New Neocon Mantra: Iran, like Soviet Union, on Verge of Collapse

by Jim Lobe Iran hawks suddenly have a new mantra: the Islamic Republic is the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, and the Trump administration should work to hasten the regime’s impending collapse. It’s not clear why this comparison has… Continue Reading

Targeting Iran’s Regime Will Strengthen, Not Break, the Moscow-Tehran Alliance

by Mark N. Katz In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on February 13, hawkish scholar Michael Ledeen argued that “dismantling the Khamenei regime as peacefully as possible” is the best way to end what he describes as the Russian-Iranian… Continue Reading

Who Will Rule Trump Foreign Policy?

by Jim Lobe The most frightening commentary I’ve read in the run-up to the inauguration—and there have been many—appeared in a column identifying the four people whose foreign policy ideas were likely to be most influential with the then-president-elect. It… Continue Reading

For Last-Minute Stocking-Stuffers: Michael Flynn’s Reading List

by Jim Lobe For those of you who are looking for books to buy at the last minute for friends and family for Christmas or Hanukah (or both, in light of the incoming administration’s celebration of “Judeo-Christian”–as opposed, one supposes,… Continue Reading

More on Flynn’s (and Ledeen’s) Book

by Jim Lobe Amid reports that Michael Flynn may be interpreting the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), prepared by the intelligence community, for Trump, and that he also met recently with the leader of Austria’s extreme right-wing Freedom Party (founded by… Continue Reading