All Policy Analysis by Matthew Levitt

The Cipher Brief sat down with Matt Levitt, former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Treasury Department, to discuss Hezbollah's roles in Lebanon and Syria and as a proxy for Iran. According to Levitt, despite losses in Syria, Hezbollah remains a threat to Israeli security and U.S

One year after the signing of the nuclear deal with Iran, how has the agreement changed the Iranian economy, Tehran's foreign policy, and Russia's role in the Middle East? Watch video briefings by Washington Institute experts.

Thus far, the Obama administration has not fulfilled its pledge to deter and confront external threats to Gulf partners following the nuclear deal.

The Islamic Republic's terror sponsorship has hardly abated since the nuclear deal was reached, giving the Obama administration another opportunity to reassess these menacing behaviors and hold Tehran accountable.

Assess how the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement with Iran, has affected various U.S. interests one year after its announcement on July 14, 2015.

Last month's assassination of a senior Hizbullah commander, apparently by Syrian rebel groups, demonstrates the growing threat the organization faces from fellow Arabs and Muslims.

Iran has long used Hezbollah and other radical Shi'a groups to project power across the Gulf. The CIA noted this trend in an 1986 assessment in which it concluded that "Iran uses international terrorism to achieve specific foreign policy objectives. Therefore it should not be surprising that despite the recent

Mustafa Badreddine's death will hurt the group's operational efforts and morale in Syria, but it remains to be seen who it will blame for the attack and whether it will retaliate.

In Tehran's alternative reality, there is no risk to doing business in the Islamic Republic because sanctions no longer exist, yet such claims ignore the role that the regime's own actions play in scaring foreign banks away.

Given the group's ever-lengthening criminal rap sheet around the world, designating it as a TCO has become an open-and-shut case.

Until Iran stops engaging in illicit behaviors such as terrorist financing, banks are likely to see prohibitive reputational, regulatory, and other risks to doing business there.

For many at-risk Muslims in Europe, the Islamic State provided the opportunity to be a part of building something exciting, and local authorities are now dealing with the consequences of this recruitment wave.

While Washington and its coalition partners have begun to roll back some of the Islamic State's territorial gains, what more can be done to defeat the group and, until then, protect civilians?