Moscow's balancing act in Syria;
A reshuffle in Russia's regions

The perennial president;
Britain: a safe haven for Russian "dirty money"

Still more environmental woes...;
...prompt a predictable regime response;
Iran and Hezbollah as a hedge;
Iran's Baha'i under fire;
An Iranian hand in Palestinian turmoil;
Losing Iraq

Just how deep does Iran's influence run in Syria? After a half decade of overt and covert Iranian military assistance to the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Iranian regime is widely understood to be playing a key role in the Syrian theater. But, according to a new study from the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, an Istanbul-based think tank focused on the Syrian conflict, this backing is far broader than commonly understood, and encompasses not just military assistance but also an extensive web of economic and political contacts that are designed to give the Iranian regime a lasting presence on the territory of its top regional ally.

Pakistan's "University of Jihad";
Egypt attempts a new strategy in the Sinai;
Saudi Arabia seizes the moment against the MB...;
...and makes a move toward religious pluralism

It's official: the Iran nuclear deal is dead.

On May 8th, in a nationally televised address, President Trump announced that his administration was withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). By doing so, the White House has effectively killed the signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama era.

U.S. policy: Back to sanctions...;
...and plans for a broader strategy;
Meanwhile in Iran, official anger...;
...and grassroots ferment

On Monday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu dramatically unveiled records detailing "Project Amad," Iran's "comprehensive program to design, build, and test nuclear weapons." The information was taken from 100,000 pages of documents Israel had secretly obtained in January from a warehouse in Tehran. The records do not deal with ongoing aspects of Iran's nuclear program - Project Amad was suspended in 2003 - but they do show that Tehran had been lying about the program's peaceful intent. They also reveal how far Iran has gotten in planning and development of nuclear weapons, and how quickly such a program could be reconstituted - assuming work is not already continuing under the weak verification regime of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

These days, it's increasingly clear that the Iran nuclear deal is on life support.

For much of the past year, opinion within the Trump administration has been more or less evenly divided between those who support preserving the 2015 agreement (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) with some modifications, and those - including the president himself - who advocate its outright annulment. But no longer. Recent staffing changes at the upper echelons of the administration have swung the pendulum decisively in favor of Donald Trump "nixing" the agreement at the earliest possible opportunity.

Whatever happened to the Iranian cyberthreat? Not all that long ago, American officials were preoccupied with the growing disruptive capabilities that the Islamic Republic had begun to demonstrate on the World-Wide Web. That, however, was before the start of negotiations over Iran's atomic program in 2013. Those talks allowed Iran's cyber activities to recede from public view, as policymakers in Washington focused their attention on nuclear diplomacy with Tehran, while Iranian hackers temporarily became more cautious in their choice of targets and the visibility of their attacks. More recently, worries about Iran's cyber capabilities have taken a back seat to concerns regarding Iran's growing conventional military might, and its mounting regional adventurism in places like Syria and Yemen.