Is Ireland Finally Investing in Its Own Defense?

 

Ireland is not a member of NATO, and invests only 0.2 percent of its GDP in defense—leading to widespread accusations of “free-riding” on European security guarantees.

Since gaining its independence from the United Kingdom after World War I, the Republic of Ireland—officially established in 1949—has maintained a policy of neutrality. Even as a member of the European Union, Dublin maintains a “neutrality clause” that allows it to opt out of common defense actions.

During the Cold War, Ireland didn’t join NATO or the Non-Aligned Movement. Yet, it did establish a relationship with NATO within the framework of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, which it joined in 1999.

As the global situation continues to evolve, Dublin shows no signs of joining NATO—as did historically neutral nations such as Finland and Sweden—but it may look to establish closer ties with the alliance to ensure its maritime security.

There are even calls for the Irish Defense Forces to take part in joint exercises with NATO members, including the UK and France. Moreover, even as Ireland is not likely to join the alliance anytime soon, Dublin did announce this month that it is set to buy hundreds of French-made armored vehicles and new artillery systems—theoretically giving it some capability to defend itself.

The acquisitions will help transform the Irish Defense Forces from its current light infantry force into one resembling a NATO mechanized unit. The government-to-government agreement will see the modern French-made vehicles enter service by the end of the decade to replace aging lightly armored systems from the UK and Switzerland that have been in operation well past their expected service lives.

Ireland Isn’t in NATO—and Doesn’t Want to Join

The Irish Republic is also a member of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and cooperates with NATO under a jointly agreed “Individually Tailored Partnership Programme” (ITTP).

“Ireland cooperates with NATO in a variety of areas, including peace support operations. An important focus is to work together to develop military capabilities and improve the interoperability of the Irish armed forces with Allied and other partners’ armed forces in NATO, EU and UN-led missions,” NATO explained.

However, it could be argued that, as Ireland shares a land border with the UK’s constituent country of Northern Ireland and is strategically positioned in the North Atlantic Ocean, it would almost certainly be protected by NATO in the event of war.

It is a reminder that the UK would certainly have come to Ireland’s aid in World War II if Germany had invaded the nation. Although it was an attempt by the British government to draw Ireland into the war, the UK was still ready to aid in its defense.

Today, Ireland’s position has led to accusations of its “free-riding” on NATO, particularly the UK, for its aerial and maritime security, as Dublin lacks the capacity to defend its own airspace or Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

“Despite bearing responsibility for 16 percent of the EU’s territorial waters, and the fact that 75 percent of transatlantic undersea cables pass through or near Irish waters, Ireland is totally defenseless,” according to a 2024 op-ed from Politico.com.

Even as NATO members are increasing defense spending from two to five percent of their respective gross domestic product (GDP), Dublin spends only 0.2 percent of its GDP on security and defense, the lowest in Europe. This has led to complaints from many corners of Europe that Ireland is “free-riding” on NATO’s protection, and doing nothing to defend the continent against shared threats.

“It has, in effect, abdicated responsibility for protecting Europe’s northwestern borders,” Politico.com added.

Ireland Is Starting to Realize It Needs NATO

Closer cooperation with the EU and NATO remains a highly sensitive issue in the country. Yet, Ireland simply has no other choice.

“If anything happened to gas connectors with Britain, we wouldn’t have an economy in 10 days,” Prime Minister ‌Micheal Martin told lawmakers in the Irish Parliament earlier this year.

The future partnership with NATO could include increasing its radar, sonar, and other sensors to detect airborne and underwater threats, while also cooperating with the EU on data-sharing.

Still, given the sorry state of Ireland’s military, Ireland will probably continue to get a free ride from NATO, particularly the UK, for the foreseeable future.

How America Can Leverage Iraq’s West Qurna Oil Field

 

Sanctions did more than punish Russia—they reshaped control of a key oil field in Iraq.

While energy analytics have focused on Washington’s campaigns in Venezuela and Iran, a no less significant development for the energy sector occurred in southern Iraq. By late autumn 2025 American sanctions pressure on Russia’s largest private oil firm—Lukoil—led to the firm declaring force majeure, leading to Iraq nationalizing operations at the firm’s flagship oil project with intent to sell, which could have far reaching repercussions for the energy sector beyond this one field, and act as a litmus test for a shift in US overseas energy policy.

For context, West Qurna 2 produces around 470,000 oil barrels daily—about 0.5 percent of world oil production and about 9 percent of Iraq’s total. The broader West Qurna complex, which said field is a part of, contains 43 billion barrels of recoverable reserves, thus belonging to the top five largest oil fields in the world.

In November 2025, Lukoil announced force majeure at West Qurna 2 after US-led sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine impaired its ability to fulfill operational and financial tasks, causing Iraq to partially cease its transactions with Lukoil due to the rise of compliance risks.

Furthermore, due to the importance of this field, in January 2026, Iraq’s cabinet of ministers nationalized operations per the terms of the Technical Service Agreement (TSA) with Lukoil—a move that has been interpreted as an attempt to maintain a stable output, with a stated intent to sell the field to a firm better able to meet its responsibilities under the TSA within a time period of 12 months.

But how did we get here, and why does this field matter on a geopolitical as well as a commercial level?

Cold War Data Advantage: Soviet Geological Intelligence and Lukoil’s Entry into Iraq

The founder of Lukoil—Vagit Alekperov—served as deputy oil and gas minister in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1990, which gave him access to Moscow’s geological survey data on Iraqi reserves gained during the Cold War. This institutional knowledge on the reservoirs and about Baghdad’s unique political economy gained through his work in the similarly labyrinthine Soviet bureaucracy, as well as his Azerbaijani heritage—gave Lukoil a competitive advantage when entering Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in March 1997, giving the firm access to a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) that few other western firms were able to get at the time, yet one it would temporarily lose when suspicions of Alekperov hedging his bets through discussions with US officials and Iraqi opposition prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq came to light leading to Hussein cutting the contract short in 2002.

The 2003 US Invasion of Iraq and Licensing Competition

After the 2003 US Operation Iraqi Freedom that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s oil landscape underwent a significant revision in the direction of Technical Service Contracts (TSCs), where firms paid by the barrel, while Iraq maintained equity control over reserves.

This reconstruction of the sector forced firms bidding for extraction rights to provide increases in production with relatively thin profit margins, a difficult environment to operate in—but one Lukoil was perfectly adapted to.

This assumption proved prophetic when, in 2009, Lukoil bid for a contract under which it would pay $1.15 per barrel for West Qurna 2—raising numerous eyebrows, as the per-barrel price was 40 percent lower than competing bids.

However, despite the surface level analysis suggesting this would prove unprofitable, Lukoil would allow itself such low revenues—unlike its Western competitors—due to its soviet survey data vastly lowering prospecting risks and removing a large part of operational uncertainty—a fact it would exploit to make West Qurna 2 one of the most prospective fields in Iraq.

ExxonMobil vs. Lukoil: Operational Success and External Limitations

West Qurna 1, which was then operated by ExxonMobil—despite higher prices (at $1.90) per barrel—reflective of its international prestige, would struggle to meet its targets of raising production from the initial 270,000 barrels a day to 2.25 million barrels a day over 7 years—with production instead plateauing at 500,000-550,000 barrels a day, causing it to gradually lose the confidence of Baghdad.

While Lukoil raised output from 400,000 to 480,000 barrels a day between 2014 and 2019 despite a smaller reserve, with plans to raise production further to 800,000 barrels by 2045, ExxonMobil was announcing exit plans in 2020, with stakes being fully transferred to Iraqi, Indonesian, and Chinese bidders in 2023.

While ExxonMobil struggled with applying Western compliance standards to a confusing Iraqi system where formal bureaucracy co-existed with informal patronage frameworks, Lukoil managed to stay ahead of the curve through its use of experience of similar post-Soviet frameworks, which gave it a greater capability to operate in gray areas that its Western competitors were less skilled in managing.

Yet this operational success proved fragile when external legal complications appeared, as the core question ceased to be whether or not Lukoil could make a profit despite low per barrel revenues—as experience showed that it could.

Why Distressed Energy Assets Matter

Iraqi TSAs create certain difficulties—limited payment schedules, high capital investments, and consistent above-ground risks. Thus, Lukoil’s stake became a distressed asset due to legal limitations imposed by sanctions, forcing a sale on very unfavorable conditions.

On January 29, 2026, Lukoil revealed an agreement with the Carlyle Group—an investment firm specializing in distressed and special situations based in Washington DC—to sell its subsidiary Lukoil International GmbH, which owns the group’s international assets, including the 75 percent stake in West Qurna 2. The agreement, which is subject to regulatory approvals from the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) until it can be put into effect, excludes Lukoil’s minority stakes in Kazakhstan-based assets such as the Tengiz and Karachaganak oil and gas fields, and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. Carlyle’s American expertise in managing financially or operationally challenged assets positions it as a natural buyer for sanctions-impaired holdings such as Lukoil’s West Qurna 2 stake. However, the agreement is non-exclusive, and Lukoil continues negotiations with other potential buyers.

Given the 470,000 barrels daily currently extracted at the field and the potential for a near doubling of output to 800,000 shown by Lukoil’s own plan and partial OPEC influence gained through operational control of almost 10 percent of Iraq’s oil production (an important figure given Iraq is the second largest producer in said cartel after Saudi Arabia), this strategic interest is unsurprising despite the aforementioned narrow profit margins.

While the evidence does not establish direct coordination between US sanctions policy and corporate interests, the sequence of events created market conditions that appear to favor American firms. The Carlyle Group, founded in 1987 and managing approximately $426 billion in assets under management as of 2023, has built a reputation through its Distressed and Special Situations practice—launched in 2004—investing in firms experiencing financial, operational, or cyclical distress. This specialization in acquiring and restructuring underperforming or sanction-impaired assets, combined with the firm’s Washington headquarters and longstanding ties to US policy circles, makes it a strategic match for Lukoil’s forced divestment. Comments made by US officials, according to Bloomberg, supporting Iraq’s plan to transfer the field to an American company, suggest how the coupling of government policy, compliance rules, and corporate strategy can achieve favorable outcomes for one’s own firms while dissuading rival operators.

Effects of the Sale of West Qurna 2 on China 

As such, West Qurna 2 offers lessons for other great powers with significant stakes in Iraq’s energy sector—first and foremost, China.

PetroChina holds the largest stake in West Qurna 1 (previously held by ExxonMobil), and China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) leads the exploration at Halfaya and holds stakes in other fields, contributing over one-third of Iraqi oil output, making the People’s Republic of China (PRC) the second most important energy partner to Iraq after the United States.

The West Qurna 2 case could thus be interpreted as a cautionary precedent for Beijing—as it demonstrates that even productive, operationally successful oil fields can become vulnerabilities when external financial and legal frameworks are weaponized (whether on purpose or by sheer chance) to force a change in operators, and suggests that overseas investments in energy assets are not protected from geopolitics just because the asset is profitable or critically important for the host country’s budget.

This precedent could suggest that control of overseas extraction serves as but one form of energy systems resilience. Access to stable and consistent legal frameworks, favorable compliance terms, and uninterrupted, sanctions-proof financing could be just as important, and the success of these frameworks often depends on political alignment and international relations beyond the powers of the host country.

How Sanctions Reshape Strategic Assets

The West Qurna 2 case illustrates how sanctions and compliance frameworks can rapidly transform productive energy assets into distressed assets, potentially reshaping control over strategic infrastructure. The agreement between Lukoil and the Carlyle Group, as of January 2026—and pending regulatory approval—further exemplifies how specialized investment firms with expertise in distressed situations can capitalize on sanction induced asset sales. Thus, if the American firm does indeed acquire Lukoil’s stake, the episode may offer a template—whether intentional or circumstantial—for how regulatory pressure can complement strategic interests in contested energy markets.

Mission Possible: The NRC’s Shift Is More Than Symbolic

 

After decades defined by safety dominance, the NRC may be recalibrating toward a renewed balance between oversight and expansion.

The history of nuclear energy in the United States illustrates the difficulties of balancing two goals: expanding nuclear energy and regulating it. Today, the revival of nuclear energy in the United States moves beyond reactor design, fuel-cycle safety, and disposal technology. It is being tested in the most crucial area—with its regulator, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which was established as an independent agency in 1974 to oversee the civilian nuclear energy industry in the United States. A significant increase in electricity demand is renewing pressure to commission new reactors. As a result, the NRC faces realignment of its objectives with the imperatives of new energy demand and policies. This tension remains as complex a topic today as it was some 50 years ago. 

Origins of the NRC 

A few years after the 1942 Chicago Pile-1, the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reactor in a man-made reactor, an experimental breeder reactor at a site in Idaho, generated the first electricity from nuclear energy in 1951. The United States developed its first nuclear reactor, a pressurized water reactor (PWR), under Admiral Hyman Rickover as prototype Mark 1, which was deployed to power the US submarine USS Nautilus in 1954. 

The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 provided the civilian nuclear energy program full access to nuclear technology and established the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) with a dual mandate of developing nuclear energy and regulating it. By the end of 1957, the Commission had seven experimental reactors in operation.

Most nuclear reactors in the United States were built during the 1960s and 1970s, with more than 100 reactor orders planned in the 1970s. At its peak, the US nuclear industry, while commercializing two main types of reactors, pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and boiling water reactors (BWRs), nonetheless pursued other reactor designs such as Gas Cooled Reactors, Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors, and Experimental Breeder Reactors. While not pursuing the level of standardization that France or Canada practiced, US reactors were completed on time and within budget. 

A key piece of legislation, the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, changed the framework for nuclear energy development and regulation. The Act abolished the Atomic Energy Commission and established the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) in 1975, which, in 1977, became the Department of Energy (DOE). The Act also established the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as an independent agency in 1974 to oversee all aspects of nuclear energy, including reactor designs, fuel cycles, nuclear materials, and waste.

Separation of Development and Regulation 

However, momentum faded quickly after the incident at Three Mile Island in 1979, leading to widespread cancellations, new regulations, construction delays, and rising costs. Following the incident, the newly established agency cultivated its culture and values and further developed analytical models for safety standards. 

The NRC focused on nuclear safety as its primary duty, keeping it separate from—and mostly at odds with—new reactor development. The 1970s saw the largest number of nuclear starts and subsequently, the largest number of cancellations. The NRC, with its team of qualified scientists and technicians, became known as the gold standard for safety. Over time, however, it developed such a rigorous analytical approach that decision-making was hampered, turning the approval process for new reactors into an expensive and complicated procedure with debatable economic benefits.  

Advanced Nuclear Reactors Within Legacy Frameworks 

Today’s challenge is that some of those longstanding standards might not even be relevant to certain advanced reactor designs. Since 2017, multiple legislative bills have acknowledged the safety features of advanced and small-scale reactors. Prompted by rising energy demands and renewed interest in nuclear, in December 2021, the NRC announced Rule 53 to create a clear licensing process for advanced and smaller reactors. The rule is set to be finalized by 2027. 

Until then, advanced reactors, small modular reactors (SMRs), and microreactors will follow Rules 50 and 52, frameworks developed primarily for large PWRs and BWRs. The NRC is also reviewing reactor design prototypes that might be more readily facilitated by pushing their oversight to the Department of Energy or the Department of Defense (DOD). 

Institutionally, the NRC’s legacy implies unlimited responsibility for nuclear safety, but no incentive to consider its development for the public good. Perhaps the current huge increase in electricity demand may change this and realign the twin objectives of reactor development and its regulation.

The Trump Administration’s Executive Orders to Realign the NRC’s Mission 

In an effort to jump-start new nuclear energy development, the Trump administration has issued a series of Executive Orders and picked up a handful of reactor developers, with a deadline to achieve “criticality,” an important milestone in reactor development. While the milestone of “criticality” does not imply the scale needed to commercialize the new reactors, the optics of urgency are not lost on the NRC. 

The Executive Orders seek to leverage DOE and DOD to accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear reactors and the development of the nuclear supply chain. DOE has invoked the Defense Production Act under Executive Order 14302,“Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base.” This renewed reliance on defense authorities points to the origins of US nuclear energy. The first US submarine powered by nuclear energy, the USS Nautilus, “shattered the diesel-era assumptions, transited the North Pole in 1958, and served until 1980.” 

 In January 2025, the NRC voted to update its mission statement to align with the policies of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954—regulating nuclear energy “for the benefit of society,” in a manner that is efficient, does not “unnecessarily limit” the deployment, and considers the benefits of nuclear energy technology to society. This change in the NRC mission statement implies more than the symbolic legacy of its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission. It implies an effort to update the culture and values that have existed within the agency since its inception, some 50 years ago, to accommodate today’s energy reality. 

How the US Can Sustain Deterrence After Khamenei

 

The end of the Islamic Republic is a tremendous opportunity for Iran and poses serious risks for regional stability. The United States should be prepared.

President Donald Trump has long argued that deterrence of US adversaries, once eroded, must be restored decisively. In confronting the Iranian regime and eliminating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he acted consistently with that doctrine.

When intelligence assessments concluded that Tehran was stalling diplomatically while expanding destabilizing activity, and after US special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff’s high-stakes negotiations in Geneva that helped shape the president’s judgment on Iranian seriousness, the administration recalibrated. Its objective was clear: reestablish credible deterrence and signal that gray-zone aggression would no longer go unanswered.

That clarity matters. But restoring deterrence is only the first step. Strategy cannot end at retaliation. It must anticipate what comes next.

It is a mistake to treat the Islamic Republic as a personality-driven regime. It is not a system that will collapse simply upon the removal of a single leader. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not merely a special branch of the military; it is an ideological institution, an intelligence network, and an economic conglomerate embedded deeply within the state.

Hostility toward the United States and Israel is doctrinal. As long as coercive institutions remain guided by that ideology, the threat persists. Degrading capabilities may temporarily restore deterrence, but only institutional transformation will bring about long-term stability in the region.

The Islamic Republic vs. Iran

Strategic clarity also requires distinction. Iran is not synonymous with the Islamic Republic. Iran is a civilization-state with enormous human capital, a young and educated population, and a society that has repeatedly demonstrated civic courage. Protest movements led by women and younger generations reveal a population that seeks root-and-branch change.

American policy is strongest when it reinforces this distinction: pressure on a destabilizing regime is not hostility toward the Iranian people. That framing weakens Tehran’s ability to use nationalism as a shield against accountability. And President Trump, in his speech announcing the strikes on Saturday, has made that clear.

The US Must Protect the Abraham Accords 

US interests are also directly implicated in the security of regional partners who chose modernization over confrontation. The Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and Arab nations, represented a strategic shift toward integration, technological cooperation, and economic interdependence. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain assumed real political risk by embracing that path.

They also faced retaliation. Missile and drone attacks from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted civilian targets in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Manama. When states align with integration and are punished for it, the credibility of US security guarantees is tested.

If Washington seeks a rules-based regional order, it must ensure that its defense architecture—including integrated air and missile defense, maritime coordination, and intelligence sharing—is durable and visible. Allies who choose modernization must not feel strategically exposed.

Planning for Iran’s Day After the Islamic Republic

Iran now faces mounting structural pressure: economic fragility, constrained proxy networks, sanctions, and recurring domestic unrest. The regime’s room for maneuver is narrowing rapidly. This does not guarantee transformation. But it creates the possibility. Responsible policy requires preparation for that contingency.

If systemic change occurs—whether through elite fracture, or popular uprising—the most dangerous moment will be the immediate aftermath. Revolutions invite fragmentation, militia competition, or renewed authoritarianism. The United States cannot afford improvisation in a country of Iran’s size and strategic importance.

Four priorities would emerge immediately. The United States should secure nuclear and missile infrastructure to prevent proliferation or sabotage; prevent fragmentation within the armed forces, and ensure elements of the IRGC do not reorganize into rogue militias; preserve territorial integrity and avoid separatist conflict; support the rapid formation of a transitional authority capable of restoring order and preparing constitutional governance. This requires engagement now with credible opposition figures and civil-society networks.

In my assessment, the most visible and structured opposition figure is Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. His father’s legacy remains debated—and history must be examined honestly—but he bears no responsibility for that past. It is also historically accurate in arguing that the early years of the previous monarchy were characterized by significant modernization and institutional development before political rigidity eroded legitimacy in the 1970s.

Today’s Iran is fundamentally different from the country of 1979. Iranian youth are more educated, more globally connected, and more exposed to democratic norms than any previous generation. They are not seeking a rerun of autocracy. They seek dignity, prosperity, and accountable governance.

Reza Pahlavi has consistently advocated secular statehood, national reconciliation, and a democratic referendum allowing Iranians to determine their political system.

The American interest lies in a Middle East where expansionist militancy is contained, allies feel secure choosing integration, and regional powers operate within predictable norms rather than ideological confrontation.

Iran stands at a consequential juncture. Decisions made in Tehran will determine whether the country moves toward responsible statehood or deeper isolation. Decisions made in Washington will determine whether deterrence evolves into a durable security architecture or remains captive to episodic reaction. The choices made now will shape not only Iran’s trajectory, but also the strategic architecture of the Middle East—and America’s role within it—for decades to come.

How the White House Is Keeping Russia out of the South Caucasus

 

After successfully expanding US influence in Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Trump administration should set its sights on Georgia.

Vice President JD Vance’s historic visit to the South Caucasus ended in controversy. Vance deleted a post on X that showed him paying respects at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, along with second lady Usha Vance. That made headlines and brought on accusations of “genocide denial.”

But focusing on the deleted post misses the point entirely. Vance is the first vice president and most senior US official to visit Armenia, and his trip forms an integral part of the Trump administration’s concerted effort to cement US influence and box out Russia in a region where Moscow was long the dominant player.

Above all, Vance sought to build on last August’s White House summit, where Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement aimed at ending nearly 40 years of conflict.

Vance focused on fulfilling some of the bilateral trade deals promised to Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, which incentivized both to opt for peace last year. Their pact includes the creation of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP)—a 27-mile rail and road project connecting Azerbaijan to its enclave of Nakhichevan through Armenia. TRIPP’s purpose is to provide a trade route between Central Asia and Europe that bypasses Russia and Iran. 

On February 9, Vance and Pashinyan signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement that includes $5 billion to replace Armenia’s Soviet nuclear power infrastructure and $4 billion in fuel and maintenance contracts. The agreement undercut a last-ditch cooperation offer by Russia’s state-owned nuclear concern Rosatom. 

A day earlier, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov warned Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan of the “risks of rapprochement with the West to the detriment of cooperation with traditional allies.” 

The following day, Vance visited Aliyev and signed a strategic partnership agreement encompassing economic and security cooperation. The deal includes defense sales, cooperation in artificial intelligence, energy security, and counterterrorism efforts.

In all, it was a successful trip to the region, but incomplete. For a good reason. Vance refused to dignify Georgia, the region’s third nation, with a visit. The country has been considered the South Caucasus’ Black Sea gateway and the traditional backbone of east–west transit. Now, it is drifting closer to Russia and China, cracking down on pro-democracy protesters, and making open US engagement politically uncomfortable. The clearest sign of this shift is the development of Anaklia Deep Sea Port.

The facility is intended to anchor Georgia’s role in the Black Sea as a critical node in the Middle Corridor trade route between Asia and Europe. In 2016, the Georgian government awarded the project to the Georgian-US-European-led Anaklia Development Consortium.

But in 2020, the Georgian government, led by the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party, terminated that contract. Instead, in May 2024, it selected a Chinese-Singaporean consortium centered on China Communications Construction Company for a 49 percent stake. That gives a key US adversary an enormous stake in a crucial piece of infrastructure. 

China’s commercial footprint in Georgia increasingly overlaps with firms linked to Beijing’s security ecosystem—such as the state’s use of Dahua surveillance cameras, Huawei telecom networks, and Nuctech security scanners. Meanwhile, Russia retains leverage through political, intelligence, and coercive influence operations, as well as threats of military intervention.

In all, the administration is getting it right in the South Caucasus, making the most of relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan. But President Donald Trump ignores Georgia at America’s risk. Washington doesn’t need to “bless” Georgia’s ruling party or grant it a high-level state visit to protect US interests, but it should keep targeted pressure on Tbilisi to reverse democratic backsliding. It is also important to expand support for civil society and media so that Georgia doesn’t become a durable platform for Russian 

With Georgia, a blend of incentive and threat is warranted. The incentive would be the prospect of American investment, encouraged by the Trump administration. The threat would be a clear sign of US determination to impose sanctions on Georgian Dream’s leadership and its enablers unless they hold new, transparent, internationally-monitored parliamentary elections and end the persecution of journalists and political opponents, making fair elections impossible. 

There is plenty of work left to do in the South Caucasus. The Armenia-Azerbaijan peace deal is still only a framework, and TRIPP will succeed or fail based on its implementation. Russia is maneuvering to stay relevant, pitching itself to Armenia as a better nuclear energy partner than the United States. Absent a new US approach to Georgia, the country will only deepen its partnership with America’s adversaries.

The next steps for the administration should be to bolster TRIPP with credible security and financing while approaching Tbilisi with the right mix of carrots and sticks to draw it out of Beijing and Moscow’s orbit. 

Two Redlines for a Post-Islamic Republic Iran.

 

With the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the temptation is strong to redraw Iran’s borders or install a friendly despot. The US should resist it.

The US-Israel assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has brought the Islamic Republic of Iran to its most uncertain power transition since the revolution in 1979. Within hours of the announcement, maps began circulating in Washington and on exile channels: a federal Iran with autonomous Kurdish, Arab, Baluch, and Azeri regions; a confederal Iran drifting toward soft partition; even a patchwork of mini‑states carved from the Islamic Republic’s collapse. Now that the succession crisis is real, the temptation to redesign Iran from the outside will only grow. That temptation is exactly what the United States must resist.

With the regime’s command structure shaken and rival factions maneuvering for control, the worst American instinct would be to arrive with a ready‑made constitutional blueprint. A federal Iran here, a confederal union there, a new border for every “problem” region—this is how a strategic opening becomes a generational quagmire. 

Whether Iran becomes a centralized state, a federal union, or something looser must be decided by Iranians in deliberation with each other, not by American lawyers, think‑tank cartographers, or exiled politicians with pre‑drawn maps. A wise US role is to set a few hard red lines and broad preferences, then get out of the business of meddling with the country’s internal wiring.

The first red line should be explicit: the United States must not pursue, endorse, or even flirt with a breakup strategy for Iran. In the charged atmosphere following Khamenei’s killing, any hint of a partition agenda would instantly validate the regime’s long‑standing narrative that the West seeks to dismember Iran. 

It would also invite regional and great powers to treat Iranian peripheries as open hunting grounds: an Arab entity in Khuzestan under Gulf influence, a Kurdish entity under Turkish pressure, a Baluch entity closely watched by Pakistan. That is not a solution; it is an invitation to border wars, proxy contests, and ethnic cleansing on the ruins of the Islamic Republic.

A responsible US policy should plainly state, “We do not seek to redraw Iran’s borders or turn it into a patchwork of statelets.”

The second temptation is the opposite of the first—backing a single “stabilizing” strongman to hold the country together. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ early moves after Khamenei’s killing show how quickly a security apparatus can present itself as the only guarantor of order. But replacing one hyper‑centralized authoritarian system with another would preserve the very logic that helped break Iran in the first place: an overmighty center, regions treated as internal colonies, and a security state loyal to a person rather than to law.

If Washington throws its weight behind a new shah, a new supreme leader, or a new general, it will own that person’s repression and corruption just as surely as it owned the failures of post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan.

Between those two red lines is where a serious US preference can live: a territorially intact, democratic Iran that Iranians design for themselves. That could mean a reformed unitary state with strong devolution, or a genuine federal system in which provinces elect their own governors, control local policing, shape education and language policy, and receive a transparent share of national revenues. The label matters less than the shift in power: from an all‑consuming center to empowered local institutions bound by national rules.

Washington’s bias should tilt toward rational decentralization: real autonomy in the periphery, real checks on the center, one flag, and one foreign policy.

Khamenei’s killing has created a vacuum that neighbors and great powers will try to fill. The US role should not be to design Iran’s internal order, but to guarantee the outer frame in which Iranians negotiate it. That means: deterring regional actors from carving out spheres of influence while Iran is at its weakest; offering economic and technical support for a constituent assembly if one emerges; backing credible monitoring of any referendums or elections; and refusing to prejudge whether the final settlement is “unitary,” “federal,” or something in between

The United States should not be agnostic about outcomes but disciplined about its means. The White House should define what is unacceptable—partition and a new dictatorship—and let Iranians bargain their way to a new center-periphery contract inside those lines.

In this moment of maximum uncertainty, the only responsible American policy is to keep its own mapmakers on a tight leash, draw a few clear red lines, and insist that Iranians—and only Iranians—decide what their country should look like on the inside. When America designs the wiring of someone else’s house, it ends up owning the blackouts.

Why the US Keeps Misreading Iran’s Place on the Map

 

As long as Washington sees Iran at the edge of the Middle East rather than the center of “West Asia,” it will continue to fall prey to miscalculations.

On February 28, the United States and Israel engaged in a military campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran, eliminating its head of state, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The way the United States imagines Iran’s role in the Middle East may explain why it underestimates how its action may not just destabilize this imagined geographic region, but a much larger swath of territory.

American strategy has relied on a distorted mental map of the “Middle East” that relegates Iran to the margins and obscures its actual position at the center of Southwest Asia. This flawed vision produces strategic blind spots, disjointed policies, and repeated miscalculations that spill over into other conflicts and regions beyond the Gulf.

The American mental map treats Iran as a peripheral “other,” a Middle Eastern oil state whose significance is mostly transactional. Both the United Nations and National Geographic employ the term “South West Asia” or “West Asia.” American foreign policy elites have apparently also tried to reorient Washington’s cartographic myopia.

Ironically, it is an obscure map produced by the CIA in 1996 that makes one realize that Iran is not just about oil, even if US President Donald Trump thinks he can replicate his actions in Venezuela, removing the head of state and directing the natural resources of a sovereign nation. For those unfamiliar with the term, the map illustrates what experts call “border gnosticism,” the tendency to treat artificial lines as definitive markers of influence while overlooking deeper geographic, economic, and cultural flows.

In reality, Iran sits at the heart of Southwest Asia, a continental pivot connecting South Asia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The CIA map, which is open-source and produced annually in book form and on the web, shows that the Caucasus forms a nearly straight axis to the Gulf, with Armenia much closer to northern Iraq than conventional maps suggest, placing Iran squarely along this corridor and underscoring its role as a regional fulcrum. This positioning links Pakistan, India, China, the Caucasus, and the Arab world, making any policy toward Iran inseparable from broader continental dynamics. The recent leadership vacuum in Tehran may invite instability into all of these areas.

Viewing Iran as marginal leads the United States to misread crises, underestimating how instability in one place, whether Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Gulf, spreads across trade, security, and influence. Historical precedents, like the Durand Line drawn in 1893 during the Anglo-Russian “Great Game,” show how artificial borders can have enduring consequences. That line split Pashtun tribal communities between Afghanistan and what became Pakistan, ignoring social and cultural realities. 

Over a century later, members of these tribes joined the Afghan Taliban, illustrating how cartographic distortions influence regional outcomes. Washington’s AfPak construct assumed that Iran could be excluded from stabilizing Afghanistan. But destabilizing Iran in 2026 could ripple outward, threatening both Afghanistan and Iraq, highlighting just how interconnected the region really is. This distorted view leads American strategy to treat conflicts as isolated puzzles rather than as interconnected regional shifts.

This cognitive distortion is reinforced by bureaucratic compartmentalization, producing fragmented strategy and chronic policy failure. US institutions like the State Department carve the region into artificial silos, such as “Middle East,” “South Asia,” “Central Asia,” reflecting colonial thinking and Cold War academic divisions rather than geographic reality. Afghanistan’s isolation, compounded by the failed “AfPak” construct, has long prevented integrated regional planning. At the same time, the same lens reduces Iran to a Middle Eastern oil state instead of recognizing its role as a continental pivot linking multiple theaters of strategic significance.

By forcing complex, interconnected dynamics into rigid stovepipes, Washington ensures diplomacy, security, trade, and conflict prevention operate in isolation, resulting in reactive, short-term policies instead of coherent strategies. This structural fragmentation now collides with the growing influence of special interests and ideological agendas over US foreign policymaking.

The “Middle East” as a strategic concept may finally be obsolete. In its place, a West Asian system is emerging, linked to the economic and technological pull of a rising Asia, the global ascent of the Gulf states, and the blurring of borders between the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean.

As Mohammed Soliman argues in his new book, West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East, the United States must move beyond narrow Middle East constructs toward a broader West Asian framework, integrating historical and geographic realities to build a stable regional order.

America’s narrow focus on oil, sanctions, and regime change distorts judgment by simplifying complex regional dynamics to levers of pressure. Treating Iran mainly as a source of revenue or a target for political manipulation ignores its role as a hub of regional connectivity. Treating Iran like Venezuela misunderstands scale, geography, and consequence. Policies aimed at weakening Tehran or reshaping its politics fail to account for the networks of trade, infrastructure, and influence tying it to South, Central, and East Asia. In short, US policy mistakes complex geopolitical realities for simple economic leverage, underestimating the risks of intervention.

More than a century ago, Alfred Thayer Mahan, the influential American naval strategist, coined the term “the Middle East,” writing in 1902 that “the Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta as well as its Gibraltar.” The phrase reflected an imperial mindset that reduced geography to a tool of control, an impulse that persists today in subtler but no less consequential forms. Iran is expected to fit “only insofar as it conforms to the direction and sufferance of newly ascendant forces,” as the former deputy prime minister of Iraq, Dr. Ali Allawi, put it, whether financial, ideological, or geopolitical, rather than as an autonomous regional actor in its own right.

That legacy still warps Washington’s strategic imagination. Until the United States relearns how to view geography not as a bureaucratic convenience or a battlefield, but as a web of political, economic, and cultural connections, it will continue to misread Iran, misunderstand West Asia, and stumble from crisis to crisis. Trump’s strikes on Iran will determine the fate of one of the world’s most important states, with fallout that could inflame the entire region.