Cleo Paskal – The Sunday Guardia
Alireza Nader and Saeed Ghasseminejad — Al Arabiya
Iran’s newly elected president, Ebrahim Raisi, is known for his brutal and fanatical devotion to the Islamic Republic, a history that it would serve Middle Eastern nations well to remember in future foreign policy dealings with the country. Raisi’s selection by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei as president is meant to facilitate a smooth succession and instill fear in Iranians yearning to break free from the theocracy. Read more
Behnam Ben Taleblu — The National Interest
Men of the cloth are no strangers to the levers of power in Iran, especially the office of the presidency. Ebrahim Raisi, the sixty-year-old mid-ranking cleric who is now president-elect, or better put, president-select, will be the first in the history of the Islamic Republic to make the lateral move from the judiciary, which he led since 2019, to the presidency. He will also be the first Iranian president under U.S. sanctions. Read more
Tikvah's incoming chairman, Elliott Abrams, joined JNS's Jonathan Tobin to discuss the past failed efforts at a two-state solution as well as diplomacy, democracy, and the future of American Jewry. Listen Here (48 min.).
3) Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer on the Ultra-Orthodox and the IDF
Almost every Jewish community in Israel serves in the IDF, except one: the haredim. On this week's podcast, Tikvah's Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer explores the background behind his community's reluctance to serve in the Israeli army and brings us inside the debate currently unfolding within Israel's Orthodox communities about the fulfillment of civic obligation and moral duty. Listen Here (39 min.).
The forces and agencies of Kurdistan’s Ministry of Interior and the Kurdistan Region Security Council, collectively referred to the Kurdistan Region Interior Forces, are now the region’s main security actors, but their role as instruments of partisan rivalry and enforcers of public loyalty to the political bureaus threatens the Kurdistan Region’s stability. This report makes the case that coalition security sector reform efforts should be refocused on them. Although Peshmerga reform is necessary to improve the Kurdistan Region’s ability to combat external threats, it is equally, if not more important to start the same reform within these internal forces and agencies to achieve durable stability.
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To date, China has largely relied on Pakistan to conduct its Afghan policy. Not much bothered about the future political role of the Taliban, China fears the prospect of instability in Afghanistan after the U.S. exit. Beijing’s primary concern in a post-U.S. Afghanistan, which is likely to be run by a regime dominated by the Taliban, is that Uyghur separatists and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement might find a safe haven in the country. Although all regional countries support the idea of an inclusive political resolution to the Afghan conflict, neither China nor any other country has any appetite to lead a regional intervention to stabilize it. China has therefore responded to the announcement of the American exit from Afghanistan with a sense of disquiet.
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By Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, July 9, 2021
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israeli society must recognize the intensity of the new threats that surround it and critically assess the conventional wisdom that the era of big threats has passed and Israel need no longer be a "mobilized nation."
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Editorial of The New York Sun | July 9, 2021
https://www.nysun.com/editorials/bidens-afghanistan-the-fog-of-retreat/91568/