Quincy Institute's co-founder and executive vice president of programs Trita Parsi debated Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies today on CSPAN's Washington Journal program.
The two sparred a bit over today's presidential elections in Iran, the nuclear deal and U.S. sanctions on Tehran. They also took call-in questions. Watch below:
Iraqis head to the polls on November 11 for parliamentary elections, however surveys predict record-low turnout, which may complicate creation of a government.
This election differs from those before: Muqtada al-Sadr has withdrawn from politics; Hadi al-Ameri’s Badr Organization is contesting the vote independently; and Hezbollah — Iran’s ally in Lebanon — is weakened. Though regional unrest persists, Iraq itself is comparatively stable.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani’s tenure was quieter than his predecessors’ (see here, here, here, and here), ending without scandal or disappointment, but electricity shortages have harried his administration which has announced ambitious infrastructure projects. (Iraq currently produces between 24,000 and 28,000 megawatts of electricity, and Iraq recently inked a contract with U.S.-based General Electric to add another 24,000 megawatts by 2028.)
Recently, U.S. energy giants Chevron and ExxonMobil signed exploration and development deals. Simon Watkins of OilPrice.com, called ExxonMobil’s comeback in Iraq “a major geopolitical shift, signaling renewed Western engagement.” These developments likely please U.S. President Donald Trump, who has yet to meet Sudani formally in Baghdad or Washington, D.C.
Whoever becomes Iraq’s next prime minister faces three major challenges: the water crisis, U.S. relations, and regional entanglement with Iran.
Iraq’s most immediate problem is water scarcity. It depends on Turkey and Iran for nearly 75% of its freshwater through the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which originate upstream. Torhan al-Mufti, Sudani’s adviser on water affairs, warns that Iraq’s vulnerability stems from these transboundary flows.
There is some good news: according to Mufti, water inflows from Turkey to the Tigris have doubled in two years. In October 2025, Baghdad and Ankara reached a draft water-sharing agreement that includes infrastructure rehabilitation, implemented by Turkish companies, and a permanent consultation group to coordinate future water-sharing decisions.
Nevertheless, 2025 has been Iraq’s driest year since 1933. Rainfall shortages, and Turkish and Iranian dam projects, reduced Tigris, and Euphrates water levels by up to 27%. Reservoirs now hold less than 8 billion cubic meters, their lowest volume in over eight decades.
In September, the government suspended wheat planting due to insufficient water. Southern Iraq, particularly Basra, home to 3.5 million people, faces a growing humanitarian crisis as residents rely on trucked-in water. The once-vast Mesopotamian marshes, a UNESCO World Heritage site, are retreating, threatening biodiversity, and displacing communities.
Increasing water salinity is hurting farmers and livestock. The International Organization for Migration reports saltwater intrusion is destroying farmland, palm groves, and citrus orchards. This ecological decline risks economic instability and social unrest, especially in rural regions.
One solution may be to lease farmland abroad, following the example of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which cultivate crops in Africa to preserve domestic water. However, this could deepen Iraq’s internal dislocation, displacing struggling agricultural communities.
U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011, but returned in 2014 to fight the Islamic State. Washington pledged to achieve the “enduring defeat” of ISIS — a mission to justify a long-term presence.
Under a recent agreement, U.S. combat forces began withdrawing in September 2025, with a full exit expected by September 2026. However, small contingents will remain in Iraqi Kurdistan and at Ain al-Asad Air Base to assist in counterterrorism operations.
In October, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Sudani to “disarm” the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) — a 240,000-strong force formed to fight ISIS with an annual budget of roughly $3.5 billion. The U.S. pressured Iraqi lawmakers to withdraw legislation that would place the PMF fully under government control, though internal disagreements also helped doom the bill. Sudani recently declared the armed groups have two options: join the official security institutions or transition to [unarmed] political work.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq cost the Americans over 4,400 dead and over $3 trillion. The U.S. now faces “the Meddler’s Trap” — a self-inflicted cycle in which intervention creates new problems that policymakers feel compelled to manage indefinitely. Iraq remains caught in this dynamic: Washington wants to leave but cannot bear the risks of doing so.
A third challenge for Iraq’s next government is avoiding entanglement in the long-running U.S.–Iran rivalry. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Washington has sought to reverse what it sees as a national humiliation: the overthrow of its ally, the Shah of Iran, and the 444-day hostage crisis that followed, that may have swayed the 1980 presidential election.
Over the decades, both sides have waged a shadow war — from sanctions and cyberattacks to assassinations and economic sanctions. Iran’s ballistic missile, drone, and nuclear programs are now American justifications for continued containment.
In June 2025, U.S. airstrikes targeted three Iranian nuclear facilities. President Trump claimed the operation “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, though American military intelligence wasn’t so sure. Meanwhile, Israel, America’s closest ally in the region, has reportedly continued assassinations and covert operations against Iranian scientists and facilities.
Iraq risks becoming a battleground by proxy. In May 2025, U.S. Reps. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Greg Steube (R-Fla.) advocated sanctioning Iraq as part of the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran. They advocated sweeping penalties on the PMF, much of Iraq’s banking and oil sectors, the minister of finance, “Iran’s facilitators in Iraq,” the chief justice of Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court, and former prime ministers — a decapitation attack on Iraq’s economy and sovereignty.
The slogan of Sudani’s political project is "Iraq First," but to Washington, Iraq is a tool for pressuring Iran, all the money and dead soldiers provide the justification for America’s droit du seigneur; but this dynamic threatens Iraq’s national stability. The next prime minister must navigate between the U.S. and neighboring Iran to preserve Iraq’s fragile independence. The PMF’s status will be the most contentious issue between America and Iraq, as the Americans have forgotten what happens when you suddenly demobilize a large group of well-armed men.
Despite relative quiet and significant new foreign investment under Sudani’s tenure, Iraq still faces water shortages, unfinished security reforms, and the constant danger of being drawn into foreign conflicts, mostly the legacy of Saddam Hussein’s repression, and Western sanctions and military attacks.
Balancing domestic needs with foreign pressures — especially from the United States and Iran — will define Iraq’s future far more than the election’s immediate outcome.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump is expected to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in Seoul, where they will aim to calm escalating trade tensions and even explore striking a “Big Deal” between the world’s two superpowers.
The stakes could not be higher. The package reportedly under discussion could span fentanyl controls, trade, export restrictions, Chinese students, and even China’s civil-military fusion strategy. It would be the most ambitious effort in years to reset relations between Washington and Beijing. And it could succeed — or collapse — under the weight of its own ambition.
Start with fentanyl. Synthetic opioids now kill more Americans each year than car crashes or gun violence. Much of the supply chain apparently begins in China, where chemical precursors flow into global markets with little oversight.
If Beijing were to meaningfully crack down, the human impact would be enormous. Thousands of American families could be spared the devastation of overdose. But here lies the dilemma: unfortunately China has treated drug enforcement as a bargaining chip. Any cooperation is likely to come at a price — tariff relief, technology access, or concessions elsewhere. In other words, Beijing may save American lives, but only on terms that also advance its own strategic goals.
Trade is another pillar. The U.S. deficit with China remains stubbornly high, fueled by state subsidies and market barriers. And China’s move to place export controls on its rare earths — effectively mimicking America’s foreign direct product rule on valuable minerals — has infuriated the president, spurring new threats of a 100% tariff on Chinese goods. But there’s a relatively straightforward way to ensure these tensions do not explode into overly-harmful restrictionism: some good dealmaking. Trump has always thrived on the language of deals, and this negotiation would give him a chance to frame himself as the one leader willing to go toe-to-toe with Beijing.
The outline is familiar: more access for American exporters, more purchases of U.S. goods by China. But the memory of the 2020 “Phase One” agreement hangs over the talks. Then, China promised sweeping purchases it never delivered. Without credible enforcement, a new trade deal risks being little more than a press release. The rumor mill is filled with all sorts of strange concoctions such as China buying 500 new Boeing airplanes and in return the U.S. accepts 600,000 PRC students.
The hardest piece of this puzzle may be technology. Washington has tightened export controls on semiconductors and advanced AI tools, citing fears that China’s civil-military fusion blurs the line between private innovation and state power. Beijing calls it containment; Washington calls it self-defense.
It is difficult to imagine a neat compromise here. One side sees survival; the other sees supremacy. At best, diplomats might carve out limited areas of cooperation — say, on medical AI or clean energy — while drawing firmer red lines elsewhere. Activation of the renewed STA by launching 2-3 modest initiatives for the research collaboration under a policy of “smart openness” could be a worthwhile trust-building approach. It must be realized, however, that the tech issue alone could sink any broader bargain.
Trump, for his part, relishes spectacle. A head-to-head negotiation framed as the art of the deal on a global stage, would play to his instincts. But style cannot substitute for substance. If the summit produces vague promises, the political bounce will fade fast, and the structural tensions in all likelihood will return.
Why would Xi even entertain such a deal? The answer lies in China’s own headwinds. Post-Covid, China’s economy largely has remained in the doldrums. The property sector remains in crisis. Global investors are wary. A meaningful truce with Washington, even a partial one, could stabilize markets, stimulate new foreign investment, and buy time for new domestic reforms contained in China’s new 15th Five Year Plan.
But Xi cannot appear weak. As with President Trump, every concession must look like reciprocity, not capitulation. China will frame fentanyl controls as a contribution to global security, trade adjustments as a growth engine, and any export talks as sovereignty preserved. The choreography will matter almost as much as the substance.
Bundling so many issues together is bold — but risky. A breakthrough on fentanyl could be derailed by gridlock on tech or rare earths. A trade concession could be overshadowed by continued military mistrust. Negotiations of this scale often collapse because success in one area is held hostage to failure in another.
Diplomatic history offers a lesson: steady incrementalism works better. The Cold War was managed through step-by-step arms agreements, not sweeping resets. The original Iran nuclear deal focused narrowly on enrichment, not regional behavior. Grand bargains may make headlines, but they rarely hold.
Still, the urgency is real. Fentanyl is killing Americans. Trade frictions are undermining the global economy, broadly defined. Technological rivalry is fueling fears of conflict. If Washington and Beijing cannot find even partial common ground, the alternative is a spiral of mistrust that further drags the world toward confrontation and even an economic crash.
For ordinary Americans, the stakes are tangible. A mother in Ohio who loses her son to an overdose does not care about tariffs. A farmer in Iowa who can’t sell soybeans to China doesn’t care about semiconductor rules. A deal that alleviates these pressures would resonate far beyond the Beltway.
For the world, the stakes are even larger. If the U.S. and China can manage rivalry without sliding into war, it sets a precedent for great-power competition in the 21st century. If not, the rest of the globe will be forced to navigate an increasingly unstable order.
The Seoul talks will test whether both governments still see value in diplomacy, not just confrontation. Success will not mean overall friendship. It will mean coexistence: guardrails, enforcement, and partial agreements that prevent the relationship from careening into crisis.
As things now stand, the temptation for Trump and Xi seemingly will be to aim for headlines. But what matters more is durability. Better a modest deal that sticks than a sweeping one that collapses. The world doesn’t need theatrics. It needs a foundation for managing the most consequential relationship of our time.
The world’s leaders are watching with bated breath.
Defense officials consistently tout the Replicator initiative — an ambitious effort to “swarm” thousands of attritable, inexpensive drones at a break-neck pace to counter China — as a great success.
DoD Secretary Pete Hegseth testified in June that the initiative had “made enormous strides towards delivering and fielding multiple thousands of unmanned systems across multiple domains,” with “thousands more planned” through the FY 2026 defense budget. A defense official told DefenseScoop in late August the Pentagon was ensuring a “successful transition” or Replicator capabilities to end-state users. And last August, then Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who kicked off the initiative in 2023, boasted it was on track for its production goals.
Despite officials' assertions, the Congressional Research Service points out that only “hundreds” rather than “thousands” of these systems materialized by the August 2025 target date. Not only that but critical technical issues procuring the systems persist, and associated costs remain unclear.
Replicator’s goal for its first phase was to field thousands of autonomous systems by summer 2025 was a massive undertaking, considering AI’s relatively novel, and controversial, use in military contexts. A second part, Replicator two, which focuses on counter-drone defense, was announced last fall and is underway.
WSJ reporting on the first phase found that persistent technical issues, including systems’ glitches and problems integrating Replicator systems with existing command structures, were slowing down the initiative’s progress, where some systems were “unreliable, or were so expensive or slow to be manufactured they couldn’t be bought in the quantity needed.” It also suffered from a lack of vetting up-front, where some systems were “unfinished or existed only as a concept” when selected for Replicator. Critically, the Pentagon struggled to procure software able to command, and attack with, large numbers of different drones — a capability fundamental to Replicator’s success.
In fact, these challenges have led to the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIUx), which has been overseeing the initiative, to hand Replicator’s reins over to DAWG, Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, a new organization part of United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which is supposed to carry out the initiative’s goals within two years.
As William Hartung, a Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft told RS, the Replicator initiative’s apparent delays are “totally predictable.”
“When [Replicator] was announced, the Pentagon said that it would make progress in major areas within 18 months, something that had not occurred in the history of Pentagon weapons development,” Hartung said. “The real question is not how quickly certain capabilities can be announced, it is how new technologies can be adequately tested before buying them in bulk, and what strategy they will be deployed in service of.”
Meanwhile, Replicator has been marketed as an inexpensive alternative. But the Congressional Research Service (CRS) finds little information is publicly available about its costs, making it difficult for lawmakers and analysts to assess its cost-effectiveness.
Namely, the DoD requested one billion dollars over FY 2024 and 2025 for Replicator. But anticipated costs are complicated by the initiative not having its own budget line — to this end, the DoD submitted a $300 million reprogramming request for the initiative for FY2023, sparking concerns funds for it could be pulled for it from other existing programming.
Meanwhile, many of the systems Replicator has fielding are not exactly cheap. The Switchblade 600 kamikaze drone the initiative pursues, for example, is estimated to cost well over $100,000 per unit; Ukrainian drones procured for the same purpose, meanwhile, can cost as little as $300 each.
Despite the initiative’s financial uncertainties, some lawmakers have called for Replicator to receive billions more in funding.
The Replicator’s tech-centric flounderings are not isolated, but follow a slate of critical defense-tech mishaps.
Over the summer, an Army memo found an Army communications system modernization effort led by Anduril, Palantir and others to be rife with “fundamental” security issues, calling it “very high risk.” It read: "We cannot control who sees what, we cannot see what users are doing, and we cannot verify that the software itself is secure.”
American drone tests, meanwhile, have met with repeated failures. A test off the California coast this summer resulted in a collision between autonomous drone boats, sparked by a software glitch. As a result, the DIUx paused a nearly $20 million contract with defense contractor L3Harris, a prominent autonomous software provider — which is also contracted to bring similar capacities to Replicator. And drone prototypes frequently failed to launch, missed targets, and even crashed during drone exercises in Alaska the same month.
Zooming out, newer defense tech power-hitters, like Anduril and Palantir have had success in recent years challenging defense primes’ dominance in the weapons industry, in part because they successfully marketed themselves as leaner, faster and more technologically savvy than traditional defense contractors. Companies like these have played a central role in Replicator, which sought out to recruit these Silicon Valley types in pursuit of a faster procurement process — indeed, 75% of Replicator’s participants are non-traditional defense tech companies.
But these recent developments suggest defense tech start-ups’ sales pitches deserve more scrutiny before the DoD commits to them, through initiatives like Replicator.
As Hartung concluded: “war and the prevention of war do not primarily hinge on technologies.”
Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.
