Just days into the new year, Iran announced that “a couple of hours ago,” it had started enriching uranium to 20 percent—a level that experts say would put it within a six-month sprint of converting its entire nuclear stockpile to bomb-grade material. Tehran’s move Monday raises the pressure on President-elect …

After a decade of war, the biggest threat now to President Bashar al-Assad is an economic crisis. But at a recent meeting, he had no concrete solutions to his country’s extreme distress. In a private meeting with pro-government journalists, President Bashar al-Assad was asked about Syria’s economic meltdown: the currency …

At some point in the next generation, the Kremlin will realize that the United States is not its principal national security challenge. AS SURELY as geese fly south every autumn, the arrival of a new American president resounds with calls for a new policy toward Moscow. To be sure, there …

The use of targeted sanctions has been arguably the central response of U.S. foreign policy against Russia since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. U.S. government officials have touted sanctions as having imposed heavy but targeted economic costs on the Russian economy and deterred Moscow from further malign behavior. Yet …

Libyans ousted a dictator, but an ensuing civil war hasdrawn in Russia, Turkey and others with a thirst for control The Soviet-era cargo plane rose from a frigid Moscow runway and banked south toward Syria, landing at a Russian air base on the coast several hours later. It ascended again …

A UN humanitarian agency has warned that more than 16 million people in Yemen would go hungry this year as Saudi war and siege continue to take heavy toll on the impoverished nation. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Sunday that already some half …

China has announced that it will hold military exercises in the South China Sea for the whole of March, at a time when the US military has been frequently sending reconnaissance aircraft and ships to the region and a French warship group is on its way. The South China Sea …

An internal U.S. government report obtained by The New York Times says that Ethiopia is conducting “a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing” under the cover of war in the Tigray region, an area largely controlled by Amhara militias in the northern part of the country. The Times says the report, …

The Taliban demanded Sunday that the United States and its foreign military allies leave Afghanistan by May 1, in line with a peace agreement the insurgent group signed with Washington a year ago, warning any attempt to change the path “is already doomed to failure.” In a statement released to …

Top Israeli defense and political leaders are scheduled to meet on February 28 to discuss a response to what Israel’s defense minister says was likely an attack by Iran against a an Israeli-owned cargo vessel in the Gulf of Oman. Israel’s state-owned Kan television quoted unnamed Israeli officials as saying …