Amir Handjani Blog

President Donald Trump’s attempt to bring peace and stability to the Middle East has backfired spectacularly. He has put a major U.S. ally, Qatar, in a serious geopolitical crisis and damaged the efforts of his own cabinet to calm regional tensions. · Trump’s recent trip to the r ...

The United States has long promised to ensure trade in humanitarian goods for countries under its economic sanctions. For this reason, each U.S. country-based sanctions program has carved out exceptions that secured food and medicine so as to limit potential catastrophic effects ...

Iran’s deadly wave of protests has taken the government and security forces by surprise. · What started off in the holy city of Mashhad as demonstrations over unpaid wages and inflation quickly spread throughout the country, widening to include grievances about government mismana ...

The Trump administration has put into place a punishing new wave of sanctions against Iran that targets critical components of the Iranian economy from banks to energy, shipping and insurance. · From the start of his administration, President Donald Trump has insisted that he ...

Last month Iran test fired a new ballistic missile. The Trump administration formally put Iran on “notice” and sanctioned entities close to and within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) they believed were responsible for the missile test. Iran not only escalated its rhetoric but c ...

President Donald Trump has made his disdain for the nuclear agreement with Iran quite apparent. It’s much less clear what he plans to do about it. · In his debut before the U.N. General Assembly last week, the president called the deal “an embarrassment” and strongly suggested he ...

Last month, six weeks after implementation of the Iranian nuclear accord, parliamentary elections gave Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and reformist politicians a clear mandate. Despite recent successes, though, Rouhani can hardly rest on his laurels.  Backers of the centrist cl ...

Vladimir Putin has made an art of turning weakness into strength. As Russian and Syrian forces pound Aleppo in the biggest assault of Syria’s five-year civil war, the Russian president clearly has emerged as a dominant force in the Middle East. Two years ago Russia had virtually ...

The Trump administration is moving ahead with its ban on the popular Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok. This is a significant step in what has become a growing consensus in Washington that the two largest economies in the world need to create a different framework for their relat ...

Iran unleashed an angry broadside this weekend reacting to the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, a deal signaling deeper cooperation between the Jewish state and Gulf Arabs to counter Tehran as it vies for regional influence ...