Military & Security

Sources close to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider said that the premier had made significant changes with regard to his security guards, entrusting this task to a high profile Kurdish officer. This was the first ever amendment that a prime minister takes in Iraq in the aftermath of occupation. …

Syria’s Kurds appear to be in the process of making a mistake of monumental proportions. Central government offices in the north-eastern provincial capital of al-Hasaka are reported to have been evacuated after being overrun by Kurdish forces – specifically, units of the Asayish militia affiliated to the People’s …

This is the season of “resetting” if seen from the angle of Syria’s stormy weather. The US seems to be stepping back from its unrealistic rush to enact an elusive ceasefire even at the expense of giving the Russians more space to lead, the Russians understand that if …

In Erdogan’s early days, he was an open Islamist radical, working for an Islamist party that got itself overthrown and banned for being too straightforward. Later, he reconstituted the Islamist party as the AKP, with its Islamism toned down just enough to fly under the radar screen of …

  “We should facilitate people engaging with each other. We should not dictate to them what they should do. We should facilitate the people of Syria deciding about their own future, rather than setting the parameters on what they need to do. We should also agree that Iran …

Lorenzo Kamel The Thirty Years’ War started in 1618 as a conflict between various Protestant and Catholic states in the Holy Roman Empire. It brought devastation and major population loss to the heart of Europe. Many observers of today’s Middle East have found similarities with that distant past. …

As the US presidential election fast approaches in November, the greatest political spectacle of the year is in full swing. Say what you want about the US, but there is no other country that knows how to put a show on in the same way as our American …

Amy Zalman We humans have a relentless desire to create narratives. We do so out of the random material of our daily lives. As the cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner noted many years ago, this storytelling impulse pervades our daily existence. And yet, most of the time we barely …

by James M. Dorsey We have been given the impossible task of telling you in the words of Hollywood director and actor Woody Allen everything about the Middle East that you want to know and never dared to ask and all of that in 15 minutes. So what …