Nuclear

Campaigning on a nationalist vision of the United States as a country being misused by other countries, Donald Trump promised to bring upon significant changes to the international order. His primary tool for achieving this has been an abandonment of multilateral arrangements. Under Trump’s leadership, the US withdrew from the Universal Postal Union, the UNESCO, and has effectively blocked the dispute resolution mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The least the international community needs is a return to a nuclear arms race. We have already experienced it during the Cold War, at the height of which it is estimated that 60,000 nuclear weapons were in the arsenals (mostly) of the United States and the Soviet Union. These weapons could have destroyed our planet many times over! Today, it is estimated that the nuclear weapons in those arsenals are around 15,000. This is a “dramatic” reduction, indeed, which, however, does not allow us to sleep peacefully.

Understanding the current iteration of the two-decade long North Korean crisis is not easy. It is, for what of a better word, complicated. Furthermore, the fact is that it has finally imploded while Donald  Trump is President. “Of all the presidents in all the world, why did you have to start a North Korean crisis with him...?” This is not an administration that lends itself to level analysis. And nor is the topic, for that matter.

Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe does not have what a country geographically so close to and easily within range of North Korean short and medium-range missiles should have: a plan, let alone a North Korea strategy, that goes beyond announcing that Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests are an “unacceptable provocation”. 

2017 is a crucial year for Iran. In January, while the "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action" (JCPOA) entered the second year of implementation, in Washington the Trump Administration took office, with the promise to “renegotiate a disastrous deal”. In May, in Tehran, the incumbent president Hassan Rouhani won re-election by a wide margin. 

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Presidential elections will take place on May 19 2017 in Iran. There are six official candidates who are running for the presidency in this round who have been pre-selected by the Council of Guardians from among 1653 candidates. This means that the Council of Guardians has approved that these six persons have all the requirements, foreseen through the Constitution, to eventually become the President of the Islamic Republic.