World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Was Niccolo Machiavelli ethical?   The Italian philosopher has long been reduced to the phrase “the end justifies the means,” which implies an opportunism that is disengaged from ethics.    Nevertheless, this reductionism did not deter some from replying “yes:” he was ethical. Their implicit…

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently said that Iran’s weapons “are being used to kill civilians in Ukraine and to try to plunge cities into cold and darkness, which from our point of view puts Iran in a place where it could potentially be contributing to widespread war crimes.”   …

It was the end of the workday on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. I was wrapping up a Zoom call when my phone started to vibrate with calls, text messages and emails. Gabriele Marcotti, an ESPN journalist, was trying to reach me from Qatar, where he was covering the World Cup alongside my husband, Grant Wahl…

As the war in Ukraine dominates the international stage, the Balkans is also marred by high tension. Balkan ghosts are very much present as seen in the recent flare ups in Kosovo and elsewhere. The 1990s was marked by wars between Serbs and other ethnic/religious groups (Bosniacs, Croats,…

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…

Just two months after New York voters delivered New York Democrats a drubbing at the polls, it’s not clear if the message is penetrating the party’s thicket of dysfunction and hubris. The hubris made an appearance over the holiday, when the governor approved a 29 percent pay raise that the State…

Back when Martyr’s Square was the commercial hub of Beirut, a group of Moroccan immigrants scattered across its outskirts constituted one of its hallmarks. Each of them carried long beads with which he would foretell the future of passers-by and tell them of the fortunes about to fall into their…

Sometimes the decision-maker rejects golden advice that could have saved peoples and maps and prevented the waste of a sea of blood and waves of refugees. The danger increases when it comes to the head of a superpower that relies on a mighty arsenal. The problem with rational voices is that they…

The seventies saw the emergence of a militant Arabic militant song with these lyrics: “I am steadfast, I am steadfast/ On the land of my country I am steadfast/ Even if they steal my property, I am steadfast/ Even if they kill my children, I am steadfast/ Even if they destroy my home, in the…

In the realm of folklore and ancient traditions, myths are tales forever retold for their wisdom and underlying truths. Their impossibility is part of their appeal; few would pause to debunk the physics of Icarus’s wings before warning against flying too close to the sun. In the worlds of…

A former senior official at an international organization reminded me, when we met recently, of an article I wrote in 2000, entitled 'EU Follows UN in Wasting Development Aid.' This official, who retired years ago after decades of international development work, said: "When it was first…

Four months after the eruption of the protests in Iran over the death of a young woman held in police custody for allegedly improperly wearing the hijab and after all the oppression against the Iranians, supreme leader Ali Khamenei declared that he rejects accusing Iranian women wearing loose…