Terrorism & Extremism

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

By Dan Steinbock              The collision of an aging population, escalating climate damages, and massive remilitarization is set to present an unprecedented, compounding threat to the future well-being of Europeans. On August 27, 2026, European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen gave a speech in Paris noting that …

The Islamic State may have lost its territory, its cities and the illusion of statehood that once allowed it to control large parts of Syria and Iraq, but it did not necessarily lose its wealth. Beneath abandoned farms, desert tracks, private properties and the ruins of its former …