This Friday, Abbas Milani argues that Iran is closer than it has been in four decades to replacing its current regime; Peter Berkowitz speaks with Bill Whalen about the parallels between American and Israeli independence and core political values; and Joseph Ledford analyzes the Western Hemisphere defense strategy behind the Trump administration’s military, intelligence, and law enforcement actions in and around Venezuela.
Protests in Iran
Research Fellow and codirector of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution Abbas Milani argues in The New Statesman that “the Islamic Republic of Iran today is less a ‘revolutionary’ state than a hollow shell.” Milani says the central question today, as Iranians across the country take to the streets in huge numbers, is “whether [the regime] retains the internal coherence necessary to survive.” Milani cautions that the regime’s downfall is not assured and another possibility is at least temporary stabilization under a “harsher form of military-security rule, dominated by the Revolutionary Guards.” The Iran scholar concludes that the brutal Khamenei government is finally confronting “the truth embedded in its own revolution: in its beginning was its end.” Read more here.
Political Philosophy and America at 250
What do America and Israel share, other than shared values and a strategic alliance against the forces of tyranny? Try declarations of independence and a celebration of individual rights that have stood the test of time. For a new episode of Matters of Policy & Politics, Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz speaks with Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen about what he witnessed during a recent visit to the Middle East. Among the topics discussed are Israel at a crossroads in 2026, the prospects for peace in Gaza, and the evolution of Israel as a free society in comparison to America. Berkowitz also reflects on his participation in the first Trump administration State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights, building off what Thomas Jefferson penned back in 1776, and his teaching at Stanford. Watch or listen here.
US Foreign Policy
Hoover Fellow Joseph Ledford writes at Engelsberg Ideas that “the daring capture of Maduro should not come as a surprise. The operation was the culmination of a strategic pivot to the Americas that Trump launched at the outset of his second administration.” Tracing the operation’s origins in the Trump administration’s evolving policy stance toward the Maduro regime over the last year, Ledford argues that the “geopolitics of 2026 made Operation Absolute Resolve possible,” because Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and the “Chinese Communist Party did not consider Venezuelan oil worth a cataclysmic war.” Ledford notes that the “crisis in Venezuela will not be resolved in the near term,” because the United States has an ambitious aim “to forcibly change the Venezuelan state from the Western Hemisphere’s worst actor into a good neighbor.” Ledford concludes with “cautious optimism” regarding “Venezuela’s prospects for stabilization, recovery, and transition.” Read more here.
Writing for RealClearDefense, National Security Visiting Fellow Nadia Schadlow argues that in Venezuela, “the United States once again faces the enduring challenge of how military pressure, political authority, and economic stabilization intersect in moments of intervention.” Schadlow encourages policymakers to study the history of “more than seventeen major military interventions overseas” by the United States since the mid-19th century. She notes that in “Panama in 1989, the collapse of the Panamanian Defense Forces was unanticipated, leaving US troops responsible for law and order and prompting the creation of a special unit to advise, train, and equip local security forces.” Schadlow also says “sustained attention to the formation of a legitimate new government is essential.” The column concludes that studying the history of US interventions is essential “to facilitate a stable transition and avoid predictable failures.” Read more here.
California Politics & Policy
In a column for Washington Monthly, Visiting Fellow Markos Kounalakis argues that “when Washington falters, California—leveraging its economic might, its world-class institutions, and its people—acts as a de facto nation-state to safeguard its future and the rest of the nation's.” Kounalakis notes how during the COVID-19 pandemic the state “used its immense economic leverage” to negotiate contracts for protective and medical equipment “on the world stage like a global power, ensuring supply chains to protect its frontline citizens.” Kounalakis also notes California’s ongoing public investment in public health and scientific infrastructure builds “a parallel institution” to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more here.
Featured Research Initiative
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