Amir Taheri

The following could have appeared in the small-ads section of one of the free newspapers distributed in the Paris Metro: “Desperately seeking a Prime Minister, contact Marianne.” Marianne is the fictive damsel who serves as a symbol of the French Republic in the form of statuettes at town…

“Ha! Ha!” This was how the other day in Moscow national security adviser Dmitry Medvedev reacted to a quip by US President Donald Trump asserting that Kyiv “can win all of Ukraine back to original borders where this war started.” Dmitry Alexyevich, who once served as a parenthetic president of…

It was with a sigh of relief that Islamic Republic President Massoud Pezeshkian welcomed the new academic year and the start of autumn the other day- relief that what is dubbed “the thirstiest summer” in Iran’s long history was over. Only two months ago he had warned that even Tehran, the capital…

Confident of their ascendancy in terms of military and economic power, the newly cemented bloc under Chinese leadership has also started promoting what President Xi Jinping has dubbed “new governance” as a model not only for “global south” but for the world as a whole. In other words, the Middle…

Having just ended its ninth month in office, French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou stepped down after the National Assembly endorsed a non-confidence vote with a huge majority. That handed President Emmanuel Macron with a hot potato in the shape of naming yet another Prime Minister, Sebastien…

Last week, China hit the world headlines with two events that could change the perception of its role and place in the global system in either negative or positive way. The first event was the summit of the so-called Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that brought together heads of state…

As the new political season in Europe begins this autumn, a number of trends might be studied. The first trend represents a growing global disaffection with international organizations to the benefit of the traditional nation-state. Supporters of the status quo regard that trend as an upsurge…

On October 10, as the committee that chooses this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, US President Donald Trump is expected to be in Transcaucasia to inaugurate work on a 166-kilometer-long railway line in one of the world’s most rugged terrains. The planned line is already dubbed the Trump…

Even before today’s scheduled meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska had happened, conflicting views were aired about its purpose and possible outcome. Trump bashers, that is to say usual suspects such as the New York Times and CNN dismissed it as…

Even long after Deng Xiaoping had led China out of the Marxist impasse created by Mao Zedong, official discourse was always centered on the letter P for Proletariat. The leadership emphasized its legitimacy with reference to the working class that is to say producer in supply side economics. From…