Middle East

Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh The U.S.–Iran confrontation has entered a phase in which military power alone is no longer sufficient to determine the course—or the end—of the war. After months of strikes, economic pressure, and disruption to shipping in the Gulf, the conflict is increasingly revolving around a different …

James Lee Palestine is no longer a distant foreign-policy issue in Britain, confined to diplomatic statements or parliamentary debates about the Middle East. Over the past several years—and especially since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023—the Palestinian question has moved into Britain’s streets, universities, trade …

By James Eliott When Jordan’s King Abdullah II takes the podium at the United Nations General Assembly, his address is rarely a routine exercise in diplomatic positioning. It is better understood as an attempt to reorder the international conversation around the Middle East—to move the debate beyond the …

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 …

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 …

Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh The most consequential question emerging from the latest confrontation in the United Nations Security Council is no longer whether Iran should face additional sanctions, nor whether another round of international pressure can persuade Tehran to modify its nuclear policies. The more fundamental question is who, …