Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in Middle Eastern politics, diplomacy, and U.S. foreign policy. He contributed articles to The Weekly Standard from 2002 to 2012, frequently covering Iran, Iraq, Kurdish affairs, and intelligence policy. A former Pentagon official, he is a prolific commentator on national security issues.
Tension between Iran and the United States flared on December 28, 2011, when Habibollah Sayyari, commander of Iran’s navy, threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the 34-mile-wide passage through which more than one-third of the world’s oil tanker traffic travels. His televised statement that…
Iran today may be the most sanctioned country on earth. After the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2005 finding that Tehran was not in compliance with its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards obligations, the United Nations Security Council has slapped four sets of sanctions on the…
On April 22, several hundred Taliban fighters moved from their stronghold in the Swat Valley to the neighboring district of Buner, just 60 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton underscored the seriousness of the crisis, accusing the Pakistani government…
During the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama promised to meet the leaders of Iran "without preconditions." He appears a man of his word. Within days of his election, the State Department began drafting a letter to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intended to pave the way for face-to-face…
During his February 5 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell backpedaled from the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and its claim that, "in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."
As pundits begin to write their obituaries of the Bush presidency, much ink will be spilled over foreign policy. As always, the victors will pen the history. And in the case of the Bush administration, those victors are the permanent bureaucracy at the State Department--the Foreign Service.…
As relations between Washington and Tehran deteriorate, critics of the Bush administration are seeking to cast blame for the rocky relationship not on Iran's nuclear program or support of terrorism, but on President Bush's intransigence. At the root of the attacks is the administration's supposed…
Speaking before the Senate Appropriations Committee on February 27, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stepped into a diplomatic minefield when she referred to the Iraqi-Turkish frontier as "the border between Turkey and Kurdistan." Turkish newspapers and television across the political spectrum…
Twice this past week, on January 23 and 25, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held hearings on intelligence reform. Topics included the remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations and efforts both to facilitate information-sharing across the U.S. government's 16 intelligence agencies and to…
POLICYMAKERS ARE ABUZZ with the explosive recommendations for U.S. policy toward Iraq soon to be released by the Baker-Hamilton Commission: Abandon democracy, seek political compromise with the Sunni insurgents, and engage Tehran and Damascus as partners to secure stability in their neighbor. While…
AS ISRAELI WARPLANES pounded Lebanon last week, European leaders called for diplomacy. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan dispatched a three-member team to the region to urge all parties to exercise restraint. Even President George W. Bush said, "To help calm the situation, we've got diplomats in…
ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2001, President George W. Bush put the world on notice. "We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Unanimously, senators and congressmen…
THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER Yellow Hezbollah FLAGS fly over the rubble of the Tourmus agricultural station on the Israel-Lebanon border. Following Israel's May 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah guerrillas dynamited the cattle pens and vaccination clinics where Lebanese farmers once…