Regional geopolitical requirements, along with internal political and security concerns, have been the main pillars of Jordanian policy vis-à-vis the Syrian crisis. The management of security concerns associated with the growing terrorism on its northern border had become the main objective of Jordan’s foreign policy. Thus, many Jordanians …

Maria Dubovikova  Saudi Arabia is working hard to change the world’s perception of the Kingdom. Such a task is hard, taking into account decades of being one of the most closed countries in the world. There was hardly any positive news on the Kingdom for years. Saudi Arabia …

Walter Russel Mead About 1.4 million expatriate Turks voted in Turkey’s referendum to grant President Erdogan near-dictatorial powers, with three quarters of them residing in Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. These Turkish voters, living in some of Europe’s most liberal countries, overwhelming cast their ballots for …

Samuel Moyn Most accounts of the human rights movement begin with the crystallization of ideas about “the rights of man” during the Enlightenment, ideas that were ushered onto the world stage during the American and French Revolutions in the eighteenth century, pushed forward by antislavery and anticolonial movements …

By Shehab Al Makahleh The current pandemonium in the Middle East displays so many poignant chunks as to opaque rudimentary inclinations and processes. Incidents are manifold, coalitions are flimsy and fissiparous, leaving the region in anarchy with makes it impossible to tell what the outcome would be when …

Shehab Al Makahleh Jordan remained relatively stable compared to other regional counterparts when commotions spread across the Middle East in 2011. Notwithstanding the conflict on its borders with Iraq and Syria, the upsurge of Daesh and a large inflow of Syrian refugees to the country as a result …

By Maria Dubovikova A friend of mine — a journalist at the prominent Russian newspaper Kommersant — recently wrote: “Jordan prepares the ground for the Helsinki summit.” And somehow it is true. Jordan, however, proceeds not with global charity in mind, but rather national interests that are seriously …

By Shehab Al Makahleh Thanks to war in Syria, which turned Turkey from the state of rivalry to Iran to be a friend not only to Tehran and Beijing but also to Moscow, playing a pivotal Middle Eastern role. To diagnose how Turkish-Iranian ties affect Turkish-Chinese and Iranian-Chinese …

By Shehab Al Makahleh The West needs to understand the present connection between Jordan’s economy and its politics. Since 2011, Jordan has been facing a wide range of pressures — political, economic, demographic, security and military — due mainly to the continuing anarchy in neighboring Iraq and Syria …