All Policy Analysis by Michael Singh

Tehran's longstanding arms trafficking and missile research efforts highlight the problem with wholesale removal of weapons restrictions.

In addition to bolstering China's own economic and energy strategy, the deal could spur Beijing to facilitate Iran's rise as a regional power via military assistance, technology transfers, and investment.

If the administration cannot convincingly describe a regional strategy into which the agreement fits, allies and skeptics are likely to assume an unspoken U.S. realignment or simple incoherence.

As another negotiating deadline comes and goes, U.S. allies in the Middle East appear less concerned with the particulars of a possible accord than the particulars of U.S. policy toward Iran after a deal. The Obama administration believes that Iran’s behavior in the region will improve after a nuclear agreement

The deadline in the Iran nuclear negotiations has just been extended. But if an agreement is ultimately reached, Tehran is expected to receive a substantial financial windfall. Critics have argued that an influx of funds will permit Iran to expand its destabilizing regional activities. The Obama administration has argued that

With reports suggesting that the June 30 deadline for a deal on Iran’s nuclear will be missed, just as previous negotiating deadlines were, we’re on the brink of not an end but a new phase in this diplomatic saga. After July 9, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act–which President Barack

Michael Singh and Simond de Galbert

China has stepped up its economic, diplomatic, and military involvement in the Middle East. But Beijing is learning that the road to influence in the region is hardly smooth.

In the nuclear negotiations, Tehran wants to have its cake and eat it too by obtaining sanctions relief while preserving the option to build a nuclear weapon in the future; the U.S. goal must be to deny Iran this capability.

A foreign policy fracas erupted last week when an Obama administration official slammed a New York Times story asserting that growth in Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium–reported in an International Atomic Energy Agency update on Tehran’s compliance with its international obligations–presented an obstacle to negotiations over a U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement

The latest provocation reinforces the need for any nuclear agreement with Iran to include strong enforcement mechanisms and swift and severe penalties for cheating.

The failure of the U.S. campaign to dissuade allies from joining China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was greeted in some quarters as a sign of American decline. But this episode was not a crisis of American power, which remains unequaled. And while the threat that the bank poses to that

If negotiators don't believe they can reach an agreement that addresses Iran's destabilizing regional activities, they should indicate how they will plug the holes in the current deal.

If Washington and its negotiating partners do not adjust their approach, the talks could be remembered not as a signature foreign policy accomplishment, but as a case study of a powerful country playing a strong hand poorly.

In this video,Institute Managing Director and Lane-Swig Senior Fellow Michael Singh notes that the nuclear framework agreement announced on April 2 between Iran and the P5+1 presents impediments to Iran's ability to create a weapon, but does not completely eliminate its nuclear program. President Obama must now reassure U.S. allies