Op-ed

In the corridors of the United Nations General Assembly, a quiet but consequential shift is underway in how Washington approaches one of the Middle East’s most intractable security dilemmas: the disarmament of Iraq’s armed factions. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi on …

By Dr. Shehab Al Makahleh There was something unusually revealing about King Abdullah II’s address to the United Nations General Assembly this week. At a time when the international system is being overwhelmed by wars, competing crises, strategic rivalries, and an ever-shortening public attention span, the Jordanian monarch …

Stefan Lehne Radical-right parties are expected to do well in upcoming elections in four of the EU’s biggest member states. If successful, they could prevent the union from addressing key challenges ahead. The fragmentation of Europe’s political scene and the rise of the radical right have changed the EU’s governance in significant ways. So far, the …

Hadi Elis For over a century, the Kurdish people have endured a systematic campaign of oppression thatseeks to erase their identity, their language, and their very existence. At the heart of this struggle stands a figure too often overlooked in international discourse: the Kurdish woman, who bears the …

By Dan Steinbock              The global AI race has entered a new, existential stage. Anthropic CEO’s idea for international cooperation is the step toward right direction. But it is unipolar and thus vulnerable to potential weaponization. What’s urgently needed is multipolar AI cooperation. On September 14, AI-linked stocks …

Iraq has once again found itself caught between Washington and Tehran, but this time the pressure is moving through an increasingly sophisticated instrument of American power: sanctions that do not stop at the borders of the country being targeted. Baghdad’s reported decision to prevent Iranian airlines from landing …

When British Prime Minister Andy Burnham refused to rule out a future Labour commitment to rejoin the European Union, he did not announce a new government policy. But politically, his words were more significant than the formulation might suggest. Asked by The Independent whether he could exclude a …

 At the United Nations General Assembly, President Donald Trump chose confrontation over conciliation, raising the pressure on Iran while leaving the door to diplomacy only narrowly open. Calling on governments to impose what he described as “total economic isolation” on Tehran, Trump made clear that Washington intends to …

The Middle East must be understood as it is, rather than as major powers would prefer the world to see it. The region is no longer simply a collection of neighboring states locked in familiar disputes over borders, territory, and influence. It has become the point at which …