Joel Rubin

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is convinced that Iran is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon. He believes that the Iranians cannot be deterred through diplomacy, and he views the Iranian threat as one that may bring about a second Jewish Holocaust.

Negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program will soon morph into technical discussions about levels of uranium enrichment, nuclear inspections protocol and fuel swaps. As the negotiations proceed, policymakers -- particularly in Washington -- will grow increasingly nervous about the prospects for a nuclear deal.

It is therefore essential that...

Iran is a complex country that defies simple definition. It possesses a nuclear program increasingly under international scrutiny. It is regarded by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism. And it makes its neighbors in the Middle East very nervous.

However, until 1979, when the Iranian...

Iran's nuclear program is on the tip of everyone's tongue in Washington these days, with ever-increasing congressional calls for sanctions and talk of war. The Obama administration, which desperately wants to avoid getting entangled in another military quagmire in the Middle East while preventing nuclear weapons proliferation, has...

In 1974, Israel struck a security deal with Syria that is still in effect today. The West should seek to do the same with Iran in 2012.

When the subject of diplomacy with Iran comes up, the debate in Washington usually centers on whether a deal with Iran on its...

The warmongers are back, and this time they're training their gun sights on Iran.

Just check out the Republican presidential debates, where almost all of the candidates cavalierly call for war with Iran as a standard talking point. Yet, while the Iranian nuclear program is a major challenge for American...

The debate over the extent to which the U.S. government is committing itself to spending vast sums of taxpayer dollars on nuclear weapons and related programs over the next decade is in full force in Congress, inside the administration, and in the media.

An open,...

The failure of the super committee to do its duty means that Americans have a government that's frozen, unable to meet the challenges of the moment and trapped in decision-making gridlock. The bigger picture of this drama is that Congress is seemingly unable to roll back the $15...

As the world ratchets up pressure on Iran because of its nuclear activities, there's one key international organization that deserves most of the credit for showing us what Iran is -- and is not -- doing. That's the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the United Nations.

The IAEA is...

No matter how difficult Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking gets, there are always opportunities to change its trajectory and move diplomacy in a positive direction. Another such opportunity will be provided later this month at the United Nations when the Palestinians ask for recognition as a state.

Some say that the Palestinians have...

Senator Jon Kyl has threatened to quit the debt supercommittee. We should all be so lucky.

But why now, only one day into the legally required work of the supercommittee to save our country from overwhelming debt, has the second most powerful Republican in the Senate...

President Obama's critics are on the verge of witnessing a third major Obama success in the Arab world in 2011.

First, longtime Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak was deposed after Obama refused to support him against the Egyptian people at the moment of truth. Second, Osama bin Laden, America's archenemy...

Israel is becoming more Middle Eastern every day.

The country that just experienced a public panic over the price of cottage cheese is now in the midst of massive "tent city" street protests over housing prices and poor economic conditions. Just last weekend, more than 150,000 Israelis took...

As the dust settles on the debt ceiling deal, it’s become clear that major cuts to defense spending have not only been approved in a bipartisan manner by Congress, but that even more are on the way. This means that the days of unlimited defense spending increases, where all systems...

The United States is on the verge of what Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, calls a financial "calamity." Why? Because unrealistic members of Congress are blocking raising the government's debt ceiling, creating the very real possibility that the government will dangerously default on its debt obligations, eviscerating...

Will Republicans, during these debt-ceiling negotiations, do the unthinkable and support cutting defense spending to avoid raising taxes on the uber-wealthy? The answer is yes, as it should be, and there is an answer to their angst.

The answer is that we should dramatically reduce the nuclear weapons budget. Doing...

Check out this Bloggingheads TV debate on Iran policy that I just did with Josh Block. Josh is the former AIPAC Spokesman and I'm the former J Street Political and Government Affairs Director. We also went to college together at Brandeis. It's some good...

The national security calculus of keeping U.S. forces in Afghanistan has shifted. Any gains that we made from keeping 100,000 American soldiers in harm's way are now questionable, especially since al Qaeda has been dealt a significant blow with the killing of Osama bin Laden. President Obama's decision...

As Hosni Mubarak sends mixed signals about his next steps -- from an undisclosed location -- what should Americans expect next? Our best Arab ally for the past 30 years has consistently shown himself to be a cagey autocrat, one not to be counted out prematurely, but this may even...

A new right-wing neoconservative attack group on Israel policy has been formed by the same ideologues that brought you the war in Iraq. This group -- the Emergency Committee for Israel -- has decided to make Pennsylvania's upcoming Senate race its pivotal moment to enter national politics. It has done...