Trump Accepts North Korea’s Audacious Invitation—But Then What? - New Yorker

Friday, March 9, 2018

By: Robin Wright

News Type: USIP in the News

n a breathtaking gambit that surprised his closest advisers, President Trump, almost impulsively, accepted an invitation on Thursday to meet the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—by May—to discuss how to defuse the world’s most dangerous nuclear standoff. The invitation was relayed by a South Korean delegation...

Russia and Iran Deepen Ties to Challenge Trump and the United States - New Yorker

Friday, March 2, 2018

By: Robin Wright

News Type: USIP in the News

Last month, the former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met privately with Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, a global gathering of foreign-policy glitterati. The diplomatic odd couple once met openly and often—more with each other than with any other foreign leaders—during two years of feisty negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal. No longer.

What’s at Stake for Trump at the Winter Olympics - New Yorker

Thursday, February 8, 2018

By: Robin Wright

News Type: USIP in the News

he hardest game at the Olympics won’t be played on the ice rinks, ski slopes, or luge runs in South Korea, where the United States is fielding the largest number of athletes among participating countries. The enduring legacy of the Pyeongchang Games will instead be whether they generate enough momentum...

Hijab Protests Expose Iran’s Core Divide - New Yorker

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

By: Robin Wright

News Type: USIP in the News

It was the quietest protest Iran has ever witnessed. Vida Movahed, a thirty-one-year-old mother of a toddler, stood atop a large utility box on Tehran’s busy Enghelab Street and removed the hijab head covering that all women are required to wear by law. Her jet-black hair cascaded far down her back. She then tied...

America’s ISIS Jihadists Were Largely Duds - New Yorker

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

By: Robin Wright

News Type: USIP in the News

For all the hype about Americans joining isis, the majority never saw combat during the Islamic State’s three-year rule. They were largely marginal players in the jihadist caliphate—often working in menial jobs as cooks, mechanics, cleaners, or orderlies. In the end, many became...

Why the Palestinians Are Boycotting the Trump Administration - New Yorker

Sunday, January 21, 2018

By: Robin Wright

News Type: USIP in the News

Husam Zomlot is the Palestinian front man in Washington. Born in a Gaza refugee camp, he has a doctorate in economics from the University of London and was a research fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center. Now in his mid-forties, he represents a new generation of Palestinian politicians. Last spring, he arrived in the United States on a wave of optimism that President Trump would reinvigorate peace negotiations

One Year In, Trump’s Middle East Policy Is Imploding - New Yorker

Friday, January 19, 2018

By: Robin Wright

News Type: USIP in the News

Last May, over a working lunch with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, at the White House, President Trump vowed to broker the final, elusive phase of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. “It’s something, frankly, maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years,” the new President opined.

Iran in Turmoil—to Trump’s Delight

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

News Type: USIP in the News

In the early days of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini famously dismissed an aide’s concerns about rising inflation. Economics, the Supreme Leader quipped, was “for donkeys. The 1979 revolution was not about the price of watermelons.”