The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey

US-Iranian negotiations to end the Iran war have evolved into a performative tug-of-war over who has the longer breath rather than an all-out effort to resolve differences, given that neither US President Donald Trump nor Iran wants a full resumption of hostilities. Mr. Trump admitted as much during this week’s public Cabinet meeting that resembled a sycophantic choir praising the conductor. The m...

For Iran, control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz is about dominance in a post-Iran war era, in which the Gulf is looking at an adapted, if not new, regional security architecture.

James argues on TRT that the United States and Iran are nowhere close to an agreement to end the Iran war.

Three months into the Iran war, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have largely been absent, depriving Iran of an opportunity to increase further pressure on Saudi Arabia, global energy markets, and international trade. The Houthis could have bolstered Iranian leverage by disrupting shipping in the narrow Bab al-Mandab waterway, which connects the Suez Canal with the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocea...

James discusses on Radio Islam this week’s Middle East developments.

A resumption of Iran war hostilities could jeopardise Pakistani mediation and turn the South Asian nation into a combatant as differences between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates shape Gulf relations with the sub-continent.

James discusses on TRT World the Iran war’s economic fallout in the Gulf states

The Gulf states’ divergent responses to the Iran war are part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)’s DNA. Founded in Abu Dhabi in 1981 by the region’s six monarchies, the GCC aimed to be a hub for military coordination, intelligence sharing, and economic integration in response to the 1979 anti-monarchical Islamic revolution in Iran. The monarchies established the GCC on the back of their support...

A US and Bahraini draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a halt to Iran's throttling of traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz has spotlighted US-Chinese disagreements rather than the consensus President Donald Trump claims he achieved in this week's talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. A Security Council vote on the resolution would be a litmus test of the...

James discusses the struggle for the Strait of Hormuz, US President Donald Trump’s visit to China, US-Gulf relations, and the return of sectarianism on Radio Islam.

US President Donald Trump has rejected Iran’s response to peace talks as tensions rise ahead of his trip to China, while global powers prepare military plans to restore trade routes through the Strait of Hormuz. CNA938’s Daniel Martin speaks with James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.

The United States and Iran are closer to a deal that would end the Iran war. James M. Dorsey tells TRT World why that does not mean that they are close to reaching agreement.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on thin ice when he declared this week on the White House press podium that “Operation Epic Fury is concluded.” Mr. Rubio’s reference to the codename of the two-month-old US-Israeli assault on Iran echoes George W. Bush’s 2003 Iraq war “Mission Accomplished” declaration, eight years before the president withdrew US forces from the country. Even so, both the Un...

The good news is that Iran’s latest ceasefire proposal apparently includes elements that US President Donald Trump finds worthwhile considering, even if he insists that it doesn’t go far enough. The bad news is that the US and Iranian positions remain so far apart that a degree of renewed military conflict seems inevitable.

The gap between the US and Iranian positions is widening. Whatever understandings existed have vanished. Driving the widening of the gap are US inflexibility, the increased influence of Iranian hardliners due to the war, and the expectation that domestic and economic pressure will force the other to blink first. The question is whether the widening gap takes on a life of its own, with a renewal of...

Celebrated Orban’s defeat-That may have been premature by James M. Dorsey

An Iranian delegation led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Islamabad for talks with Pakistan’s leadership, as uncertainty hangs over potential negotiations over the weekend. Iran’s foreign ministry says no direct talks with the US are planned in Islamabad, adding that Tehran will instead relay its position through Pakistan. But in a contradictory statement, the White House says St...

The US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz threatens to backfire as the Trump administration and Iran seek to gain the upper hand. Iran assumes that US President Donald Trump believes it's a matter of days, or at most weeks, before the blockade's economic and military pressure compels the Islamic Republic to compromise on at least some of its demands. Mr. Trump has conditioned the lifting of th...

Will the Iran war gun remain silent by James M. Dorsey

It’s going to take more than a knife-edge game of bluff poker to get US-Iranian talks back on track. To successfully pull back from the brink, both the United States and Iran would have to fundamentally alter the assumptions underlying their negotiation strategy and what they hope to achieve in talks. That may be a tall order, particularly for President Donald Trump, who clings to the fiction of a...

The 1987 Iran-Iraq Tanker War offers important lessons for today’s US-Iranian stand-off in the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The war erupted as a subset of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war after Iraq’s navy attacked Iranian tankers and oil facilities. The similarities between the Tanker War and the battle for the Strait are significant.

US embassies in three Muslim-majority countries have warned the State Department that the United States is losing the war of narratives with Iran. In cables to the State Department dated April 15, seen by Politico, US diplomats in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and Indonesia cautioned that pro-Iranian digital influencers, bots, and memes effectively exploit US weaknesses, including restrictions on the embas...

If the US, Israeli, and Iranian armed forces have anything in common, it may be militant interpretations of faith as a motivational driver that demonises the enemy, projects war as inevitable, and obstructs, if not precludes, long-term negotiated conflict resolution. The pathways of the three militaries towards positioning faith as an overarching ideological driver differ. They represent alternati...

US President Donald Trump has made Iran’s nuclear ambitions, alongside free passage through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the key to permanently ending the war. The contours of a potential agreement on the nuclear issue have been on the table since last June, when Israel launched its 12-day war against Iran during which the US bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities. The contours remained on the...

Several factors doomed US-Iranian negotiations in Islamabad to end the Iran war from the outset. Even so, the failure did not immediately spell doomsday, that is until US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, his first response to the failure, announcing that the United States and other unidentified countries would blockade the strategic Strait of Hormuz. “Effec...