devastating one, lasting eight years, involving the use of chemical weapons against it, targeting of Iranian cities with missiles, and leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. But aside from the humanitarian and economic costs, the war also had a key political implication, one lasting to this day. The regime of the newly founded Islamic Republic was consolidated by the war. At the end of the war, thousands of people were executed, while many more fled the country."