Over the last week, the White House has stepped up its deployment of both hard and soft power to try to influence the course of conflict in the Middle East. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel today—his fifth visit to the region since the Oct. 7 attacks—to further negotiations to release Israeli hostages and pause regional fighting. The diplomacy comes amid U.S. attacks on a range of Iran-backed groups in the region as a reprisal for the deaths of three U.S. service members in Jordan last month.
‘We Do Not Have an Iran Plan’
A former supreme allied commander of NATO on how the White House is managing conflicts on two continents with “finite” resources.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi speaks during a commemoration ceremony marking the anniversary of the 2020 killing of Guards general Qasem Soleimani (on screen-R) and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (on screen-L) in the capital Tehran on January 3, 2024. Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images
Ravi Agrawal is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy. Twitter: @RaviReports
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How Conflict in the Middle East Has Fueled Iran’s Proxies
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Can the United States Deter—or Compel—Iran?
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