Op-ed

Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh There are moments in history when events do not merely unfold—they expose. They reveal not only the limits of power, but the limits of interpretation itself. The recent war with Iran belongs to this rare category: not simply a military confrontation, but an epistemological rupture …

The looming May 14–15 summit in Beijing between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping presents a puzzle that conventional geopolitical maps struggle to navigate. As Trump seeks to end the major military operations against Iran before this high-stakes visit, he will find a Chinese leader who is not coming …

Lexy Reid The 2026 Iran War has functioned thus far as a critical juncture for European security, demonstrating Europe’s continued reliance on US strategic leadership as well as revealing Europe’s exclusion from US high-level military decision-making. The war has also confirmed an asymmetry: Europe bears the consequences of …

On February 28th, nearly 900 strikes in 12 hours by the United States and Israel hit Iran. By morning, the Supreme Leader was dead. Within days, the Strait of Hormuz was closed, oil surged past $120 a barrel, and Gulf skies filled with interceptors chasing drones that refused …

Israeli and Lebanese envoys are set to meet in Washington in US mediated negotiations aimed at reducing escalating violence between Israel and Lebanon. The talks come amid intensified fighting involving the Iran backed group Hezbollah during the wider Iran war. The conflict escalated after Hezbollah launched missile strikes …

Nadia Hilmie The leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan’s opposition leader Cheng Li-wen, made a rare and historic visit to China from April 7 to 12, 2026. This was the first visit by a sitting KMT leader since 2016, and it came at the official invitation of Chinese …

Arthur Michelino Trump’s suggestion that the United States and Iran might co-administer toll revenues in the Strait of Hormuz has been walked back by the White House within hours. Actually, there is not even a serious reason to believe the joint venture specifically survives the two-week ceasefire window …

Dimitra Staikou As Henry Kissinger once observed, diplomacy is ultimately the art of limiting power. In Pakistan’s case, however, the late-March 2026 ceasefire between the United States and Iran did not demonstrate diplomatic strength—it exposed its limits. Rather than shaping outcomes, Islamabad revealed that it lacks both the …

Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh Behind the sealed doors of Islamabad, the negotiations between the United States and Iran were never about drafting a mere “agreement.” What unfolded was something far more intricate—an extension of conflict itself, reconfigured into the language of diplomacy. Public imagination, ever hungry for binary conclusions, …