Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
In the last two decades, the Balkans appear to have become a new arena for religious competition between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The strategies used by these very different actors show their efforts in exporting faith in the name of power and in projecting their identity and domestic structures.
If Iran goes back to enrichment, then you have the rather nightmare prospect, even though the odds are poor of success, of an Israeli preemptive military strike or a conflict in which the United States could be involved
While the United States needs Tehran to stop its enrichment program, the Islamic Republic is fighting for survival.
While a successful Iran nuclear deal is far from guaranteed, alternatives to diplomacy are bleak. The United States’ apparent unwillingness to signal its intention to honor the agreement, Iran’s nuclear progress, and rising tensions between Washington and Beijing stand in the way of a renewed compromise.
It did raise serious questions about the administration's competency and credibility and whether or not it could basically deliver on commitments that it had made to its allies. Getting out of lost wars is never an easy enterprise.
Iran apparently has not abandoned this ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, but at the same time sees no urgency in achieving this aim, while also seeking to minimize the risks entailed pursuing it. Therefore, Israel's intelligence assessments on the timing of Iran's nuclearization have consistently proven wrong.
The Israeli prime minister visited the United Arab Emirates this week, highlighting a number of current realities.
Disagreement between the United States and Iran over a revived nuclear accord may anchor volatile competition.
All of this regional activity is happening with the U.S. quietly coordinating in the background, encouraging some moves while discouraging or ignoring others (such as the overtures to Assad), but overall engaging in much more diplomacy across the region ahead of the nuclear talks with Iran that resumed this week after a five-month hiatus.
While U.S. President Joe Biden has stated his intention to return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Tehran’s nuclear advances and Washington’s unclear diplomatic approach risk derailing the Vienna negotiations.