Over the past year, Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has fundamentally upended the Jewish state's regional relationships—and brought down the curtain, at least temporarily, on Jerusalem's previously vibrant ties to the countries of the Abraham Accords. That, however, appears to be changing. This past November, the Kingdom of Morocco became the first Abraham Accords country to officially reaffirm its diplomatic ties with Israel, citing its Jewish heritage as justification. The announcement was a hopeful sign that the wave of normalization between Israel and the Muslim world, officially kicked off in 2020, has begun to show new signs of life.

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Suddenly, Israel has a Syria problem. For years, officials in Jerusalem had banked on a relatively predictable balance of power with the neighboring regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Despite Assad's enduring hostility toward the Jewish state and the inherent weakness of his regime, a tenuous status quo had been struck between the two countries, making it generally possible to anticipate how the Syrian dictator would behave. This has served as a perverse source of comfort over the past 14 months, as Israel has found itself preoccupied with the threat of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and more recently, that of Hezbollah in Lebanon. But no longer. The rapid December collapse of the Assad regime in the face of reinvigorated domestic opposition has demolished the old status quo in the Levant.

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When might meaningful change come to Iran, and how? Nearly 50 years after the country's last major political transformation – the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's radical Islamist revolt against the monarchy of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi – that question continues to bedevil policymakers, both in Washington and far beyond the Capital Beltway. There are no definitive answers. History has shown all too clearly that revolutions are notoriously hard to predict. Almost without exception, the significant political upheavals of the 20th century were not reliably anticipated, either by informed observers or by much better-resourced (and presumably more competent) intelligence agencies. Even Iran's own Islamic Revolution caught the US government by near-total surprise when it erupted in February 1979. There is therefore significant hazard in trying to predict when, how, and in what way political change might come to Iran.  Even so, it is apparent that Iran is fast approaching an inflection point of some sort. Nearly a half century after the Islamic Revolution fundamentally altered the complexion of the country, virtually every objective measure suggests that it is once again ripe for change.

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Though it is only comparatively recently that Russian disinformation has re- emerged in the contemporary public consciousness, the phenomenon itself is far from new. Rather, it is a practice with a long history, dating back to tsarist times, as well as a distinct strategic purpose. Over the decades of the Cold War, it served as one of the most enduring and effective tools of Soviet asymmetric warfare against the West. And in the post-Cold War era, it has become a core element of foreign policy for the government of Vladimir Putin, helping to buttress and empower the Kremlin's neo-imperial impulses. Today, moreover, both the volume and the effectiveness of Russian disinformation is growing. Russian fake news and propaganda are being amplified by a new, more crowded global informational environment in which traditional sources of news and opinion are being increasingly challenged by new (and often unreliable) information outlets and social media platforms. This altered media terrain has provided the Kremlin's propagandists with fresh opportunities to disseminate divisive tropes, undermine the authority of the Western-led liberal order, and posit an alternative vision of the world more consonant with Moscow's increasingly assertive, revisionist worldview.

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When the second Trump administration takes office next month, it will face a thoroughly crowded Mideast agenda. Near-term priorities for the new White House include helping Israel to wind down its war in Gaza, resuscitating the Abraham Accords, and reviving a policy of "maximum pressure" against Iran. But arguably the most pressing item confronting Team Trump will be changing the status quo in the Red Sea. Yemen's Houthi rebels have wreaked havoc there for over a year, targeting maritime commerce with sporadic drone and missile attacks. The effects have been far-reaching. As a June 2024 report by the Defense Intelligence Agency spells out, more than 65 countries have been affected by the Houthi aggression so far, with over two dozen shipping companies being forced to alter their routes to avoid attacks on their vessels. As a result, shipping via the Red Sea, which accounts for between 10 and 15 percent of all global trade, has declined by about 90 percent. The real world costs have been staggering, and include billions of additional dollars in costs on the part of international shippers, which have been passed on to consumers as higher prices on everything from foodstuffs to commodities. The Houthi campaign has also been ruinous for regional states that depend heavily on such trade. Egypt, for instance, is estimated to have lost $6 billion in much-needed revenue as a result of Houthi operations, which have deterred global shippers from transiting the Suez Canal. Washington's response to date has left a great deal to be desired. Back in December 2023, the Biden administration somewhat belatedly initiated Operation Prosperity Guardian, a multi-nation maritime coalition intended to counter Houthi-led attacks on Red Sea shipping. So far, though, Prosperity Guardian hasn't had much of an impact. Houthi attacks have continued more or less unabated, while international partners have been slow to come on board in meaningful fashion.

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