William Keenan, at The Blogs

Jun 22, 2026, 8:29 PM

A Senator Exposes a Democratic Messaging Problem In his June 23rd interview on NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, Senator Cory Booker placed himself squarely in the center of a growing Democratic dilemma. Booker announced that he opposes the...

Jun 21, 2026, 6:06 PM

Iran Deal: The Strategic Reality That Trump’s Critics Are Missing

“Israel’s situation is worse than at any point since the state’s establishment… Netanyahu bet everything on Trump, and Israel lost at the roulette table.” The Ynet analysis now circulating across Israeli media is only one expression of a broader...

Jun 19, 2026, 5:33 PM

Iran Deal: Has the Time Come for a Real Abraham Accords?

The fourteen-point memorandum of understanding signed between Washington and Tehran on June 17 commits the United States and its regional partners to a $300 billion reconstruction package for Iran, financed through a performance-gated structure rather than a sovereign payout....

Jun 16, 2026, 8:39 AM

Israel’s Day After – The Limits of Military Dominance

The Strategic Shift The last three years has made a simple truth unavoidable: military dominance is no longer a reliable path to lasting security in the Middle East. Where states once sought regional order through overwhelming force, a different logic...

Jun 14, 2026, 10:47 AM

Strategic Implications of the Imminent Iran Deal

A Stalemate Wrapped in a Deal The Memorandum of Understanding expected to be agreed upon by Iran and the United States in the coming days will effectively halt large-scale hostilities and set a timetable to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,...

Jun 12, 2026, 5:19 AM

Israeli Fears Are Legitimate – But That Is True for Iranians and Palestinians

Israelis have perfectly rational reasons to believe they live under existential threat. This is not a matter of exaggeration or political theater; it is a conclusion shaped by centuries of persecution, the trauma of the Holocaust, and the lived...

Jun 10, 2026, 7:59 AM

Why Trump is pivoting on Iran

"If we go and bomb — which we can do very easily — and we spend another two or three weeks bombing, they'll have nothing left whatsoever, but you won't have the Strait open for months." That sentence, delivered...

Jun 8, 2026, 8:05 PM

Iran War Day 101: Mother of All Catch 22s

The crisis unfolding between Washington, Jerusalem, and Tehran has entered a phase that feels less like strategy and more like a trap. It is a trap built from misread capabilities, mismatched incentives, and the brittle architecture of a patron–client...

Jun 7, 2026, 6:04 AM

Concerns About the U.S.–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative

What Is Section 224 Section 224, included in the House Armed Services Committee's chairman's mark of the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act, would establish the United States–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative. The provision directs the Secretary of Defense to designate...

Jun 5, 2026, 10:43 AM

Iran War: The CIA-ODNI Turf War That Wasn’t

Why Tuslsi Gabbard Had to Go Recent reporting on Tulsi Gabbard's departure from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has focused on a familiar Washington storyline: an institutional feud between ODNI and the CIA, competing intelligence assessments about...

About Me

William (Bill) Keenan is a Middle East analyst who served as: an Arabian Peninsula counterterrorism analyst at the Pentagon; an Arab Gulf political/military analyst at the NATO Intelligence Fusion Centre; a counterterrorism analyst at the US European Command (EUCOM); and a professor of intelligence for the Multinational Security Transition Command - Iraq (MNSTC-I) at the Iraq Ministry of Defense Intelligence Directorate. He lived and worked in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for 15 years.

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