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More from @AtlanticCouncil

Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

Nov 25

Last Friday, President Trump gave Ukraine a Thanksgiving deadline to approve a US peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.

As the deadline approaches, explore the Atlantic Council’s expert analysis on the details of the plan and what comes next.

THREAD 🧵

Read what our experts @AmbDanFried, @JohnEdHerbst, and @leslieshedd had to say about the 28-point US peace plan for Ukraine:
atlanticcouncil.org/content-series…

@AmbDanFried @JohnEdHerbst @leslieshedd For a deeper dive into the details of the peace proposal and to understand its wider implications, read more in our expert conversation with @ACEurasia’s @JohnEdHerbst:
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atla…

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

Aug 29

As the United States pushes to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, what’s next for the diplomatic negotiations?

Atlantic Council experts answer twenty burning questions.

THREAD 🧵
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atla…

1. What is the current state of the battlefield?

The battlefield needs to be understood broadly. Most of the commentary on “the battlefield” focuses on Moscow’s monthslong land offensive. The key point, well understood but incomplete, is that Moscow is making very slow, if painful, gains. There have been moments recently when Russian forces moved forward hundreds of meters, especially toward Pokrovsk, a key town in western Donetsk. Moscow has announced for weeks that it would “soon” take the town, but it has not, as Ukraine regained territory north of it and crack Ukrainian troops moved to the area to push the Russians back.

In the air, Moscow continues its savage war on Ukraine’s cities and civilians, which causes weekly casualties, but with little strategic impact. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s ever-growing drone capability—in both distance and explosive capacity—is wreaking havoc on Russian hydrocarbon installations, transportation hubs, bridges, railroads, weapons depots, and strategic industries. This is already having an impact on Russian oil supplies. Shortages are being felt throughout the country—even in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok—and are also magnifying the pressure on industrial production, which has been battered by high inflation and interest rates. Putin’s notion that he can inevitably take a good bit more territory—reflected in much Western media reporting—does not take into account Ukraine’s growing air campaign. Meanwhile, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is cowering in the eastern reaches of the Black Sea, far from its base in Sevastopol. Ukrainian drones have reduced the fleet’s role to shooting missiles from afar, and Ukraine’s ports remain open for commerce.

— @JohnEdHerbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s @ACEurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

2. What’s next for diplomatic negotiations?

It is no surprise that negotiations with Russia are going nowhere fast. Putin does not want to end the war. His goal is not to lock in his gains or to take the rest of the Donetsk Oblast, but to take effective political control of Ukraine; and he thinks that he can continue to grind forward on the ground. We have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity this month for one reason: Trump had set a hard deadline of August 8 for Putin to stop shooting or to face massive sanctions, including secondary sanctions on his principal trading partners. To evade this, Putin proposed a meeting with Trump and hinted to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff that he could be flexible. This prospect persuaded Trump to let the August 8 deadline pass without new sanctions and to meet with Putin, which he did on August 15 in Anchorage.

While Trump and Witkoff said that Putin demonstrated a readiness to make concessions there, we have no public evidence of a new, more conciliatory Kremlin position. Moscow rejects Trump’s intermediate goal of a cease-fire and continues its intensive bombardment of Ukrainian cities and civilians. The attack the night of August 27 was one of the largest of the war, killing at least twenty-three people in Kyiv. It proved an embarrassment to the White House, which still insists Russia is now more flexible, even as it demands a solution to “the root causes” of the war. This means a peace deal that includes a commitment that a “neutral” Ukraine would never join NATO; would not host foreign troops; and would hand over to Russia the territories in Luhansk and Donetsk that Kyiv controls, including the easily defendable towns in the western Donbas (Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, and Pokrovsk) that Moscow has been trying to seize for years.

Following the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and seven other European leaders to the White House for talks on August 18, the focus has turned to a potential Putin-Zelenskyy meeting. But Russian statements suggest that any such meeting is far off. This is no surprise. Putin has consistently rejected meetings with Zelenskyy for years and, with the sanctions pressure off, has had no reason to change his mind.

Trump has expressed his frustration with the difficulty of arranging a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting and mentioned the possibility of placing massive sanctions on Russia; but he has also floated suspending his efforts to achieve peace. He has threatened to walk away in the past and did not actually do it. While Trump still says that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is former President Joe Biden’s war, not his, he likely understands that as president of the United States, it is now his responsibility.

— @JohnEdHerbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s @ACEurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

Jun 30

WATCH NOW | The Atlantic Council marks the launch of its new Romania office with a discussion on the future of transatlantic ties. x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

“The transatlantic community is more resilient than people give it credit for,” @AmbDanFried tells @OlgaKhakova.

Watch live:

@AmbDanFried @OlgaKhakova “The understanding between the two shores of the Atlantic is key and is the foundation to work on,” says @ColibasanuAnto.

Watch the full panel:

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

Jun 22

Early on Sunday morning in the Middle East, US forces targeted Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

Atlantic Council experts assess the significance of the strikes and what to expect next.

THREAD 🧵
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atla…

The US ended one of its most serious foreign policy threats

I’ve worked for more than two decades on the Iranian nuclear crisis, and I have long forecasted that this issue would and should end in a US strike on Iran’s nuclear program. That is what happened tonight.

Every president since George W. Bush has stated correctly that acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran would be unacceptable. Others held out hope that this issue could be resolved at the negotiating table. But for more than two decades, Iran’s leaders have been unwilling to voluntarily give up their nuclear program. We were out of time. Experts estimated that Iran’s dash time to one bomb of weapons-grade uranium had shrunk to two to five days.

Others hoped that Israel would take care of the problem, but only the United States had the ability to destroy Iran’s deeply buried and hardened nuclear facilities.

Others fret about a wider regional war and even World War III. That won’t happen. Iran has few good retaliatory options, and it is afraid of a major war with the United States. Iran may launch token missile strikes, but expect this crisis to quickly de-escalate, like Trump’s strikes on Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in 2020.

Others worry that Iran will be enraged and redouble its efforts to rebuild a bomb. With what? Their nuclear facilities are a smoking pile of rubble. They probably won’t rebuild. They just spent billions of dollars and decades only to invite sanctions and a devastating war with the most powerful country in the world. Why hit replay on that tape?

If Iran rebuilds, we can hit them again.

Iran’s nuclear program has been one of the most serious threats to US foreign policy for more than two decades. It no longer exists. This may be the biggest US foreign policy accomplishment since the end of the Cold War.

— @MatthewKroenig is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s @ACScowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Council’s director of studies.

The two potential paths Iran’s response could take

It’s now Iran’s move, and Tehran has two pathways. It can choose to undertake a strike in which it attacks US bases in the region but with the intention of having a limited impact. Doing so would enable the Iranian regime to claim that it retaliated, defended its country, and stood up to the United States, which in turn might prompt the resumption of diplomatic engagement.

The president’s speech this evening is more likely to be viewed by the Iranian regime as another threat rather than as an opening for diplomacy. Iran is unlikely to believe it can simply capitulate to the United States—given that hardliners in the Iranian regime might view such a decision as inappropriate. Hopefully, Washington is also working through backchannels to provide Iran a face-saving diplomatic off-ramp for Tehran. Without something to be able to claim a reason for a lesser response, hardliners in the Iranian regime may ultimately win the day, which could lead to a much more dangerous outcome.

The other possible pathway is that the Iranian regime determines the US strikes—and continued threats Trump levied at Iran during his speech—compel the regime to undertake a significant attack against US personnel and interests. That would potentially prompt an escalatory spiral of attacks and counterattacks, which could lead to a regional war.

Iran’s military capabilities are degraded but far from extinguished. And if Iran worries that the regime is at risk either from the United States or Israel—or that if it doesn’t respond strongly enough, then it will lose the backing of those who generally support it—it could take this latter path. In doing so, it could seek to not only to leverage proxies in the Middle East to attack US interests and personnel, but also potentially undertake asymmetric attacks and terrorist attacks against global Israeli, Jewish, or US targets.

The other question that remains unanswered: Is Iran’s nuclear program truly destroyed? If it has been, then no further strikes will be required against sites related to Iran’s nuclear program, as the president seems to prefer. But if it turns out the strikes were not completely effective, that Iran moved portions of its nuclear weapons program, or that it has secret nuclear sites, then it is unlikely this will be the end of these strikes as Trump has sought.

The president made a decision this weekend that will create a new Middle East and potentially a better one—but it all depends on how Iran responds.

— @jpanikoff is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the US National Intelligence Council.

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

May 13

🇺🇸 @POTUS announced on Tuesday that Washington will remove all US sanctions on Syria.

How will the removal of sanctions affect Syria’s economy and future US-Syria relations?

Atlantic Council experts share their insights below.

THREAD 🧵
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atla…

This is an opportunity to secure a long-term US strategic victory in the region

Trump’s decision to lift US sanctions on Syria is a pivotal shift that could define his legacy in the Middle East. The move signals an opportunity to secure a long-term US victory in Syria by stabilizing the region, countering rivals such as Russia and China, and opening economic opportunities for US businesses.

Trump has long portrayed himself as a dealmaker, and his record on Syria supports that image. Unlike the Obama and Biden administrations, Trump responded decisively to al-Assad’s chemical weapon attacks in 2017 and 2018, launched airstrikes to deter further atrocities, and cooperated with Turkey in 2020 to halt the Assad regime’s and Russia’s assault on Idlib. He also signed the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which crippled the Assad regime financially, leading to its fall last December. Now, however, those same sanctions are undermining the prospects of Syria’s new post-Assad regime government, which is attempting to rebuild and distance itself from Iranian and Russian influence.

The current sanctions are weakening a new government that seeks US and Gulf support. If these sanctions were to stay in place, Syria’s economy would remain in free fall, making it increasingly reliant on Russia, China, and Iran. This would open the door to renewed extremism, regional instability, and the resurgence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Lifting sanctions will allow US companies to compete with Chinese firms for contracts in Syria’s expected $400 billion reconstruction effort. It will also enable Trump to leverage Gulf funding, create jobs in both Syria and the United States, and demonstrate Washington’s role as a stabilizing force. A prosperous Syria would reduce refugee flows, weaken Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and eliminate Syria as a threat to Israel—a country with which the new Syrian leadership seeks peaceful relations.

The new Syrian government is not without flaws, but it has made pragmatic moves. It started reintegrating territories with the Syrian Democratic Forces, cracked down on drug trafficking, made efforts aimed at protecting minorities, and distanced itself from Hezbollah and Iranian forces. These steps show a willingness to cooperate with the West and align with its goal of regional stability. If Trump follows through, he could secure a rare bipartisan win, outmaneuver Russia, and reshape the future of Syria in a way that serves US interests and regional peace.

— @Qidlbi is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs where he leads the Council’s work on Syria.

Trump is making a smart gamble

Trump’s announcement that he will provide sanctions relief to Syria is a gamble, but it is the right one. The collapse of the Assad regime, whose brutality, misrule, and collaboration with malevolent regional actors destroyed Syria, has given long-suffering Syrians a chance to build a different future.

The road to recovery will not be an easy one. Many are rightly suspicious of Syria’s new acting president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and others in his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement, due to their violent jihadist past. As one cannot look inside another’s soul, it is unknown if they have truly shed their extremist ideology amid a rebranding since coming to power in December.

What can be judged are actions. So far, al-Sharaa has said and done many of things Western and Arab nations have called for. He is making efforts to be inclusive, including appointing women and minorities into his cabinet. He says strict Sharia law will not be imposed. He has begun negotiations with the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces on their peaceful integration into Syrian national institutions. He claims to want Syria to pose no threat to any of its neighbors, including Israel, and he wants to keep Iran from re-establishing influence in Syria. He is aligning himself with moderate Arab states and US partners like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

These words and actions must be tested and verified over time. But to have any chance to succeed in stabilizing Syria, the new government needs resources to make the economy function. Reconstruction and resettlement of refugees, not to mention restoring services disrupted by years of civil war, will be expensive. Without a significant measure of US sanctions relief, none of this is possible. It would nearly guarantee Syria’s descent back into chaos and provide fertile ground for extremists.

Congress should work with Trump on crafting sanctions relief such that, if necessary, sanctions can be restored. But Trump is right to seize this opportunity.

— @DanielBShapiro is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. From 2022 to 2023, he was the Director of the N7 Initiative. He has previously served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and as US ambassador to Israel.

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

May 8

🌟 Tonight in Washington, five exceptional leaders will be honored at the Atlantic Council Distinguished Leadership Awards—known as the “Oscars of Washington.” #DLA2025 #ACAwards

Follow the thread for live updates. 🧵
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We are dedicated to an alliance of democracies and galvanizing US leadership alongside our partners to advance the broader cause of democracy across the world, says Atlantic Council Board Chairman John F.W. Rogers.

Register to watch the broadcast:
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“For more than six decades, Judy’s voice has carried the hopes, dreams, and stories of generations,” says Atlantic Council Executive Vice Chair Adrienne Arsht about #DLA2025 honoree @TheJudyCollins.

Register to watch the broadcast: ➡️ #ACAwards bit.ly/4iYkjJM