Op-ed

Arman Mahmoudian Iran’s missile strikes on its Arab neighbors might lead those neighbors to seek closer ties with the United States—but could also cause them to distance themselves from it. On March 10, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed that Iran hadmade a major error by launching drone …

Alexander Langlois The latest Israeli foray into Lebanon is an attempt to impose the “Gaza model” on the country.   As the American and Israeli war on Iran expands across the Middle East, Lebanon faces its nightmare scenario. Israel has invaded the country once again, supposedly to disarm …

Alice Johnson The choice of military escalation in the conflict with Iran is an important juncture in modern geopolitics. However, while the conflict is justified in the context of demonstrating power and deterring future threats, early evidence suggests that the long-term implications may differ significantly from the initial …

Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh I. Introduction: War Beyond Reason In the evolving landscape of great power competition and regional conflict, few phenomena are as destabilizing as the gradual erosion of strategic rationality. What begins as a calculated intervention, framed within the lexicon of deterrence and preemption, can rapidly devolve …

By Lama Al-Rakad In today’s world, Western discourse often takes center stage as the global defender of human rights and minority protections. From the Middle East to other conflict zones, it speaks in the language of justice—championing “self-determination” and “the protection of minorities” as universal, non-negotiable principles. Yet …

Iran’s missile attacks have alienated the Hashemite Kingdom, but the chances of Jordan joining the war are still slim. Aaron Magid On Christmas Eve 2004, a suicide truck bomb headed to Jordan’s Embassy in Baghdad exploded, killing nine people. King Abdullah II later blamed a Shia group with …

Charbel Antoun The killings of Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani have pushed the Islamic Republic into its most acute crisis since 1979. The assassination of Ali Larijani on March 17 has shattered what remained of Iran’s fragile leadership, accelerating its descent into a fractured autocracy—defiant in ideology but …

Alon ben Meir Three weeks into launching the war of choice with Iran, the Trump administration still has no plausible exit strategy. Four scenarios Several scenarios are being debated: First, a prolonged air and naval campaign ending in a unilateral U.S. declaration of “victory”. Second, a ceasefire mediated …

Jian Lu Bi The United States currently finds itself in a state of strategic paralysis, caught between an administrative push for military confrontation and a wall of resistance that spans from its own halls of power to the capitals of its oldest allies. These synchronized failures—one institutional, the …