Harold Rhode

Following Israel’s recent strike on Houthi targets in Yemen, White House National Security Communications Advisor John F. Kirby said: “We did not participate in today’s Israeli attack on Yemen and did not help Israel.” This is wonderful news. It shows to the Iranians, Arab states and others that Israel is an independent actor, not a […]

Before Harold Rhode spent 28 years working in the Pentagon, most of the time advising secretaries of defense on the Muslim world, he had lived and studied in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere in the greater Middle East. Rhode had been a university student in Iran during that country’s Islamic revolution of 1978 […]

Periodically, the United States or Israel makes a concession to an adversary, planning – or hoping – for reciprocity. The underlying assumption is that, as the stronger party, they can afford to be generous and even, on occasion, to miscalculate. This is a fundamental misreading, not of the strength of the American or Israeli position, […]