The Council on Foreign Relations

Stephanie Psaki is a leading expert on health security and the intersection of global health, U.S. foreign policy, and national security. She has two decades of experience spanning the White House, federal agencies, and international research and program management. President Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO) Monday that calls for changes to childhood vaccine recommendations.

Steven Cook is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. He is the author of The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement on August 7. The parties have not released an official text, but reports indicate that the three countries have in essence agreed to a NATO Article 5-like clause—an attack on one signatory would be considered an attack on all of them.

Aging leaders. Mysterious medical appointments. Elected officials’ long absences from public duties, explained in the vaguest of terms or not at all. These increasingly common features of political life in the United States are familiar to many followers of African politics. Their corrosive effect on public trust and accountability in African states should serve as a warning to Americans.

Sadanand Dhume has viewed foreign policy through the lens of a foreign correspondent, a newspaper columnist, an author, and now a senior fellow at CFR, where he focuses on India, Pakistan, and South Asia. He also writes the biweekly East is East column for the Wall Street Journal, covering South Asia and the Indian diaspora.

This transcript was generated using AI and may contain errors. PATTERSON: The Iran war, which began on February 28th, shows absolutely no sign of ending soon. MALLABY: What have we learned since then? What should we expect the spillovers to be for energy markets, financial markets, shipping, and the world economy? PATTERSON: I’m Rebecca Patterson. MALLABY: And I’m Sebastian Mallaby. PATTERSON: Welcome to The Spillover. MALLABY: So, Rebecca, we first discussed Iran on The Spillover quite a while back.

Elliott Abrams served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the George W. Bush administration, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East. He later served as special representative for Iran and Venezuela in the first Donald Trump administration. Hamas’s assault on October 7, 2023, was the culmination of years of Iranian efforts to surround Israel with Tehran’s proxies.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. That first-ever use of an atomic weapon killed an estimated 140,000 people, most of whom were civilians. Three days later, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki. Some 40,000 people, again mostly civilians, died instantly. Another 34,000 died agonizing deaths from radiation poisoning, flash burns, and other injuries in the weeks that followed.

“Act in haste, repent at leisure.” “Look before you leap.” “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Warnings against acting rashly are frequently offered. They are just as frequently ignored. The results can be tragic. A case in point is the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Congress passed it on August 7, 1964, providing the legal basis for the Vietnam War. Congress acted, however, without investigating whether the facts were as President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers had presented them.

Tens of thousands of migrants crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, an autonomous Spanish territory in North Africa, between July 30 and 31. The unexpected crisis overwhelmed local authorities and infrastructure, marking a first test of the European Union’s (EU) new Pact on Migration and Asylum.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. That first-ever use of an atomic weapon killed an estimated 140,000 people, most of whom were civilians. Three days later, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Some 40,000 people, again mostly civilians, died instantly. Another 34,000 died agonizing deaths from burns and radiation poisoning in the weeks that followed.