World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa has a knack for politics. He owes his political instincts to his layered character, his remarkable personal journey that took him from the leader of the al-Nusra Front to President of Syria in a few years, and a keen reader of the lessons of history. Sharaa has…

While President Donald Trump prepares for G-7 and NATO summits later this month political circles and media in Europe are busy trying to cut him down to size before the two events. “Trump will come empty-handed,” says one commentator. “None of the things he announced with fanfare has been achieved…

In a normal country, political life is structured around a constitution that outlines its system of governance. Recent developments, however, have shown that Lebanon has not yet reached this stage. Disappointment has prevailed once again after the inauguration of President Joseph Aoun raised…

A brutal civil war continues to wreak havoc in Sudan, and foreign actors are clearly fueling the conflict. Most recently, we saw the campaign to weaken the Sudanese army at the border triangle between Sudan, Libya, and Egypt. Some are now openly hoping for its defeat and others, behind the veil of…

The question of the future has gradually begun to outweigh the poetry and ruins of the past since schisms ripped through parts of the region (whether in Lebanon, Yemen, or Syria, where things have radically shifted) and the rogue militias waged their so-called “support war.” Dithering is not…

Must any pair of would-be great men of history always find a path to conflict? Ask Caesar and Pompey, Octavian and Antony, Lennon and McCartney. But the specific thing they fight about is less predictable. I would not have guessed, six months ago, that Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s version of the…

What links the ongoing rift between US President Donald Trump and his “fleeting ally,” billionaire Elon Musk, the visible divergences between US positions and the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and the looming clouds over the approach of the US and Israel to Iran? This question…

It’s been about 150 days since Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam took office. On one hand, Lebanon is experiencing its best chapter in two decades. On the other hand, there are concerns about the slow pace of progress – and that another war is on the verge of erupting. Regardless of whether the…

When General Joseph Aoun was elected President of the Lebanese Republic and Judge Nawaf Salam was named Prime Minister, both developments seemed engulfed in a revolutionary climate. There was a popular mobility expressing itself in all kinds of ways that reflected a broadly shared desire to break…

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the rise of Ahmed al-Sharaa to the Syrian presidency is the foundational episode of the regional transformation that is currently underway. It may well be one of the most consequential outcomes of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation and its aftermath or even the…

The Lebanese people complain about the advice from ambassadors and dictates from international financial organizations. They believe that the outside was paving their road and goals and setting the means for them. They are annoyed that their country is being treated like a minor, who the world has…

In the lead-up to the UN conference on a two-state solution — scheduled for June 17–20 and co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France — efforts to ensure its success have been intensifying. Ministerial meetings took place in Paris and Brussels late last month, alongside intensified efforts at the UN,…