Join as a member—or become a founding member.

Waking up alone

Now, his fall will transform more than his country. Syria has been a critical part of the so-called Axis of Resistance, the alliance formed by Iran to counter what it casts as the dominance of the Middle East by the U.S. and Israel. Syria was the only other state actor in this alliance; the other members are militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, the Houthis in Yemen, and various groups in Iraq. And for decades, Assad’s Syria served as a major transit route for weapons and money from Iran to Hezbollah. In the war that began with Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, however, Israel has battered both Hezbollah and Hamas, killing a lot of both groups’ leaders—and now Assad is gone, too. So where does his defeat leave Iran?

Vali Nasr is a professor of Middle East studies and international affairs at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Nasr says the end of Assad means the end of the Axis. But the bigger threat to Iran might be internal. Within the country, the Axis’s disintegration has driven a number of political factions to openly criticize the leadership in Tehran: Moderates say the regime’s strategy and prolific spending on the Axis were huge mistakes; many military officers say the leadership is to blame for its defeat; and conservatives say the leadership should be pursuing nuclear weapons or otherwise making a show of military force to demonstrate the country’s enduring power. Meanwhile, there’s still extensive public resentment of the regime carrying over from the nationwide protests in 2022 over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody and the chronic repression of women it represented—along with an ever-worsening economy …

• “During the first year of the current war, the Axis looked ascendant against Israel. But then Israel defeated Hezbollah and turned the tide. It was a defeat in military intelligence and on the battlefield. Syria was just a collapse, and it was surprisingly fast. I don’t know anyone who expected Assad to fall in 11 days.”
• “The most important thing Iran has lost: any fear in Israel about Iranian retaliation on its borders. Assad is gone, Hezbollah is gone, and Hamas is gone.”
• “The fundamental issue in the Middle East, I would say, isn’t Iran; the fundamental issues are the Palestinian question and broken states. And in my opinion, no one’s addressing these problems a constructive way at the moment. With or without Iran’s influence, these issues won’t go away.”

it’s about building confidence.

What if you could freely chat with someone at a Parisian café,

or easily navigate a bustling market in Tokyo—without a translation app?

Both Biden and President-Elect Donald Trump see political value in retaining manufacturing in America. Deindustrialization has struck American steel towns hard: American steel mills employ 84,000 workers today, compared with 190,000 in the late 1980s. No president wants to endanger those remaining jobs, but here, both companies are claiming that Biden’s political considerations have outweighed true national-security interests in the CFIUS review.

The question of whether the takeover poses national-security risks—in a broad sense that includes long-term economic security—rests on how reliant it’ll make America on imported steel. The United States currently imports roughly three-fourths of its steel—mainly from Canada, Mexico, and Brazil—and has seven primary steel plants, of which U.S. Steel owns three.

Both companies have also sued David McCall, the president of the United Steelworkers (USW), for allegedly “preventing the transaction.” Thousands of steelworkers expressed their support for Nippon Steel’s takeover, fearing that their legacy steel mills might close without significant new investment. Nippon Steel has promised to invest $2.7 billion in modernized plants and equipment, $1 billion of that in Mon Valley, Pennsylvania, which is more than U.S. Steel says it can invest on its own. The USW, however, says Nippon’s promises won’t be legally enforceable. What’s more, Nippon insisted on a force majeure clause which could potentially have voided its investment promises in the case of labor strikes.

Another consideration that’s weighed on the minds of American officials is Washington’s relationship with Tokyo, which lobbied vigorously if ineffectually in favor of the takeover. As Kenneth B. Pyle explores in Japan in the American Century, Japan has gone in just a couple of decades from more or less passively relying on the United States to actively partnering with it on near-equal footing. Today, it’s not only the top foreign investor in the U.S. but the foremost counterweight to China in the Western Pacific region. Tokyo may feel spurned by Biden’s veto, but its relationship with Washington is deep and unlikely to break over a single dispute—even one with this level of investment at stake.

—Gustav Jönsson

• Russia’s dominant natural-gas producer, Gazprom, said on Monday that it would be firing 40 percent of its headquarters staff, which accounts for some 1,600 jobs. The company has yet to report results for 2024, but it posted a loss of nearly US$7 billion in 2023: “Analysts say the losses show how Gazprom, once a cash-rich ‘national champion’ that used its hold over Europe’s energy supply as a geopolitical weapon, has failed to adapt to the crash in sales in the EU market.”
• The Polish government has meanwhile fired a general for misplacing 1,000 tonnes of munitions, including some 250 anti-tank mines. Employees of the furniture company IKEA found the mines near one of their warehouses in eastern Poland: “Cooperation with the military police went very smoothly,” said Malgorzata Dobies-Turulska, CEO of IKEA Poland. “The box was collected by the military police on the same day.”
• Defined as a “deep state of joy that comes from being totally immersed in the moment”, Visit Wales is making Hwyl (pronounced “hoo-eel”) the centerpiece of their new campaign to entice tourists to visit its countryside, mountains, and cities: “Hwyl comes to life in both relaxing and energetic environments,” says Awel Vaughan-Evans, of the school of psychology at Bangor University in north Wales. “Essentially, hwyl is your own particular form of happiness.”

• The world of entertainment and media drives new trends in business and the economy. It’s also complex and fast-moving. How to keep up? Read TheFutureParty, a free newsletter with the latest developments and insights from inside the industry. Sign up here.

Please send questions or comments here.

Interested in getting your teams or students

access to The Signal? Please be in touch.

Find us on Linkedin and X.

Add us to your address book.

Unsubscribe here.

© 2024