World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Prior to the signing of the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye last week, Riyadh had previously signed a joint strategic defense agreement with Islamabad in September 2025 at Al-Yamamah Palace in the capital, Riyadh. This prior accord shared the same context…

Perhaps the most significant reading of the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan is that it is not a mere reaction to current events. This contrasts with many reductive analyses that attempt to confine the agreement within the context of the war with Iran or…

If it is true that identifying those responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, for the sustained campaign of killings that targeted “March 14” leaders over the years, for the Beirut port explosion, and for the loss of bank deposits threatens civil peace - then what of…

Over the past year, the concept of hedging- strategic hedging- has dominated a significant portion of American writing on Saudi foreign policy. In the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs, Maria Fantappie and Vali Nasr posed the question directly: can Saudi Arabia keep hedging? The idea, in brief,…

For decades, the Middle East has resembled a massive ship sailing amid storms, mines, dreams, and illusions. It is a ship carrying Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Kurds—Sunnis, Shiites, Jews, and Christians. The passengers hold divergent memories: days of glory they yearn for, and days of defeat they…

In treating the rounds of military confrontation in the region, one notices that the positions of the countries involved automatically bring their domestic conditions to the fore. Those internal conditions play a large role — if not a decisive one — in determining where states stand on the war and…

More than one international coalition is now taking shape to confront the actions of militias across the region, whose activities threaten security and stability and endanger international shipping. The more countries that join these coalitions, and the more closely those coalitions coordinate with…

So far, Hamas has spoken in the language of justification for what it did. Some believe its account, while others reject it. This is a natural state of affairs for a political movement that went through a complex experience: governing an isolated and blockaded territory, then entering a military…

The surprise agreement was given the name of Makkah. In its name, it assumed responsibility for security at a time of turmoil and amid an increasingly volatile global situation. No gesture or initiative was left untried in the effort to ease tensions with Iran. And Iran bombed every one of them. …

My friend Mishary al-Dhayidi wrote in this newspaper a few days ago that anyone seeking to understand the Iranian regime's behavior cannot rest on judging it by his own logic; he must also try to see the world through the regime's eyes. The idea struck me as a key to an important dimension of…

The Makkah Joint Defense Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan marks an important development in the structure of regional security- not only for the three countries' military capabilities, but for their political and economic weight, their geographic positions, and their reach…

It has become clear that the war waged by Iran is against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf sisters, and is not an Iranian war against the US or Israel. Iran has attacked Saudi Arabia with more than 1,000 drones since last February, in addition to ballistic missiles that targeted civilian…