World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Since Israel, and us with it, began to be plagued by the meteoric rise of Benjamin Netanyahu, there has been a consensus around his status as the king of Israel. This is a title that even the state’s founders and its historic leaders were never given. Netanyahu has broken every record in terms…

In the writing genre that falls into the “What if?” category, the author presumes the occurrence of hypothetical past events that never happened, and then infers the implications. This is not a futile literary exercise. These texts point to what had, to this or that degree, once been real…

For the past twenty days, US forces have been heavily bombing Houthi missile systems, drones, air defenses, weapons depots, command centers, training sites, and the homes of militia leaders across several provinces, including Sanaa. If the operations continue with this level of focus and eliminate…

There is now a pressing need to understand what Hezbollah truly wants at this stage. Indeed, the military losses and political defeats it has suffered, as well as those of its allies and backers in the region, will be difficult to overturn in the foreseeable future. What, then, does the party…

When US Deputy Special Envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus was born on July 10, 1982, the scene was as follows: General Ariel Sharon’s tanks were surrounding Beirut from all sides and his jets were bombing the capital without mercy. The general of the city of the time was Yasser Arafat, who…

There are two related theories of what Donald Trump’s dramatic revision of the global trade system is intended to accomplish. First, the goal is to revitalize American manufacturing, our capacity to build at home and export to the world. The global free trade system that took shape in the late…

Sectarianism has a profound role in shaping the consciousness of wide segments of the Middle East’s population. It increases their propensity for violent behavior, both verbal and physical, and can lead to sectarian discrimination. Sectarianism is not born of a single factor. Rather, a set of…

In a bold step, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani called Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa to congratulate him on the formation of the new Syrian government. Sudani has taken the initiative, and this gesture will contribute to rebuilding trust between the two governments after decades of…

After a 3-year break, a serial that started almost 50 years ago is expected to return to world screens with a new season: Uncle Sam wooing the Mullahs of Tehran. The new season started with a letter sent by US President Donald J Trump to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei three weeks ago reportedly…

Some Lebanese take pleasure in concocting a narrative that presents the pursuit of disarmament that establishes a state monopoly on arms and the fight against corruption in public life as contradictory objectives. Mind you, there is plenty of glaring evidence that impunity for one sustains the…

The Saudi-US relationship is a complex subject. In-depth discussions of their strategic vision for the global economy and Middle Eastern security necessarily branch out in multiple directions. Several books have been written about this strategic alliance that has ebbed and flowed over its eighty…

Last Tuesday, my colleague Nadim Koteich wrote a piece about the Middle East policy of the US under President Donald Trump on these pages, building on an interview that Trump’s envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff, had conducted with journalist Tucker Carlson. Koteich did not endorse a position and…