Hamas’s horrifying attack on Israel has claimed over 1,200 lives and thrown the Middle East into turmoil. As Israel and the US formulate their response, the nature of Iran’s involvement and backing remains one of the most important questions to resolve. Writing for Foreign Policy, Danielle Pletka shows how Iranian officials had been publicly encouraging an attack like this for months.

Israel’s government has yet to settle on its military strategy and ultimate objectives for responding to Hamas’s attack. In past crises, Israel has limited itself to air strikes or limited incursions, but what would a larger ground invasion look like? Kenneth M. Pollack explains and evaluates the prospects and risks of Israel’s likely military options.

An increasingly insurmountable rift between Iran’s theocratic regime and its large youth population threatens the long-term prospects of the Islamic Republic. In a new Critical Threats Project and AEI report, Kitaneh Fitzpatrick analyzes the shape of this domestic crisis and assesses the ideological “soft war” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is waging on Western cultural influences.

Meanwhile, the US Congress remains paralyzed as Republicans are still unable to agree on a new Speaker of the House. In the New York Times, Yuval Levin dissects the “perverse misalignment of incentives” between our constitutional and electoral structures that have made constructive, legislative work so difficult.

From 2009 to 2018, China spent some $60 billion on electronic vehicle (EV) development, and now both the US and Europe are struggling to compete with the scale of Chinese EV exports. While the US has dramatically responded with subsidies and tariffs, Claude Barfield argues that Europe’s domestic industry is likely to be overwhelmed.