World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Sudan is fighting two wars simultaneously. As it wages its war on the ground, it is fighting another equally grave war in the media. Misleading narratives slandering the army have been increasing. Their aim is to undermine its performance on the battlefield, casting doubt on its competence,…

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…

We were arranged, as journalists dispatched to cover the historic meeting at the White House, between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US President Donald Trump. Because the F-35 jet deal is tied to defense and security, it was the focal point of the coverage in American print and…

US President Donald Trump’s designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations of certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon closes a chapter that western capitals had avoided for years. The designation is nothing more than a delayed recognition of what our region already…

Since their emergence, modern Arab nation-states have found themselves in constant tension with transnational ideological movements that challenge their authority and pull loyalties beyond national borders. Chief among these groups is the Muslim Brotherhood, a cross-border organization whose ideas…

It was the year 2000. Saddam Hussein was driving the car himself. His guest, Hugo Chavez, was in the passenger’s seat. The Iraqi president took his Venezuelan counterpart on a tour of Baghdad that included the banks of the Tigris river. The two men discussed their dream of a “multipolar world,”…

The visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Washington defined mutual commitments and expectations of the countries’ bilateral relations, going beyond diplomatic courtesies and vague rhetoric about security agreements. While the defense treaties and arrangements regarding nuclear energy…

The advisor to the Iranian Supreme Leader, Dr. Ali Velayati, went to extreme lengths in trivializing the lives of Lebanese people. He borrowed from religious text books to narrowly tailor his conception of the situation to his ideological priorities, disregarding the lived experience of the…

“The Russians are coming!” Throughout the Cold War that phrase expressed the anxiety felt by Western democracies about the possibility of a surprise nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Half jest the tongue-in-cheek quip evoked Russian chief Nikita Khrushchev’s notorious braggadocio in 1956…

Just days before the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, the government of Lebanon announced that it would provide official disability cards and full benefits to thousands of Hezbollah members injured in Israel’s now-famous September 2024 covert operation detonating pagers…

As 2025 draws to a close, new dimensions to the rise of Saudi Arabia are emerging. Riyadh’s approach to its relations with the great powers is now a matter of repositioning, rendering projections of full alignment behind any single actor untenable. A new mindset has crystallized since the Kingdom…

In an informal conversation on the sidelines of the Yalta Conference of February 1945 (which brought together US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who were negotiating the end of the Second World War, as well as a framework for…