On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unprecedent direct flight from Tel Aviv to Khartoum, amid speculation that Sudan would be the next Arab country to make peace with Israel. While the Sudanese government then clarified that nothing of the sort was to happen, its statement on the matter left the possibility open in a way that until recently would have been unimaginable. Benny Avni sees Pompeo’s visit, and even the rumors about peace, as evidence that Sudan, having freed itself of the genocidal dictator Omar al-Bashir, is ready to reconcile with the West:

[Sudan’s] premier, Abdalla Hamdok, said that the current government has no authority to make peace with Israel before an election. Yet [his country’s] location on the shores of the Red Sea would certainly make it a strategic ally for Israel and America.

Sudan, meanwhile, is desperate for foreign aid and Western investment. To start getting that, it needs to be off the State Department’s terror list, where it was placed in 1993 for harboring top terrorists, including Osama bin Laden. Several America-based terror-related lawsuits against Sudan remain pending, while others have been resolved.

Delisting with respect to terrorism goes beyond technicalities. It’s a political issue with wider implication than ties with Israel. As everywhere else in the world, China’s influence in the Middle East is growing. Unless America competes in this new cold war-like struggle, countries like Sudan will fall under Beijing’s spell.

Washington [should try] to make Sudan, once a cruel terrorist state, into an American ally. Delisting and relations with Israel can mark the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days