Ali Vaez, International Crisis Group
Iranian and U.S. leaders face domestic pressure to further harden their positions in negotiations to revive the faltering 2015 nuclear accord. Both parties should start a three-phase synchronised process to bring them back into compliance with their nuclear deal obligations before Iran's June presidential...
Luis Rubio, Worldcrunch
Faced with an unprecedented health crisis, the López-Obrador administration has proven itself to be incompetent, overpoliticized and self-involved.
Sergey Sukhankin, Jamestown Foundation
On February 1, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree approving the launch of six major state-supported investment projects in the Arctic region. According to the document, Russia expects to attract more than 200 billion rubles (approximately $2.7 billion) in outside investments to complete these initiatives. Businesses interested in these projects will be able to count on reimbursement (to be defrayed by the Russian state) of up to 20 percent of their total investment. Читать дальше...
Shelly Kittleson, Newlines
An attack Monday night in the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) has led to a flurry of theories, with accusations lobbed mainly at murky armed groups widely believed to be linked to Iran, but whose interests run parallel to those of other non-state actors.
James Forsyth, Spectator
There have always been those on the European side who believe that for the EU project to succeed, Brexit must fail and must be seen to fail. So it is a problem that the first major act of Brexit Britain — going its own way to obtain and approve vaccines — appears to have been a success. For this reason, EU leaders must cast doubt on the achievement. As I
Seth Cropsey, Hudson Institute
On Jan. 27 the U.S. Navy relieved Frank Azzarello, commanding officer of the guided missile destroyer USS Forrest Sherman, of his post just days before his scheduled change of command. The timing and severity of the punishment call into question his superiors' judgment. Commander Azzarello possesses an impressive operational record consistent with an admirable professional career.
Paul Saunders, Russia Matters
As U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration nominate and appoint senior officials across the federal government, pundits, journalists and experts have increasingly speculated about the consequences of these personnel decisions for U.S. policy. While this is a natural and potentially useful activity, it has limitations. Indeed, notwithstanding some fundamental truth in the adage that personnel is policy, and isolated individual officials who have had outsized...
K. Sonin, Moscow Times
After the 2018 Fifa World Cup, Russia has found a new way to promote the country.
Bryce Loidolt, War on the Rocks
A robust, fully cooperative relationship between al-Qaeda and Iran is a frightening prospect. Al-Qaeda remains determined to kill Americans and, despite continued counterterrorism pressure, still boasts a network of affiliates ready to do its bidding. Training,
Kris Berwouts, African Arguments
Tshisekedi has outmanoeuvred his predecessor and has now appointed a PM. But is a victory for the president one for the Congolese people?
Axel Weber, Project Syndicate
Economic forecasting models have long been notoriously inaccurate in predicting inflation, and COVID-19 has further complicated the challenge. Those who heed current consensus forecasts of persistently low price growth could be in for a rude awakening.
Salem Alketbi, Jerusalem Post
The reality is that the mullahs are not able to read the signals of the new US administration. They continue to deal with President Biden as an extension of former president Barack Obama.
Nicholas Nelson & Tony Morash, CEPA
The majority of NATO's focus is on strategic and conventional capability development and deployment, including planning for joint military scenarios, procuring weapons and armaments, and establishing an "enterprise" view of closing conventional kill chains. This focus is generally well-founded. These strategic and conventional needs are deemed critical to the defense of the alliance, particularly in Europe, and define the capabilities required to maintain... Читать дальше...
M. Akbar Notezai, Dipl.
Six months after a supposed revival, the project has been in headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Holly Dagres, Foreign Policy
Tehran is cracking down on elite troublemakers—one influencer at a time.
John Robson, NP
If you're wondering what it would take for the Trudeau administration to get over its crush on Chinese communism, I have no idea. Especially once we learned that despite everything, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) is doing its best to pour our industrial secrets into the Politburo's pockets via … wait for it … Huawei. And by "despite everything" I mean massive evidence of the Chinese Communist Party's hostility to human rights and decency, including... Читать дальше...
Martin Ivens, Bloomberg
Europe can no longer shine on the global stage by virtue of contrast with wicked Donald Trump and blundering Boris Johnson.
Terry Su, SCMP
Between Republican defiance, class conflict and America's fading international sway, the US president will have to walk a fine line to do what America needs - reduce its international commitments to put its house in order first.
Robert Kagan, Foreign Affairs
All great powers have a deeply ingrained self-perception shaped by historical experience, geography, culture, beliefs, and myths. Many Chinese today yearn to recover the greatness of a time when they ruled unchallenged at the pinnacle of their civilization, before "the century of humiliation." Russians are nostalgic for Soviet days, when they were the other superpower and ruled from Poland to Vladivostok. Henry Kissinger once observed that Iranian...
