ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Click to Enlarge The Shiite-dominated Iraqi state has weakened to the point where Tehran will have to depend on Shiite militias to protect its interests across the Iraqi border . When Iran's Shiite proxies consolidated control over Iraq after the U.S. invasion, Tehran took comfort in the weakening of the Sunnis, the minority community that had dominated Iraq since 1920. However, Tehran has been concerned about a potential Sunni revival , especially since the Arab Spring in Syria metastasized into a full-scale civil war and regional sectarian conflict. If Syria fell to the Sunnis , Tehran's allied regime in Baghdad would be threatened and Iran could again face a major threat on its western border . Iran's sense of relief about preventing the collapse of the Alawite regime in Damascus shattered earlier this month when Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant militants surged in Iraq . The offensive likely came as a surprise, since the Sunnis in Syria had been contained and the

An employee at Uzhgorod natural gas metering station near Chaslivci, Ukraine on May 21.(ALEXANDER ZOBIN/AFP/Getty Images) Analysis Following weeks of EU-arbitrated negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Russian energy company Gazprom cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine on June 16. Five days earlier, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak threatened that Moscow would do so if Kiev did not make a $1.95 billion payment on its natural gas debt. On the same day, both Gazprom and Ukraine's Naftogaz filed lawsuits in an arbitration court in Stockholm; Gazprom is trying to collect $4.5 billion in back payments, though Naftogaz claims it had actually overpaid by $6 billion. Russia is trying to pressure Ukraine and its European backers into compromising on debt repayment and pricing. The wrangling over debt and natural gas prices will continue, but the current cutoff is likely to be temporary and less detrimental to downstream buyers than previous cutoffs. Click to Enlarge Recently,

A newsstand owner counts Argentine pesos bills in Buenos Aires.(LEO LA VALLE/AFP/Getty Images) Analysis The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition from the Argentine government June 16, effectively ending years of legal battles in U.S. courts. The decision not to hear Argentina's case means that a 2012 ruling by lower courts, which forced Argentina to pay holdout creditors, remains intact. The decision by New York District Judge Thomas Griesa said that if Argentina intended to make payments to creditors holding bonds issued in 2005 and 2010, when it restructured its debt, it would have to pay the full value of bonds held by creditors who refused to renegotiate their bonds after the default, known as the holdouts. Click to Enlarge Of the original $95 billion default from Argentina's 2001-2002 economic crisis, a total of 93 percent of creditors participated in the previous debt restructures. Roughly $15 billion, a sum that includes estimated interest, remains in default. At stak

Summary Finnish EU Minister Alexander Stubb, who is likely to be appointed prime minister in the coming days, said June 14 that his country should join NATO. This comes amid an ongoing debate over the future of Finland , a country that has put military nonalignment at the core of its foreign policy. The debate highlights the extent to which the events in Ukraine are having a political and psychological effect on the line of countries from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea that traditionally have been caught in the conflict between Russia and the West. While there is room for greater cooperation between Finland and NATO, Helsinki is unlikely to formally join NATO any time soon. In the coming years Finland will remain particularly interested in cooperating with its main regional partners in Nordic Europe, especially Sweden . Analysis Finland is the quintessential borderland state, surrounded by powerful neighbors, and the Finns have spent the past 10 centuries worried about events to thei

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (R) and presidential candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga in a TV debate in Bogota, on June 9, 2014. (GUILLERMO LEGARIA/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Colombians will go to the polls for the second time in a month June 15 to decide whether to re-elect Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Santos is running on a platform of reconciliation with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army. His opponent, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who is running with the full sponsorship of former President Alvaro Uribe, appears to offer a return to the more militaristic policies of the Uribe days. Far from offering hope for the future, the scandal-ridden campaign has left Colombians divided and unhappy. Santos and Uribe are two erstwhile allies fighting a public battle through Uribe's proxy, Zuluaga, myopically focused on the fate of a decades-old ideological war. The election can easily be cast as a referendum on the peace talks because the two can

  Click to Enlarge Ankara's relationship with Baghdad is being tested by 1 million barrels of crude oil, sourced from Iraqi Kurdistan, on board an oil tanker sitting idle off the coast of Morocco . The tanker, owned and operated by Greece-based Marine Management Services, was chartered by the Kurdistan Regional Government and set sail May 22 from a storage facility in the Turkish port of Ceyhan, with the approval of Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz. Baghdad opposes unilateral exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government and has threatened legal action against any company that facilitates the oil's sale. The United States has backed Baghdad by emphasizing its support of Iraq's central control over oil exports. Ankara, in league with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, timed the exports as Iraq is at a key juncture in the process of forming a new government. The Kurds want to play kingmaker for an eventual Shiite-dominated coalition in Bagh

The Iraqi army recruits volunteers to counter the offensive of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.(ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant's most recent offensive has rendered Iran's western flank vulnerable once again. The largest problem is that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi state has weakened to the point where Tehran will have to depend on Shiite militias to protect its interests across the Iraqi border. This policy likely will help to repel the militant forces but at a great cost as Iran's militias will undermine central control in Baghdad. Analysis When Iran's Shiite proxies consolidated control over Iraq after the U.S. invasion, Tehran took comfort in the weakening of the Sunnis, the minority community that had dominated Iraq since 1920. However, Tehran has been concerned about a potential Sunni revival , especially since the Arab Spring in Syria metastasized into a full-scale civil war and regional sectarian conflict.

An Iraqi soldier stands guard at a checkpoint in the Iraqi town of Taji, at the entrance of Baghdad, on June 13.(AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images) Analysis Iraqi security forces may have blunted the recent militant offensive , but the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant continues to wage its insurgency undaunted. In fact, the group and its allies, which include the Naqshbandi Army, Jamaat Ansar al-Islam and Jaish al-Muhajireen, are fanning out and striking weakly held government positions. To the northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has taken the towns of Jalula and As Sadiyah, as well as a number of nearby villages around the Himreen Mountains. The group is expected to converge next on Muqdadiyah, which Iraqi security forces currently hold. But the militants have a serious problem: As good as they may be at taking towns , they may not be able to hold them. Iraqi security forces are simply better armed, particularly with heavy weapons such