Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune and a foreign affairs writer for Newsweek.
It’s been almost a year since Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that arguably held more power in Lebanon than the government itself, signed a ceasefire to end a ferocious two-month long war. The deal couldn’t have come at a better time; thousands of Israeli air and artillery strikes had pulverised southern Lebanon, Hezbollah’s traditional base
There was a time not so long ago when Germany was US president Donald Trump’s favourite punching bag in Europe. During his first term in office, Trump had a penchant for biting Berlin’s ear off, blasting its political leadership as grossly incompetent, blaming the country for destroying itself by accepting a million refugees and wagging
‘We are ready to accept a deal (with Hamas) that would end this war, based on the cabinet decision,’ Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said this morning. Yet whatever diplomatic momentum existed evaporated into thin air hours later. In an unprecedented Israeli operation in Qatar, Israel targeted the very Hamas officials they were supposed to be negotiating
It’s official: President Trump is tired of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody shenanigans. While he won’t admit it, it’s likely Trump feels strung along and publicly humiliated. Every time he ends a conversation with Putin that he’s relatively pleased with, he learns a few hours later that another batch of Russian drones and missiles have
On Thursday, President Trump gave Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime he has led for more than 35 years an ultimatum: start negotiating over your nuclear programme, or face the full consequences. He would allow another two weeks, at most, for Tehran to prove its willingness to negotiate sincerely. The armchair warriors
President Donald Trump was off the mark when he was asked about the likelihood of an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Thursday afternoon. “I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen,” he said. Hours later, the Israelis conducted a major bombing campaign against dozens of
Another year, another G7 Leaders’ summit. The confab between the world’s wealthiest democracies has long since become one of those boring events etched into the global diplomatic landscape, a more intimate and picturesque version of the UN General Assembly meetings held every September. Speeches are given. Private dinners are arranged. Handshakes and hugs proliferate. And
With the war in Ukraine now in its fourth year, Trump administration officials, including Donald Trump himself, have spent the last month dialling their Ukrainian colleagues, jetting to foreign capitals to meet with Ukrainian and Russian officials and huddling with European ministers in an attempt to bring the conflict to a conclusion. The latest meeting
Joe Biden is out, Donald Trump is in, and ‘the golden age of America has begun.’ Trump’s second inaugural address on this frigid January afternoon was, as one might expect, laced with grievances, bombast, self-congratulation and big promises. The speech was a preview of the dozens of executive orders primed for the president’s signature hours
Hundreds of millions of Americans will have a new president tomorrow. Depending on where you land on America’s increasingly hyper-partisan political spectrum, 20 January will either be a day of dread or joy, a return to the good old times or a step back into rough, unpredictable waters. The same could be said for policymakers
On 29 December, former US president Jimmy Carter died peacefully at his ranch house in Plains, Georgia, at the age of 100. Over the last few years, most people knew him as the old head of state in the rocking chair, surrounded by family and friends, whose sense of morality and numerous good works were the
On Saturday afternoon, US intelligence officials leaked an assessment: the Assad regime, which has ruled Syria for over half a century, could very well collapse in a manner of days. As one official told CNN, ‘Probably by next weekend the Assad regime will have lost any semblance of power.’ It turns out that Washington was giving Assad too
When Donald Trump won his first-ever election in 2016, the world woke up the next morning in a collective state of shock and disbelief. Washington’s allies in Europe were caught completely unprepared; all of a sudden, they had to contend with a leader who relished needling them for all kinds of sins, real and perceived.
If you didn’t know any better, you might think the 2024 US presidential election was a make-or-break moment for America and the world. Allies and adversaries alike will be watching the election results like the rest of us: on the edge of our seats. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are at the centre of the universe
In the two days since Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid and endorsed vice president Kamala Harris as the Democratic party nominee, much attention has been devoted to the mechanics of Biden’s decision, which close advisers or family members may have convinced him to pull out and how the entire episode will shake up the
There’s no point sugarcoating it: the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was a complete mess. Biden was listless, frail and confused. Trump was defiant, ranting and often incoherent. Kim Darroch, Britain’s former ambassador to the United States, summed it up well. ‘Every answer from Trump, if you listen to them carefully,
President Biden doesn’t give many sit-down television interviews, but when he does, he tends to make news. This week he sat down for an on-air session with CNN’s Erin Burnett, who asked him point-blank whether US bombs given to Israel have caused civilian casualties in Gaza. Biden’s response was notable not necessarily because the answer
Very rarely do American presidents get policy wins in the Middle East. The region hasn’t been kind to the United States over the last thirty years. The signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty during the Jimmy Carter years and the U.S.-led military campaign against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War are two exceptions
With the exception of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, it’s safe to assume that Europe is petrified about the prospects of a second Donald Trump presidency. As one European foreign policy analyst told the New York Times last summer: ‘It’s slightly terrifying, it’s fair to say.’ The terror meter went up a few notches this weekend, when Trump addressed
The 28 January drone strike in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and wounded 40 more necessitated a US military response. Under no scenario was President Biden not going to retaliate. The question was how strong the retaliation would be. We now have the answer. Yesterday’s series of airstrikes against the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard
