WORLD ROUNDUPHow to Use “Maximum Pressure” to Stop an Iranian Bomb | How to Win the Global South’s Energy Race | The Trump Administration vs the “Axis of Upheaval”?, and more

How to Use “Maximum Pressure” to Stop an Iranian Bomb  (Economist)
The Islamic Republic is closer than ever to obtaining nukes.

Assad’s Fall Opens Window for Syrian Refugees to Head Home − but for Many, It won’t Be an Easy Decision  (Kelsey Norman and Ana Martín Gil, The Conversation)
More than 6 million Syrians have fled the country since 2011, when an uprising against the regime of Bashar Assad transformed into a 13-year civil war. Most ended up in neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, while a sizable minority wound up in Europe. But the overthrow of the Assad regime in late 2024 by opposition forces led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has seemingly opened a window for their return, and tens of thousands of former refugees have since made the decision to go back to their homeland.
How many and who decides to go back, and the circumstances under which they reintegrate into Syrian society, will have enormous implications for both Syria and the countries they resettled in. It also provides an opportunity for migration scholars like ourselves to better understand what happens when refugees finally return home.

How to Win the Global South’s Energy Race  (Timothy Ray and Ramon Marks, National Interest)
The United States has a comparative advantage over China as an energy provider; it should make the most of it.

New Missiles and F-35s Will Make Poland a Military Powerhouse  (Maya Carlin, National Interest)
Poland’s purchase of this lethal system will make the Eastern European nation a force to be reckoned with in the region.

The Trump Administration vs the “Axis of Upheaval”?  (Luis Simón, War on the Rocks)
Will the Trump administration try to break the so-called “axis of upheaval”? 
The Russo-Ukrainian War has catalyzed the consolidation of two sets of adversarial geopolitical alignments, however loose or imperfect they might be. On the one hand, a pan-Eurasian group of authoritarian or revisionist powers, comprising Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, has colluded in armed aggression and territorial conquest in Europe. As others have noted, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran have enabled Russia’s war machine and defense industrial base in a variety of ways both directly and indirectly. On the other hand, U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific — including Australia, Japan, and South Korea — have rallied to support Ukraine and strengthened their institutional ties with NATO.
The image of two sets of adversarial alignments pitting continental and authoritarian powers against maritime democracies is a powerful one, and is very much in line with the Biden administration’s emphasis on revamping U.S. alliances and stressing the division  between democracy and autocracy. However, uncertainty around the Trump administration’s commitment to furthering ties between U.S. allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific or alleged temptation to drive wedges between China, Russia and North Korea warrants grappling with some fundamental questions: How deep and broad are these adversarial geopolitical alignments? How far do they extend geographically? And to what extent can they be manipulated?

Divided by Hate: Confronting Antisemitism and Islamophobia in the Netherlands  (Tanya Mehra, Lawfare)
The political response to recent incidents like the attack targeting supporters of an Israeli soccer team is making polarization worse.

Trump’s Termination of West Bank Settler Sanctions  (Brad Brooks-Rubin, Just Security)
President Donald Trump’s executive order on his first day in office revoked President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14115, issued on Feb. 1, 2024, declaring a national emergency and imposing sanctions related to instability in the West Bank. 
The “national emergency” declared by Biden to underly these measures was simply the required step in order for him to impose sanctions pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the principal law used to create most economic sanctions programs. But the foundational reason for the national emergency — “high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction [that] has reached intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region” — has not disappeared. Trump and his team will need to consider what steps they may need to rely on in the event of an escalation that threatens their overall goals for reducing conflict in the region.