Ray Takeyh

1 week ago | fdd.org | Reagan Easter |Reuel Marc Gerecht |Ray Takeyh

The nuclear negotiations between Iran and the U.S. appear to be at an impasse. The temptation for President Trump will be to declare victory and pocket a status quo in which Tehran refrains from testing a nuke. The White House may even find comfort in a question senior officials in the Biden administration asked themselves: Why hasn’t Iran already gone nuclear? The Trump administration entered negotiations without clear positions on crucial issues, surprising and cheering the Iranian side.

1 week ago | wsj.com | Reuel Marc Gerecht |Ray Takeyh

The ayatollahs drag out the nuclear talks because they’re no longer scared of the American president. The nuclear negotiations between Iran and the U.S. appear to be at an impasse. The temptation for President Trump will be to declare victory and pocket a status quo in which Tehran refrains from testing a nuke. The White House may even find comfort in a question senior officials in the Biden administration asked themselves: Why hasn’t Iran already gone nuclear?

1 week ago | flipboard.com | Reuel Marc Gerecht |Ray Takeyh

President Donald Trump has promised a “Golden Dome” that will protect the United States. But America’s rivals see the announcement last week of the plans for a new space-based missile defense system as provocation. Trump’s proposal, which as proposed remains years away from being operational, has …

1 month ago | fdd.org | Clifford D. May |Reuel Marc Gerecht |Ray Takeyh

Last week, Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said that talks with the Trump administration appear to be going well. This tells host Cliff May that from an American perspective, the talks are going badly. President Trump has said that America’s goal is the “full dismantlement” of the regime’s nuclear weapons program, including its capacity to produce missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads to targets anywhere in the world.

1 month ago | politico.com | Reuel Marc Gerecht |Ray Takeyh

For too long, U.S. officials have fooled themselves about the nuclear-deterrent capacity of economic sanctions. Now that the Trump administration has decided to reopen negotiations, it’s important that they understand their adversary better, particularly the limits of sanctions to affect Iran’s behavior. To be sure, sanctions (along with chronic mismanagement and systemic corruption) have depleted Iran’s treasury and spurred inflation and unemployment.