Stephen L. Carter, Columnist

Mideast's Balance of Power Tips Toward Iran

Tehran makes no secret of its ambitions, and seems to face no significant opposition in the drive to achieve them.

March 16, 2015 at 10:09 PM UTC

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of law at Yale University and author of “Invisible: The Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster.”

When Tikrit is won, who of the militias will remain?
Photographer: Mohammed Sawaf/AFP/Getty Images

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Difficult though it may be to believe, Iran presents more important challenges than whether a nuclear deal negotiated with the regime in the teeth of congressional opposition would be legally binding. Nuclear weapons are scary, and they do matter, but in the long run, geopolitical reality matters more. That’s why this report, which arrived over the weekend from the Dubai-based Orient Advisory Group, should be disturbing:

This is rather heady stuff. But might it be mere rhetoric, designed for domestic political consumption? There is reason to think not. Iraq has served for decades as a bulwark against Iran’s territorial ambitions, but that status was exploded by a pair of U.S. decisions: first, President George W. Bush’s invasion; and, second, President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of U.S. forces.