According to the Department of Defense, on February 25, two U.S. F-15 aircraft conducted a “proportional” strike on seven facilities in eastern Syria used by the Iran-backed militias that conducted a February 15 attack on Erbil International Airport and surrounding residential areas in Iraq’s Kurdish-controlled north| The Soufan Center
Despite the Biden administration’s diplomatic outreach to Iran, another cycle of Iran-backed attacks and U.S. retaliation is emerging, resembling patterns of U.S.-Iran clashes during the Trump administration| The Soufan Center
In late April, Iran revealed that it held a fifth round of talks with Saudi Arabia in Baghdad, Iraq, the site of most of the previous rounds of meetings in 2021. Iranian media reported that the latest talks were attended by "senior officials from the secretariat of Iran's Supreme National Security Council| The Soufan Center
As of mid-August, international diplomats and proliferation experts have begun to consider Iran a “threshold nuclear state,” based on the significant advances its nuclear program has made since President Trump withdrew the United States from the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018| The Soufan Center
In Vienna, Austria, the United States and three European partners (France, the United Kingdom, and Germany), joined by Russia and China, have been negotiating with Iran over the past year to restore full U.S. and Iranian compliance with the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear agreement| The Soufan Center