Iran Threatens Argentina on Anniversary of the AMIA Attack

A memorial service 30 years after the AMIA attack, Buenos Aires, July 2024. Photo credit: Cristina Sille/dpa via Reuters Connect.

On July 18, 1994, a car bomb exploded in front of the Buenos Aires Jewish community center (known as AMIA) leaving 85 persons dead and over 300 wounded. Until the October 7 Hamas attack, this was the largest terrorist killing of Jews since the Holocaust. On the 30th anniversary of this attack, the Tehran Times, […]

The Trump II Administration and the Iranian Nuclear Challenge

The world is on fire with two major wars in Europe and the Middle East and Iran has a malign involvement in both. As a party to the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis it supports Russia in its aggression against Ukraine. Iran has fueled conflict through its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, threatening America’s close ally, Israel, […]

A View from Tehran: Threats Facing the New President

Iranian President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian. Photo credit: via REUTERS.

Iran’s new president, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, entered office in July with low expectations and no voter mandate, having the narrowest margin of victory for any president since the 1979 Revolution. Had it not been for a sizable Azeri ethnic turnout supporting him in three of Iran’s 31 provinces, the election would have been far closer […]

Japan and the US Converging on Iran

For Japan, a good relationship with Iran was for decades essential for its economic prosperity. Japan had a policy of “agreeing to disagree” with the US over Iran. Today, that policy has started to change.   A Relationship Based on Japan’s Quest for Energy Security  Overviews of Japan and Iran note that trade and cultural ties […]

Video Interview with Uzi Arad

Uzi Arad

The JST’s Ksenia Svetlova interviews Israel’s former National Security Advisor Uzi Arad, about a strategy to counter Iran and the current war in Gaza. This transcript is lightly edited for clarity and concision.  Ksenia Svetlova: Did Israel ever encounter something similar to Iran’s power, determination and also the number of proxies spread around the Middle East […]

An ‘America First’ Democracy Support Agenda for the Next President

Photo credit: Shutterstock.

Freedom and democracy have declined globally over the last two decades. This is bad for US security and prosperity, because autocracies hostile to the United States find more willing supporters among other autocrats. Furthermore, American companies trying to access markets of less-democratic developing nations face opaque regulatory regimes subject to the whims of unaccountable predatory […]

A Freedom Strategy for the Global South

Photo credit: Shutterstock.

In the current cold war, the US and its allies in the Free World bloc are in a sharp contest with the authoritarian, revisionist, and expansionist bloc of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The stakes could not be higher. If the Free World loses this contest, the freedom, security, and prosperity of Americans and its […]

Hidden Discord in the Russia-Iran Alliance

Photo credit: IMAGO/APAimages via Reuters Connect.

When Iran’s President Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May, President Putin expressed condolences and called Raisi a “very reliable partner.” Russian Muslims offered prayers for Raisi at Moscow’s main mosque, and Russian state television provided continuous updates on the funeral arrangements from Iran. Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who also perished in […]

The Failure of the “Economic Peace” Model in the Middle East

Economic peace illustration

On September 26, 2021, Israel’s then Prime Minister Naftali Bennet took the podium at the UN General Assembly and laid out a grand vision for the Middle East. It was a modernist, advanced, technological future (as befitted Bennet, a former high-tech entrepreneur) in which Israel would play a major role – focused upon a world […]

Turkey and Israel Ties at Low Ebb, But Could Recover

Photo credit: REUTERS/Umit Bektas.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a rocky relationship with Israel and bilateral relations have currently reached a nadir.  But Erdoğan pursues a transactional foreign policy in general and, if interests re-align, he could once again restore robust relations with Israel.    A long-time supporter of Hamas, Erdoğan bitterly criticized Israel’s 2008 incursion into Gaza that […]