Carnegie Connects

In their 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU), the United States and Iran have agreed to “negotiating and achieving the final deal in maximum 60 days extendable with mutual consent." However, challenges abound at the negotiating table, including the fragile ceasefire on the Israeli-Lebanese border, the ever-problematic Strait of Hormuz, and the issue of nuclear assets and international overs...

“The America that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within,” wrote Admiral William McRaven for the New York Times in 2019, reflecting on what he sensed from his military colleagues during the first Trump administration.  In that op-ed, McRaven stressed the importance of American values in the face of the erosion of institutions and norms that underpin the strength of Un...

More than 100 days into the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, both sides remain trapped between the ever-present danger of serious escalation and an elusive negotiated, pathway out of the conflict. As negotiations stall, Iran and the U.S. are still struggling over core issues while Lebanon and the Strait of Hormuz have emerged as significant triggers for escalation. What are the major obstacles standing...

As the U.S. led war with Iran approaches its fourth month, poised somewhere between escalation and a possible diplomatic off ramp, no relationship has been more important than the Trump administration’s with Israel. Are American and Israeli tactics and strategy on Iran unaligned, if not fundamentally at odds? What about on Lebanon and Gaza? And where does the relationship between President Trump a...

President Donald Trump is in Beijing for a delayed but much anticipated summit with China's President Xi Jinping. A successful meeting—let alone a functional and effective relationship with Beijing—will depend on America reading Xi's China right.  Beyond avoiding war with Washington, what does Xi want in his relationship with the United States? How do issues like the U.S. war with Iran, difference...

Cuba has presented a long-standing dilemma for American foreign policymakers. The nation was at the center of the most fraught moment in recent American history, bringing the U.S. and former Soviet Union to the cusp of nuclear during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the decades since, U.S. presidents have continued to struggle to create an effective their policy for engaging with a Castro-dominated Cu...

Brokered by Pakistan, the United States and Iran have agreed to a fragile two-week ceasefire, dependent on an American condition that Iran agrees to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Israel has also agreed to cease strikes on Iran, but its campaign in Lebanon continues. Can this agreement hold? After six weeks of conflict, why did the parties agree now?  What can we expect from the negotiations...

Seven weeks into the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, and with an uneasy ceasefire in place, it may be too early to predict conclusive winners and losers. How are Russia and China, two of Iran’s closet allies, faring in the balance sheet as the war drags on? And what of Europe, especially France, Germany, and Britain, who appeared blindsided by the war are now under pressure to support the Unite...

More than one month in, the United States and Israel’s war against Iran has resulted in what the International Energy Agency termed the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.” Iran’s ability to control what passes through the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted a fifth of the world's daily oil supply, along with the flow of other commodities such as helium, liquid natural g...

The Trump Administration’s war against Iran has highlighted one of the stranger paradoxes of America’s longstanding relationship with Israel—at a time when Israel’s image in the United States is at low point, cooperation and coordination with Washington has reached an all-time high. One would be hard pressed to identify any large-scale U.S. miliary campaign in decades in which there has been great...

On February 28, the United States and Israel launched military, cyber, and intelligence operations against Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed and strikes were conducted on a broad array of targets, including other senior Iranian leadership compounds, IRGC bases, and missile launchers and production facilities. In response, Iran launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles...

Four years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war drags on, seemingly with no end in sight. The enormity and scale of death and destruction seem unfathomable, with a front line stretching 750 miles and little indication that either side has fundamentally altered the military balance of power. Negotiation under U.S. auspices in various venues and formats continue with no sign that...

A year into President Donald Trump’s second term, the state and fate of the American Republic is uncertain and precarious.  At home, an unprecedented expansion of presidential power has undermined norms and institutions and threatened democratic governance. American politics remain polarized, taking on a tribal and personal character with disagreements often cast as struggles between good and bad....

Protests in Iran have now engulfed its major cities and all 31 provinces, creating a mass movement incorporating all elements of Iranian society, despite a comprehensive internet blackout.  The regime, blaming the United States and Israel for the sweeping movement, is casting the protests as a continuation of its twelve-day war with Israel and is cracking down hard, with the death toll rising. The...

In the first year of his second term, President Donald Trump has pursued an aggressive foreign policy that has shattered the norms and conventions that have guided almost all of his Republican and Democratic predecessors. Although the administration has framed this as an “America first” agenda that will strengthen the nation’s standing around the world and bring prosperity at home, the U.S. nation...

The decision by the U.S. President Donald Trump administration to seize Venezuelan President Nicholás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, to stand trial in the United States reflects the administration’s willingness to undertake a muscular intervention in the Western Hemisphere. Delcy Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, has taken over as the interim president and seems to b...

As 2025 draws to a close, the fate of the Trump administration’s twenty point plan to end the war in Gaza, disarming Hamas and withdrawing Israeli forces, and facilitate good governance, security and reconstruction, has run headlong into harsh Middle Eastern realities. The administration is promising a transition to phase two by the end of the year, but the status of the International Stabilizatio...

It’s no coincidence that the framers—reflecting the importance of the legislative branch—laid out the responsibilities and powers of Congress in Article I, with the executive second, and the judiciary third. And yet as 2025 draws to a close, the role of Congress seems overshadowed by the other branches. What’s happened to skew the balance of power the founders intended? Does Congress still matter...

Perhaps no country in the Middle East has attracted more interest of the Trump administration than Saudi Arabia. President Trump took his first foreign trip there during his first term and he remains focused on the possibility of Israeli-Saudi normalization as part of a regional peace agreement in pursuit of a Nobel Peace prize. The visit of Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman (MBS) to the White Hous...

From covering the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and South Sudan, to examining America’s evolving status on the global stage, to mounting concerns about American democracy under the Trump Administration, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and  New York Times  opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof has had plenty to cover throughout 2025. Kristof’s columns always inspire discussion and debate about the most...

As President Donald Trump prepares for his upcoming trip to South Korea to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be on the agenda. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung first suggested the meeting during his recent trip to Washington. Trump and Kim seem open to the possibility, with one major caveat: Kim has stated publicly that disc...

As we enter the third year of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Trump administration has offered up a plan to end the war in Gaza. But can it be implemented? The goals of the Netanyahu government and Hamas seem all but irreconcilable. Meanwhile, the hostages and the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza continue to endure horrific conditions.  How does the war end? What does the future hold for the...

Nearly two years into the Israel-Hamas war, the two-state solution is back in the news with the United Nations General Assembly voting in support. Unlike in years past, October 7 and the drawn-out conflict in Gaza has led to a wider and much more polarized conversation.  European nations, Arab states, and much of the international community are advocating for Palestinian statehood, while the Trump...

In a world defined by seemingly intractable conflicts, great power competition, and rising challenges posed by climate change, nuclear proliferation, and economic uncertainty, the United States often seems like a modern-day Gulliver tied up and constrained by powers large and small and at times by its own politics and illusions.    How does the United States advance its national interests in the f...

Presidential summits can be useful in opening serious negotiations or closing them with an agreement. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s upcoming summit in Alaska is the latest attempt by the United States to advance peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine—now three and a half years into the war. The outcome of the summit may foreshadow the direction of future nego...