The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) with support from the Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute launched an interactive map of Iran and the Middle East.

While officials in Jerusalem have been tightlipped about what capabilities they have to destroy the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, there is no doubt that doing so will be a more difficult task than destroying Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 or the Syrian reactor in 2007.

Iran’s deal last spring with Saudi Arabia, brokered by China, highlighted the emergence of an unstable equilibrium in the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy.

In July 2022, against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin embarked on a notable foreign trip. Amid mounting international censure and growing hostility from the outside world, Putin traveled to Tehran to meet with Iranian officials and formally usher in a new phase in the long-running strategic partnership between the two countries.

The 43 year old Iranian regime’s lethal rampages round its neighbourhood have increased of late and reek of desperation. It has, for instance, again bombed exiled Iranian Kurdish camps in Iraqi Kurdistan. It destroyed the house – comically described as an Israeli drone base – of a Kurdish company chief, near the American consulate.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, now 43 years old, has proven itself to be remarkably resilient in weathering both geopolitical turbulence and domestic hardships. In doing so, it has defied the predictions of numerous scholars and pundits.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held their fourth phone conversation on Sunday afternoon.