Eyad Abu Shakra

In 1997, I took part in an international conference hosted by an Arab country and organized by an American institute with global political interests. There, I got the chance to meet distinguished American and Arab thinkers, officials, journalists, and strategic experts. The conference covered…

The recent meeting between the United States, France, and Syria remains the subject of much speculation and debate, with much of the focus on what was actually agreed upon... This state of affairs is neither new nor surprising, given the unusual circumstances in which the meeting was held and…

The talk of a new Middle Eastern “deal” we have been hearing over the past few days is jarring. The agreement reportedly being cooked up sees Syria cede the Golan Heights to Israel... in return for the Lebanese city of Tripoli. The “official” reactions of Lebanese parties, of course, mixed…

Listening to the speeches of US President Donald Trump leaves one with the impression that the man is convinced he can change realities he does not like. Theoretically, this “conviction” could be well founded. He is the absolute ruler of the most powerful country in the world. I use the word …

The rise of Zohran Mamdani, who has won the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, the largest and most impressive city in the United States, has jolted the American public out of its slumber, which has seemed endless since Trump entered the White House. To avoid drawing hasty conclusions…

The ongoing exchange of missiles, and the accompanying psychological and intelligence warfare, seems like a foregone conclusion, because all the supposed dividing lines in the Israeli-Iranian conflict have collapsed. These lines collapsed as the possibility of saving the Middle East, alongside the…

When a nation’s options are narrowed by dramatic developments, it is left with two choices: gloating or denial... Both affirm that this nation has resigned itself to a life on the margins of history. We Arabs currently constitute a strong majority in West Asia and North Africa. Our…

What links the ongoing rift between US President Donald Trump and his “fleeting ally,” billionaire Elon Musk, the visible divergences between US positions and the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and the looming clouds over the approach of the US and Israel to Iran? This question…

There is hardly a journalist or political analyst, or even an amateur posing as either, in the Arab world who hasn’t, at some point over the past decades, written or spoken at length about the “New Middle East.” And yet, the Middle East we see today is something altogether different from what we…

Let us forget, for a moment, that the president of the United States is the most powerful political leader in the world, and that he can annihilate humanity at the press of a button or obliterate the global economy with an “executive order.” For a moment, let us put that to one side and focus,…