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Will US troops have to  go to war for Mohammed bin Salman? (VIDEO)

Will US troops have to go to war for Mohammed bin Salman? (VIDEO)

Biden appears ready to do anything to get Saudi Arabia and Israel together

Analysis | Video Section

Even as the war in Gaza rages on and the death toll surpasses 35,000, the Biden administration appears set on pursuing its vision of a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal that it sees as the path to peace in the Middle East.

But, the agreement that the administration is selling as a peace agreement that will put Palestine on the path to statehood and fundamentally transform the region ultimately amounts to a U.S. war obligation for Saudi Arabia that would also give Mohammed bin Salman nuclear technology.

As the Gaza War demonstrates, the Abraham Accords — which normalized relations between Israel and other Arab states — did not help bring peace to the Middle East. But instead of pushing for a ceasefire that could end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and limit the chances of a wider regional conflagration, Biden is pushing to continue the legacy of the Abraham Accords in a move that only increases the likelihood of American troops being sent to fight another war.

Learn more in this new video by the Quincy Institute’s Khody Akhavi:


Biden's Saudi War Obligation
Analysis | Video Section
Nato Summit Trump
Top photo credit: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, President Donald Trump, at the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague (NATO/Flickr)

Did Trump just dump the Ukraine War into the Europeans' lap?

Europe

The aerial war between Israel and Iran over the past two weeks sucked most of the world’s attention away from the war in Ukraine.

The Hague NATO Summit confirms that President Donald Trump now sees paying for the war as Europe’s problem. It’s less clear that he will have the patience to keep pushing for peace.

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Antonio Guterres and Ursula von der Leyen
Top image credit: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock.com

UN Charter turns 80: Why do Europeans mock it so?

Europe

Eighty years ago, on June 26, 1945, the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco. But you wouldn’t know it if you listened to European governments today.

After two devastating global military conflicts, the Charter explicitly aimed to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” And it did so by famously outlawing the use of force in Article 2(4). The only exceptions were to be actions taken in self-defense against an actual or imminent attack and missions authorized by the U.N. Security Council to restore collective security.

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IRGC
Top image credit: Tehran Iran - November 4, 2022, a line of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps troops crossing the street (saeediex / Shutterstock.com)

If Iranian regime collapses or is toppled, 'what's next?'

Middle East

In a startling turn of events in the Israel-Iran war, six hours after Iran attacked the Al Udeid Air Base— the largest U.S. combat airfield outside of the U.S., and home of the CENTCOM Forward Headquarters — President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire in the 12-day war, quickly taking effect over the subsequent 18 hours. Defying predictions that the Iranian response to the U.S. attack on three nuclear facilities could start an escalatory cycle, the ceasefire appears to be holding. For now.

While the bombing may have ceased, calls for regime change have not. President Trump has backtracked on his comments, but other influential voices have not. John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, said Tuesday that regime change must still happen, “…because this is about the regime itself… Until the regime itself is gone, there is no foundation for peace and security in the Middle East.” These sentiments are echoed by many others to include, as expected, Reza Pahlavi, exiled son of the deposed shah.

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