@dassakaye.bsky.social
Middle East/geopolitics/diplomacy analyst. Current: Senior Fellow, UCLA Burkle Center. Former: Director, RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy. More info here: https://www.daliadassakaye.net/.
destroying 'military capabilities' is a vague goal; there is still no definition of success for this war and thus no plan for how and when this ends.
James Baker spent over five months shuttling around the world to build an international coalition to rollback Iraq's illegal invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Trump posts a message on social media and expects the world to help the US after its illegal war against Iran.
To all my Norwegian followers (?!), check out my latest @foreignaffairs.com piece in Dag Og Tid today.
This 👇
yep. recent comments by Omani FM makes this pretty clear.
more bad news. every day this war goes on risks more death and destruction with no clear strategic aim.
yes, stopping it now (assuming Iran complies) leaves a very dangerous regime in place. but that might be the case even with weeks more of strikes, all while the costs continue to mount.
as i wrote 14 years ago (!), the only thing worse than a future with a nuclear-armed Iran would be a future with a nuclear-armed Iran that has been attacked. let's hope we don't get there.
The Trump administration currently has no viable way of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Military escorts for tankers and other civilian ships are too dangerous to try, U.S. officials and military analysts told us: www.wsj.com/world/middle...
👇 I hope this won't be the case, but as we hit day 13 and the region is literally on fire it's looking more and more like we're moving into uncontrolled escalation.
He was also among the early advisors in Trump 1.0 arguing against the US withdrawal from the JCPOA. He didn't last long as we know...
needless to say, the Iranians may not play along with Trump declaring 'victory' and announcing a ceasefire like last June. they want guarantees they won't keep getting hit. but ending the US bombing is the only way to test that.
This is no "12-day" war. We're at day 12 and there's no end in sight. Trump needs to cut US losses and stop this madness.
Iran has responded to the U.S.-Israeli assault by launching drones and missiles at American targets across the Middle East, hitting embassies, killing U.S. soldiers, and damaging military bases and air defense infrastructure. See our analysis. nyti.ms/40u6E6n
Many thanks to Erwin van Veen and @clingendael.bsky.social for hosting me for a book talk and a great conversation on the current Iran war.
🎙️ON AIR:
We're talking to @myacoubian.bsky.social, @dassakaye.bsky.social and @latimes.com's Nabih Bulos about the war in Iran, its impact on international alliances, and what might come next.
❓What are your questions about what is happening in the Middle East?
📻Listen:
The thing about mixed messages is that it's not a brilliant negotiating tactic if you have no idea what you're trying to achieve and no clear metric for success.
Meanwhile, the mixed messages have a cost on lives and livelihoods for people around the world.
A "short-term excursion" costing billions of dollars, thousands of lives, mass regional and global economic disruption + long-term negative impacts that will outlive this war.
Audiences outside that room--in the US, in the Middle East, around the world--understand this.
WSJ: 'The Long-Feared Persian Gulf Oil Squeeze Is Upon Us: Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has ground to a virtual halt, unleashing the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s threatening the global economy and sending oil prices soaring nearly 60%' www.wsj.com/world/middle...
🔴🇱🇧 Over half a million people (517,000) have been displaced in #Lebanon over the past week in the latest conflict b/w Israel and Hezbollah, the government said
The number is likely higher as the government data comes from the amount of people who registered on their platform
Not only are things looking bad now but there's no plan and unrealistic expectations for the day after this reckless war
There's a reason no previous president took the US down the perilous path of war with Iran despite 47 years of hostility.
define "expert". but point taken.
Iran war “could create a power vacuum in Tehran, sour US allies on their partnerships, and produce ripple effects.. without removing sources of regional strife that have nothing to do with Iran. The risks increase the longer the war goes on.”- Dalia Dassa Kaye
www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/...
Also out in @foreignaffairs.com today is an excellent piece by my former colleague Shira Efron raising important questions about the war’s longer term impact on Israel.
“Rather than help usher in a new Middle East, this war is likely to prolong the life of the old one, whether or not change comes to Iran,” writes Dalia Dassa Kaye. “The time to end it is now.”
Walking back Trump’s post a bit. Good.
This is very bad. The best hope for ending this war was Trump declaring victory and stoping the bombing.
If the current regime hangs on, this is going to get a lot worse and many more innocent people are going to die.
All while unleashing longterm damage on US strategic interests.
