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Nov 25, 2024 | 
foreignaffairs.com | Maria Snegovaya |Jon B. Alterman
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
csis.org | Jon B. Alterman |Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair
The Israeli government announced today that its soldiers had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a firefight in southern Gaza. Sinwar had led Hamas in Gaza since 2017, and he was elected the chairman of the Hamas political bureau in August 2024. Sinwar was a hardliner who felt Palestinians were too conciliatory toward Israel. He was the mastermind of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, and he was thought to have been hiding underground for much of the time since.
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
csis.org | Jon B. Alterman |Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair
Events in the Middle East are not going the way the Biden administration had hoped. A year ago, the administration had embarked on a strategy that would stabilize the region by improving Israeli-Arab ties. Hamas’s October 7 attacks were aimed at stopping that process, and they did. And while Iran has embarked on a campaign to improve its ties with the rest of the world in recent months, the Israeli assault on Hezbollah will stop that.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
csis.org | Jon B. Alterman |Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair
Middle Eastern states have grown used to being a focus of U.S. strategy—and some even seem to view it as an entitlement. Intense U.S. diplomacy following the outbreak of the Gaza war a year ago ended, at least temporarily, a drumbeat of local complaints that the United States was leaving the region. Even so, Middle Eastern states face deep uncertainty about the direction of U.S. policy after November’s presidential election.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
csis.org | Jon B. Alterman |Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair
On September 23, Israeli airstrikes killed almost 500 Lebanese in the country’s deadliest day of conflict since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Hezbollah has been shelling Israel since the day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, and tensions have been escalating in the days since Israel targeted Hezbollah’s communication tools and several key commanders.
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Sep 17, 2024 | 
csis.org | Jon B. Alterman
U.S.-Chinese competition in the Middle East has been exacerbated by China’s increasing engagement in the region over the last 25 years, as well as the two states’ perceived stakes in regional patterns of governance. U.S. efforts to promote economic development overseas have yielded mixed results, and there is widespread frustration over contradictory U.S. strategic objectives and policies.
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Aug 15, 2024 | 
almendron.com | Jon B. Alterman |Sanam Vakil
The lot of Iranian presidents is not a happy one. They enter office as heroes, promising big changes to improve the lives of their fellow citizens. Almost without exception, they leave as broken men. Iran’s problems frequently prove more intractable than its new leaders anticipate. But a bigger obstacle Iranian presidents face is that they have responsibility without authority.
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Aug 15, 2024 | 
foreignaffairs.com | Jon B. Alterman |Sanam Vakil
The lot of Iranian presidents is not a happy one. They enter office as heroes, promising big changes to improve the lives of their fellow citizens. Almost without exception, they leave as broken men. Iran’s problems frequently prove more intractable than its new leaders anticipate. But a bigger obstacle Iranian presidents face is that they have responsibility without authority.
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Aug 9, 2024 | 
csis.org | Jon B. Alterman |Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair
For most of the last month, reports have circulated that a Gaza ceasefire is close. The war has imposed difficult costs on Israel and unleashed destruction on Gaza. Even more urgently, the suffering of the hostages that Hamas holds and the hunger and disease that threatens almost all Palestinians argue for a swift end to hostilities in order to preserve human lives.
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May 20, 2024 | 
csis.org | Jon B. Alterman |Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair
On May 19, 2024, a helicopter carrying Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and other Iranian officials crashed in a mountainous region of northwest Iran, killing all on board. Q1: What will be the impacts of the deaths of Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian? A1: In the near term, the principal impacts will be domestic rather than international. The coercive power of the state in Iran is under the supreme leader, not the president.
