The United States and its allies and partners must not only understand Iran’s regional strategy and influence but also develop a coherent strategy of their own with which to confront them. Considering the relative economic, political, and diplomatic power of the two sides, it is unacceptable for the United States and its allies to allow Iran even such progress as it has made in these realms.

Editor's Note: FMSO’s Operational Environment Watch provides translated selections and analysis from a diverse range of foreign articles and other media that analysts and expert contributors believe will give military and security experts an added dimension to their ...

The Chen Guangcheng saga gets stranger and stranger, but also is becoming a major diplomatic embarrassment for the Obama administration.

For several weeks now it’s been clear that Putin won’t attend this month’s NATO summit in Chicago. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently spoke with Russia’s new/old president and explained that it’s “not possible and not practical” for Putin to participate because of his “busy domestic calendar.”

Assessing the rhetoric and actions of the Supreme Leader’s senior advisor for international affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, provides a valuable window into the attitudes and priorities of the Supreme Leader himself.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davatoğlu, Turkey has pursued a policy of good relations with all its neighbors. Well, almost. If Turkey wishes to join Europe or simply have diplomatic credibility in the region, it must end its occupation in Iraqi Kurdistan now.

The U.S. is more active on trade policy than it has been in years.  President Obama is meeting with Canada and Mexico about new agreements, Congress will hold hearings on changing decades-old trade law, and the federal government will more broadly be bringing several cases before the WTO.

Yet, in constructing...

Yet his meetings with America’s top leaders, from President Obama on down, will be just as much a chance for Xi to size up the administration’s new policies toward Asia as they are an opportunity for U.S. officials to get a sense of whom they will be dealing with starting this fall.