published in Where is Iran Heading? — Regime’s Battle for Supremacy or Survival, Francois Cocombet (ed), (Paris, La Fondation d’Etudes pour le Moyen-Orient, May 2017)
“While countries normally strive to be better known and understood in order that their national interests may be respected by others, Iran’s ruling regime thrives on quite the opposite phenomenon: being misunderstood….The result is that the revolutionary government that has held power in Iran for the past 38 years is perceived differently by at least seven different major constituencies within and outside the country.”
Letter to the Washington Post dated May 27, 2017 citing the dangers of gerrymandering favoring one political party and suggesting grounds for reform
Read letter
Framing the broader issues at stake for the ruling clerics of Iran, and for the United States, in Iran’s May 19, 2017 Presidential election
Read commentary
“The U.S. should think about giving Putin a taste of his own medicine: injecting information into his political space. However, instead of propaganda and false messaging, we have something far more potent: the truth. Why more potent?
Read MoreWith “1,000 bowls of rice” vying for resources, authority, and authorship of policy, one can understand why President Barack Obama has often relied on a tight circle of trusted White House aides rather than expecting the interagency to provide consistent and timely policy responses to world events.
Read MoreWhat Iranians today know all too well, and Americans would profit by better understanding, is that the ‘theocrats’ secured control of Iran not by bringing down the Shah, but by bringing down the revolution.
Read more
How Well Does Washington Understand Iran?
By following the money, not only can Congress help the American public understand whether indeed the tens of billions of unfrozen assets are fueling destructive Iranian meddling in neighboring countries, it can help lay the foundation for a consensus Iran policy post-agreement that better serves American interests.
Read MoreWe need a renewed recognition among our political leaders that threats to American security require sustained bipartisan commitment to help other societies resolve and recover from conflicts. Afghanistan, like Iraq, will test U.S. leadership and define America’s role in the world.
Read MoreCongress should ask the administration to explain what power, authority or influence it believes the Iranian President exercises over the country’s affairs, including but not limited to the nuclear establishment. Is President Rouhani the chief executive setting policies and overseeing day-to-day stewardship over Iran’s economic assets, foreign activities, justice and law enforcement, control of the information domain and the like?
Read MoreIt is time for the United States to clarify and reconfirm national policy and procedures on targeted killings with UAVs. Not only is this needed to reassure the public of adequate legal authorization and operational oversight.
Read MorePrivate investment in the developing world and well-conceived public-private partnerships are two things that work. There is no easy cure for all our planet’s ills, but these are trends that can narrow the gap between the most and least advanced societies, bringing those societies left behind into the 21st century and making the world more stable and secure.
Read MoreWith so much invested and so much at stake in the Middle East, it is never too late to step up efforts to advance American interests. The credibility of presidential red lines matters, but only by exercising leadership in taming the dangers clouding the region’s future will the US preserve its influence and reputation, which are foundations of American power.
Read MoreUnchecked, hostile action in space could produce debris, orbiting the earth at nine times the speed of a bullet, so prevalent as to put at risk all sophisticated spacecraft including satellites. This could place manned and unmanned space flight at unacceptable risk of mission failure due to catastrophic collision with debris.
Read MoreSyria is indeed a wicked problem, and the President does have other priorities. But leaders in Tehran, Riyadh, Ankara, Doha, Amman and Moscow among others have obviously determined that their future interests require concerted efforts to influence the outcome in Syria, if only to stave off the worst contingencies.
Read MoreWhile the regime’s judges, jailers, gunrunners, media censors, intelligence agents, paramilitary forces and nuclear engineers march on with their projects, all variously aimed at keeping the regional contagion of political change away from their doorstep, Washington appears to be resting its hopes on ever-tighter sanctions and a moderate new Iranian president to resolve these threats to regional peace and U.S.
Read MoreThis decision required political courage, as it was certain to displease the Iranian fundamentalist regime with whom a negotiated end to the nuclear standoff is sought, and coming soon before the US elections. Had she not acted the U.S.
Read MoreThe essence of Iran’s “information operations” activity has been to derogate from the MEK’s image and influence with western governments by seeking to tie the MEK to actions highly prejudicial to the MEK’s image with target audiences in Iran, Europe and the United States.
Read MoreFamilies victimized by the 9/11 attacks gained some solace from the knowledge that their country did not give up its pursuit of the chief perpetrator. The nation’s military and intelligence professionals accomplished the one deed without which the decade-long response to Al Qaeda would forever have been incomplete.
Read MoreBy including close allies in the deliberative process aimed at maintaining the security of space and cyber systems against hostile threats, US decision makers can forestall dissension among friendly capitals once military action is taken, and hopefully receive strong public backing from allied governments.
Read MoreA Washington budget process capable of exerting effective influence on the security challenges of this century will do well to begin with a top-level political consensus on the goals to be pursued and the national interests at stake in our success or failure to achieve them.
Read MoreBy remembering that “it’s the adversary, stupid,” the US will better focus on the decision calculus of that government and its own political-economic-security centers of gravity, which may not assign a comparatively high value to its own access to space.
Read MoreIt takes years, and changes in assignment or portfolio, to come to understand the workings of U.S. foreign and defense policy, to say nothing of military operations. For those who achieve decision-making levels, knowing how things are supposed to work is an essential qualification.
Read MoreWhat is new today is not just the emergence of non-state actor adversaries, their asymmetric methods, or their penetration of our homeland – important though all of these trends are. The strategic shift we have perhaps not grasped is that success in conducting the nation’s wars is no longer a function solely of mastering the other side’s center of gravity….
Read MoreThe IMET program encourages participation from the broad range of people necessary to create a healthy military culture within a country, and has adapted curricula to meet the requirements of a changing security environment. Each year, IMET participation has become more diverse, expanding beyond the traditional base of military officers.
Read MoreThe future of mine action and the complementary efforts to protect civilians from mines and other explosive remnants of war should be dynamic and fruitful. A great deal has been learned since the inception of humanitarian demining just over a decade ago.
Read MoreWe can try to develop weapons that will give future presidents alternatives to weaponizing Space and devise attack options that minimize escalation of a conflict. What seems beyond the art of the possible, however, is for future adversaries to consider U.S.
Read MoreLetter to New York Times re Experience of candidates Bush and Gore — download PDF
Read MoreCiting Alexis de Tocqueville’s 19th century observations of American civilization, he particularly commends the American ability to “combine religious spirituality with the virtues of liberty.” If further disquisitions along these lines are to be Khatami’s chosen vehicle for engendering renewed popular acceptance of Iran in America and thereby influencing US policy, the Iranian president might profitably rethink some of his basic conceptions about the American people.
Read MoreThe US has, rightly, stood up to Iraq’s brazen efforts to evade UN scrutiny of its weapons of mass destruction programs, so that the Middle East might be spared a future calamity. But being right is not enough.
Read MoreSacrifice is the moral core of leadership. A true leader demonstrates commitment to a cause, and in turn demands commitment from others, by sharing in the rigors, burdens and hardships of the tasks at hand. Too many politicians today follow the path of least risk to themselves;
Read MoreA millenium before the birth of the United States, the Abbasid Dynasty was already settling in for its 500-year reign in Baghdad. If U.S. policy in the Gulf is to have any chance of advancing American interests at an acceptable cost, it must point the way to a modus vivendi in which friendly and unfriendly actors, benign and dangerous alike, can coexist and function peacefully.
Read MoreIf ‘political Islam’ poses a potential threat to American interests, it is not the kind of phenomenon against which the Pentagon has been conditioned to defend. Nor should it necessarily be viewed in adversarial terms. A persuasive argument can be made that by treating Islamic fundamentalism as the latest “ism”
Read MoreProvided we act vigorously and purposefully to keep Asian defense relationships in good working order, we and our allies will be able to contain and counter any threat emanating from North Korea without doing violence to the NPT.
Read MoreMost Americans are humbled by Israel’s ability to act with vision despite all the PLO has done against it. Unless one has advance a comparable vision to resolve the crisis in Somalia, one ought to leaven his or her criticisms with a measure of humility.
Read MoreMuch of the American reticence to date over the use of force has stemmed from the fear of “another Beirut.” But both proponents and opponents of a greater U.S. military role in the Balkans who equate the 1982-1984 Lebanon intervention with unqualified disaster overlook a remarkable fact about that U.S.-led operation: it worked.
Read More