The Iran Nuclear Deal’s Convulsive Death

Vehicles drive on a street across from an anti-US mural in Tehran on March 12, 2022. (Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)

The Iran nuclear deal “has been the Schrödinger’s cat of diplomacy—sealed in a box, neither dead nor alive but in some indeterminate state,” argues Hudson Distinguished Fellow Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal. “These days, however, the stench from the box is getting harder to ignore.” Despite warnings from the Biden administration, Iran’s nuclear program has advanced. Meanwhile, America’s international position has grown less secure, and Russia and China are stiffening Iran’s commitment to the anti-American alliance. Now the president faces the greatest test of his career. What happens next will have immense consequences for American power globally.

Robert Kagan on American Foreign Policy and World Affairs

A child wears a Ukrainian flag during a rally run by people and relatives of Azov battalion servicemen defending Azovstal plant, in Kyiv on May 3, 2022. (Getty Images)

This week Walter Russell Mead spoke with Robert Kagan about the Russia-Ukraine War and its implications for European security, the future of US hegemony, and the liberal world order.

Why Is America Listening to Chinese Threats?

Screenshot of Hudson Distinguished Fellow and the 70th US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo speaking on Fox News.

Hudson Distinguished Fellow Michael R. Pompeo addresses the threats that the People’s Republic of China has made in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s planned trip to Taiwan. He says, “If we acquiesce to that threat, we are in for a long decade.”

Why China Is a Major Threat

Screenshot of Hudson Distinguished Fellow and former Attorney General William Barr speaking on Newsmax.

Hudson Distinguished Fellow William P. Barr explains how the United States has long benefited from a technological advantage that led to American prosperity and military strength that is under threat from Chinese “counterespionage and counterintelligence.” Now China can use its totalitarian system to focus resources on critical technologies while stealing Western innovation. 

American Withdrawal Is America Last 

A C-17 Globemaster takes off as Taliban fighters secure the outer perimeter alongside the American controlled side of of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. (MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES)

Some in the United States want the country to restrict its security commitments, such as the 18 Republicans who voted against Finland and Sweden’s ascension to NATO. But we should deter those who want to weaken us, take away our influence, and diminish our resources. A better approach to foreign policy that secures domestic prosperity admits that retreating will not meet the demands of this dangerous foreign policy environment, writes Hudson Senior Fellow Rebeccah L. Heinrichs in Providence.

BEFORE YOU GO...

Please join Walter Russell Mead and US Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska for a discussion on Mead’s recently released history of US-Israel relations, The Arc of a Covenant. They will discuss the themes of the book, the current trajectory of US foreign policy in the Middle East, and the future of US strategy globally.