World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Lebanon’s conundrum has entered a new phase after Hezbollah rebuffed the major political strides of the government, most notably its reaffirmation of the principle that arms must remain monopolized by state and its subsequent endorsement of the proposal that US Presidential Envoy Tom Barrack had…

President Joseph Aoun’s unprecedentedly clear and candid speech, explicitly labeled Hezbollah’s arms unauthorized by the state, was a long-awaited turning point in the complex relationship between the Lebanese state and the party. Nonetheless, this clarity was not translated into unequivocal…

The High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France, which was held over three days in New York, is among the most consequential international political initiatives…

Can a map, no matter how large, contain two armies, two authorities and two “states”? Is obligatory coexistence just a form of truce until one army succeeds in defeating the other? Is a clash inevitable between the two armies, two authorities and two “states” because the factions are impeding…

The Lebanese government's announcement that "Hafez al-Assad Avenue" will now be renamed "Ziad Rahbani Avenue" was not just the replacement of a street’s name with another; it was the replacement of one conception of the world with another. That is probably why the decision drew so much controversy…

The recent cabinet sessions of the Lebanese government were anything but easy; they were a turning point that redefined the domestic balance of power and resolved momentous questions that had not been debated since the end of the civil war. That is why Thomas Barrack’s intervention was at the heart…

Even long after Deng Xiaoping had led China out of the Marxist impasse created by Mao Zedong, official discourse was always centered on the letter P for Proletariat. The leadership emphasized its legitimacy with reference to the working class that is to say producer in supply side economics. From…

Three developments from this past week shed light on the predicament that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) find themselves in. First, Colombian mercenaries were brought in to fight alongside the RSF in Darfur, as we learned from the video found on the phone of an RSF soldier killed during a…

War, both as a concept and a tangible phenomenon, raises several contradictions. The most prominent of them is that it is a human act, in the sense that it is waged by human beings, but is also an inhumane act often mistakenly attributed to monsters. This human intellect has, since the times…

The attack of October 7, 2023, triggered a chain of events: Israel attacked Iran and a 12-day war between the two countries followed; it escalated against Hezbollah in South Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburb, continuing to strike the party even after the announcement of a ceasefire; operations…

A political climate that is founded on a simple idea is spreading in our region: stability begins from within, and that development is the foundation of legitimacy. This political wave does not raise grand ideological slogans or promise radical shifts in the balance of power through constant…

In 1997, I took part in an international conference hosted by an Arab country and organized by an American institute with global political interests. There, I got the chance to meet distinguished American and Arab thinkers, officials, journalists, and strategic experts. The conference covered…