Politics & Diplomacy

TRADE IN ACTION October 5, 2018

By Global Business & Economics Program

How Iran and the Gulf Arab States Can Start a Dialogue Again

By Hussein Ibish

It’s hard to overstate the regional impact of the rivalry between Iran and several Gulf Arab states—most notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—bordering in recent years on enmity. While these countries haven’t come close to direct warfare, tensions have impacted many regional conflicts in the Middle East including in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, […]

‘The fundamental fix is who we are’

By David A. Wemer

“Russians really aren’t the heart of our problem,” former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said at a conference hosted by the Atlantic Council in Washington on October 3.

So much for US-Iran amity

By Ashish Kumar Sen

“Theater is part of diplomacy... In this case, we have a largely symbolic US action regarding a mainly obsolete treaty in response to another largely symbolic Iranian action regarding a generally ineffectual court,” said William F. Wechsler, interim director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.“

South Sudan’s first vice president optimistic about peace, but no one is buying It

By Ashish Kumar Sen

The almost 400,000 people killed over the past five years “is a higher mortality rate vis-à-vis population than the civil war in Syria,” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

Macedonia vote is not the end of the road

By Sarah Bedenbaugh, Damon Wilson, and Graham Brookie

Voter turnout on September 30 was disappointing by some measures, but the vote and the result itself was cause for great optimism as citizens made clear their preference for a European future.

High-level roundtable with South Sudan’s First Vice President Taban Deng Gai

By Africa Center

On October 2, the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center hosted a roundtable with Taban Deng Gai, currently first vice president of the Republic of South Sudan, on the situation in his country following the signing of the most recent peace agreement between President Salva Kiir and former First Vice President Riek Machar last month. Dr. J. […]

Macedonia’s European dream: what next?

By David A. Wemer

“If Macedonia wants to be in NATO and the European Union, it by definition must come to an agreement with its neighbor Greece,” said Damon Wilson, executive vice president of the Atlantic Council. 

Iran-Israel Animus Exacerbates the US-Iran Divide

By Barbara Slavin

NEW YORK — Iran’s mellifluous foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, was in characteristic form Saturday afternoon as he sparred with a small group of journalists and US-Iran hands and fulminated against the policies of the Trump administration. Iran would survive the latest barrage of US sanctions, Zarif insisted, noting President Donald Trump’s relative isolation at […]