Middle East

Roger Kimball In the fog of prewar Iran, disinformation, inflated body counts, and diplomatic silence obscure a simple truth: the regime is murdering its people, and the world is running out of time. Everyone knows about “the fog of war.” What about the fog of prewar? There are …

Growing geopolitical tensions and repeated export controls by Beijing have pushed rare earths and other critical minerals to the centre of global economic and security debates. China’s dominance across the mining, refining, and processing stages of these minerals has long been a strategic vulnerability for advanced economies, but …

Governments expressed caution in response to U. S. President Donald Trump’s invitation to join his “Board of Peace” initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts. Only Hungary, whose leader is close to Trump, openly accepted the invitation, while others refrained from public comments due to concerns about how the …

Jamal Ladam By 2026, the global system is undergoing critical changes, marked by political uncertainty, economic fears, and security concerns. The idea of a unipolar world, which seemed dominant before, is slowly declining, making way for a clearer picture of a multipolar order in which decision-making power is …

Mohammed Ayoob Multiple, intersecting Middle East crises combined with an unpredictable United States augur a tumultuous 2026 for the region. The current protests in Iran and the Donald Trump administration’s threat to take military action against the Iranian regime, if it continues to suppress dissent violently, demonstrate how …

Yannis Bassias and Evangelos Flitris* Europe finds itself at a moment where industrial competitiveness, energy security, and climate ambition must be reconciled. The slow rollout of CO₂ storage capacity, especially when compared with the United States, has become a defining strategic concern. Through the Net Zero Industry Act …

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have prepared a draft trilateral defense agreement after nearly a year of talks, according to Pakistan’s defense production minister, signaling a move to create a new regional security bloc independent of Western alliances. While Turkish officials confirmed talks but said no deal has …

Athanasios Platias Waves of mass protest in Iran tend to erupt when least expected, though this should hardly surprise us. They typically represent the release of pressures accumulated over years. The current cycle follows this familiar pattern. Its immediate trigger was a sharp currency collapse that pushed the …

Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh What is unfolding today in the Middle East is not a prelude to war. It is war — conducted in the electromagnetic spectrum rather than the airspace. The forward deployment of Eurofighter Typhoon EK/IK electronic-warfare variants from Germany, France, and the United Kingdom into some Arab states and …