TAG's Weekly News Analysis
FILTER BY:
SEARCH FOR:
Closure Without Clarity
The agreed upon Memorandum of Understanding coming out of the latest US-Iran negotiations is a validation of progress, but each signatory will interpret its requisite obligations in a way that advances its national interest. This will impact the speed and nature of the deal’s implementation and even threaten its ultimate viability....
Deals and Detours
The agreement Washington and Tehran signed electronically this week is being characterized as the end of the war, but that assessment is likely an overstatement. The document is a sixty-day interim memorandum which gives both sides a way to pause the fighting, but structural disagreements remain which could derail the diplomatic track....
Stuck in the Middle
The Middle East is erupting again this week, with kinetic attacks ranging from Iranian missiles launched at Israel to US strikes on petrochemical plants in Iran—but the military escalation is likely aimed to prompt a quicker diplomatic solution, not derail one. Neither side wants to continue full-scale fighting, but if Iran remains firm in its...
Agreeing to Disagree
Washington and Tehran both want a deal, but not the same one. For the White House, the priority is reducing tensions in the Gulf, securing freedom of navigation through Hormuz, and preserving space for a longer diplomatic process on the nuclear issue. Iran, by contrast, appears to be seeking an arrangement that demonstrates the limits...
Managing The Edge
Washington and Tehran are edging toward an agreement neither side fully trusts, and neither side can afford to abandon. Reports that a draft framework had been largely negotiated briefly sent oil prices tumbling this week on expectations that the Strait of Hormuz could stabilize and sanctions relief might follow. But on the same day, US...
Summits and Stalemates
Less than a week after President Trump’s departure from Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin touched down in China in a summit that will inevitably be viewed through the lens of Washington's recent diplomatic engagement with President Xi. Officially, the meeting is about strengthening the Sino-Russian relationship—something Beijing insists is not mutually exclusive to a stable...
FILTER BY:
SEARCH FOR:
A World at War and A War of Worlds
The streets of Midtown East came alive with diplomacy this week, as global leaders convened for the 81st UN General Assembly (UNGA) and New Yorkers grumbled at the additional road closures. But underpinning discussions of peace and security is the cold hard fact that much of the world is either currently at war, or feeling...
The Oracle of Langley Returns: Jack Devine on Iran, Ukraine and the AI Arms Race
Former CIA acting director Jack Devine is back on Risk & Return, six months after he called the Iran conflict almost move for move. This week he tells Bob Sloan and Charlie Gasparino why there is still no deal on the table, why Tehran thinks it has the upper hand heading into the midterms, and...
‘The rules have changed’: has Russia begun to order assassinations on US soil?
Why would the Russians cross this red line? Jack Devine, a former associate director of operations at the CIA, said that the Kremlin had perhaps become blase about the potential repercussions – but that it could prove to be a misstep.
...
Conflicts, Controversy, and Corruption,
Tehran is sustaining pressure on the Strait of Hormuz to keep energy prices elevated while deliberately keeping the conflict below the threshold of full-scale war. Iranian hardliners see rising US inflation and the Fed's recent rate hike as evidence that their strategy is increasing pressure on Washington, but Iran's growing economic isolation—including tighter Turkish trade...
Lines of Leverage
Iran's shifting its pressure campaign from Hormuz toward the Bab el-Mandeb this week, betting that growing Houthi control of the Red Sea chokepoint can provide Tehran with greater leverage over Washington. Shipping volumes through Hormuz have collapsed amid renewed US-Iran kinetic flare-ups, while rapid Houthi advances in Yemen now threaten to give Iran an additional...
