Robert Ford

From Washington’s point of view, its adversaries appear weak and this is the moment to be more aggressive, from Asia to Ukraine to Iran. The strange dispute about the Chinese spy balloon is the latest example. It is worth noting that Beijing issued a statement of regret about the balloon entering…

News from Ukraine, China and the United States last week again reminded me that we are going into a new world system where no country will dominate and the need for wise diplomacy to prevent war is greater. As we near the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it more obvious…

There were big demonstrations last Friday in parts of Syria rejecting a rapprochement between Bashar al-Assad’s government and Türkiye. Maybe I am too cynical, and I must acknowledge my many mistakes when I worked on the Syria file ten years ago but my opinion in short is: this is a political game…

Making predictions about American politics and foreign policy in 2023 is not easy. However, some trends are clear, and if we watch a few key developments, we can better anticipate the coming year’s events better. First, although the Republican Party failed to gain the majority in the American…

There has been much media speculation about a rapprochement between Syria and Türkiye. Russian officials, including the Kremlin spokesman and the Russian presidential envoy to Syria last Friday said Moscow is trying to arrange a meeting between Presidents Erdogan and Assad. I don’t expect to see a…

President Biden met President Xi Jinping in Indonesia last week and told the world that there need not be a new cold war. Is he serious? Any observer watching world politics now understands that America is trying to reduce Chinese growth and Chinese power. At the same time, the Chinese…

President Biden will be one of the losers in the November 8 elections. He and his Democratic party had hoped that the issue of legal abortion would attract most voters, but the Republican Party found that inflation in the economy is the stronger political issue. Most political analysts here agree…

In the midst of serious violence in the West Bank, the top United Nations human rights body issued a report on October 20 that concluded that the Israeli occupation appeared illegal under international law because the Israeli government is trying to make it permanent with the establishment of…

President Biden shocked me when he said on October 6 that we are closest to a nuclear war since 1962 and the Cuba Missile Crisis. Biden pointed to President Putin and stated that it is hard to stop an escalation from using smaller, tactical nuclear weapons to total nuclear Armageddon. Excuse me,…

If its relations with Iraq are an example, American policy towards the Middle East region has not adjusted to the biggest problems in the 21st century. For example, Barbara Leaf, an esteemed former colleague, is the Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East, the top manager of daily…