The parameters of the future, comprehensive agreement between Iran and the world powers, as made public by the US administration last week, highlight the problematic nature of the ostensible agreement between Iran and the P5+1. The coming three months promise continued negotiations that are meant to result in a final agreement that would significantly reduce the danger of the Iranian nuclear program becoming a military program for producing nuclear weapons. The article presents insights on the parameters made public and policy...
While an arrangement that leaves Iran as a nuclear threshold state may be the lesser of all evils for the United States, it can be expected to be very bad for Israel. A signed agreement of this sort will widen the existing disputes between the Israeli government and the US administration, as well as the gaps in positions on how to deal with Iran. A dangerous shadow may be cast over the strategic relations between Israel and the US. At the same time, Israel stands to gain certain advantages with an agreement that stops Iran at the...
A new Israeli government has yet to be formed and sworn in, but the Israeli and international media have already predicted a collision between Israel and the international community, including the United States. Given the political ideology shared by the potential coalition partners and their approach to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, that prediction is not hard to make. Prime Minister Netanyahu will have to juxtapose the stability of his future government against the risks involved in pursuing the pre-election political promises...
It is questionable whether the marginal effect that the Netanyahu speech may have on the current course of the negotiations with Iran justified the row, tension, and latest cracks in the personal relations between Obama and Netanyahu, as well as the danger of Israel becoming a political football in the US partisan rivalry between the Democratic and Republican Parties. To be sure, the Netanyahu Congressional speech affair is not yet over. There might be renewed attempts to legislate new laws that aim to limit the administration’s...
The Minsk II Agreement, reached on February 12, 2015 between Ukraine and the separatist provinces in the east of the country, did not lead to an immediate ceasefire. The Russian-backed separatists intensified the fighting and succeeded in encircling and defeating the Ukrainian forces in the Debaltseve bulge. Russia is thus working to establish the separatist provinces as a significant actor and position them as leverage against Ukraine’s tilt to the West. Overall, Russia is working to create a “frozen conflict” in Ukraine, which can...
Zvi Magen | Sarah Fainberg | Olena Bagno-Moldavsky
The growing use of information technology, monitoring, and control through computerized control systems, together with the increasing dependence of the free market on products and services supplied through infrastructure (for example, electric power), have increased interdependency between infrastructures. Consequently, an attack on critical infrastructure is liable to have a decisive effect on the functioning of other infrastructures. The interdependence between infrastructures requires those involved in planning a cyber-attack as...
On February 9-10, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Egypt for the first time since 2005, when Mubarak was still in power. The most significant outcome of this visit, which reflects the notable improvement in bilateral relations over the last two years, was the signing of a memorandum of understanding on Russian aid for the construction of a nuclear reactor in western Egypt. The two sides also signed additional economic and commercial agreements, testifying to the significant increase in trade between the countries....
In his State of the Union address on January 20, 2015, President Barack Obama stated that Iran’s progress toward achieving military nuclear capability had been halted and its stockpiles of materials with nuclear potential reduced as a result of the dialogue on the nuclear issue between the world powers (the P5+1) and Iran. Obama’s sentiments were reiterated by Secretary of State Kerry and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power. This was the backdrop for the administration’s expressed dissatisfaction with Israeli Prime Minister...
The December 30, 2014 vote in the Security Council is certainly an Israeli diplomatic victory, given the various resolutions of UN bodies of previous years and the resolutions that were adopted in recent months, for example, in several European parliaments. Whatever doubts existed as to how the US would handle the Palestinian move were removed by a very firm position during the weeks before the vote and the clarification, unquestionably conveyed to other members of the Security Council, that the US would veto even a softened version...
After the Israeli elections, the US administration might intensify its efforts to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Moreover, despite President Obama’s image as a lame duck, the fact that he is nearing the end of his second term in office may actually stir him to expend greater energy to promote an Israeli-Palestinian political settlement, in part through increasing pressure on Israel to soften its positions. Furthermore, it is not inconceivable that when he brings the weight of his office to bear on...
Trends that marked the Middle East in preceding years that were joined in 2014 by new developments are analyzed in this volume, as well as the response of regional and international actors to these processes of change. To date, no political or military response has been found to contain the threat inherent in the crises occupying the regional and international communities in recent years, let alone resolve them. It is therefore likely that these crises will maintain their central position on the international agenda both during 2015...
The Middle East of 2014 might well be described as a bubbling cauldron. Voluntarily or involuntarily, the main international actors – the US, Russia, and to some extent the European Union (EU) – were drawn into the maelstrom. The seizure by the Islamic State (IS) organization of large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, along with its attempt to expand into stable countries such as Jordan and the Gulf monarchies, forced the US and some of its allies to revise their policy of avoiding military intervention in the internal events...
