World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Abraham Lincoln went down in American history as the most popular and respected president, yet also the least attractive, described by writer and professor Michael Phillips-Anderson as a "tall and lanky figure"..."with a wry smile." You won't believe how Lincoln compensated for those shortcomings…

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where he held meetings with high-ranking officials and made several pledges, is another promising indication that Washington has reconsidered its policy choices. Indeed, coming just a few weeks after President Joe Biden’s National…

The strong Russia is in a crisis. It is like a strong boxer who has chosen to fight a smaller one and yet, cannot deal the knockout blow. The West is also in a crisis. Russia’s victory would be too much for it to bear, while Russia’s defeat will be too much for the world to bear. A defeated…

When Donald Trump was elected president, many thought of the historian Richard Hofstadter’s book, “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life” (1963), for which he won his second Pulitzer Prize. His immense book seemed to be a belated explanation of the McCarthyism of the 1950s and Eisenhower’s…

After seven months of a newly appointed administration, Iraq's slow yet steady progress is visible to friends and foes alike. The days in which political crises were solved by escalating into larger crises are behind, replaced by regular announcements of signings mega projects, such as the…

American officials who have visited Riyadh over the past eight months have prioritized interests over making dictates. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia last week where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for an hour and 40 minutes. He also met…

The conference on Climate Action, hosted in Kuwait by the Arab Fund for Economic & Social Development (AFESD), was a milestone in Arab environmental action; going beyond recognizing and describing the problem, to proposing practical solutions, with the participation of major Arab development…

Hardly a week goes by without news of exciting developments in Saudi Arabia. This week, sports news took the spotlight with the announcement of a new strategy for the development of the Saudi sports market. Under the strategy, sports clubs will become companies. The Public Investment Fund (PIF)…

From the Lebanese local agreement, represented by the nomination of former Finance Minister Jihad Azour to the post of President of the Republic by the majority of the opposition forces and some of the ruling parties, to the appointment of the Elysée of former French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le…

In the past two decades, that is to say since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad, a new discourse has developed in which post-Saddam Iraq is depicted as part of an empire being built by the Khomeinist regime in Tehran. Tehran’s surrogates in Beirut refer to this supposed empire as “The…

When I asked a friend about May Al-Rihani, who has presented her candidacy for the Presidency of the Lebanese Republic, he intuitively replied that if she had inherited the qualities of her paternal uncle Amin Al-Rihani, he would be delighted to see her ascend to this position after the political…

The looming American debt crisis is politically contrived. The Treasury could borrow all it needed if the Republican majority in the House acted responsibly and raised the debt ceiling. But the notion that if the House fails to come to agreement the United States faces a default on its debt…