Mamdouh al-Muhainy

The Iranians are calling on Gulf states to sever ties with the United States. Extremist groups demand the same. Leftists and Arab nationalists have been repeating these same calls for decades. All of this is understandable. It is not new, and they each have their reasons. However, when such demands…

Those who push the idea that the root of the conflict is sectarian, that our disagreements are a Shiite-Sunni divide, help Iran more than anyone else. Without realizing it, they fall into a trap carefully set by the Iranian regime to fragment societies, divide them, and turn a political conflict…

Some intellectuals and commentators argue that while the Iranian regime is waging a war against the Gulf states, it is not necessarily an enemy of the Arab world. They claim that Gulf states seek to drag other Arab states into needless hostilities with Iran. In reality, however, Tehran is more of…

It is natural, in times of major crises like the current moment, for new ideas to emerge, or for old ones to be revived. The most prominent proposal we are now seeing is the call to establish an Arab national security force. The best thing promoters of this idea can do, however, is to stop…

Some commentators have asked why the Iranian regime is striking airports, energy infrastructure, and shopping complexes in Gulf countries and then claimed these locations are foreign military bases! The real answer, of course, is that the Iranian regime knows full well what these sites contain…

Despite the anger of the MAGA base, President Donald Trump has not acquiesced to their demands. Despite the repeated claim that Trump does nothing without the approval of his base, he has shown that he does not always comply with the wishes of this powerful constituency. He showed in Gaza,…

It is not only states that go to war; international systems are also part of the competition. The Russian-Ukrainian war is not a conflict between two states, but between two systems. That is why the Europeans and the Americans, especially under President Joe Biden, support Kyiv, while the Chinese…

Despite President Donald Trump’s criticisms of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, the two men have one thing in common: a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia. True, Biden’s relationship with the Kingdom was on shaky ground at first, but it improved and eventually became as solid as could be…

When Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil facilities came under attack, calls quickly emerged urging Riyadh to end its alliance with the United States. A similar chorus was heard after the Israeli strike on Doha, with voices demanding that Qatar reconsider its relationship with Washington. Yet in both cases,…

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa has a knack for politics. He owes his political instincts to his layered character, his remarkable personal journey that took him from the leader of the al-Nusra Front to President of Syria in a few years, and a keen reader of the lessons of history. Sharaa has…