World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Algeria and Saudi Arabia are rapidly pursuing closer strategic alignment and coordination. Driven by increasing regional convergences on geopolitical and geo-security issues across the Arab and Islamic space, which extends into the Afro-Asian sphere, the trajectory of this bilateral relationship is…

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” has long been a fundamental maxim of common political wisdom. Recent global and regional developments - all the ambiguity, ad hoc deals, and the conflation of strategy and tactics - are showing us why. Look, for example, at the behavior of the United…

Will it be just another round, or will it be greater and more dangerous than that? Is it the end of the war or the end of an era? Will it be a violent passing storm or a deadly earthquake that is enough to change features? Is it true that the approaching fleets are seeking to end half a century of…

In 2003, as the Iraq War was driving a wedge between Europeans and Americans, the American historian and commentator Robert Kagan published a book that sparked mass controversy. In “Of Paradise and Power,” Kegan elaborates his conservative view of global politics through the developments of the…

Everyone is doing their part to ensure a “political solution.” The United States and Iran are moving along two parallel tracks, with the trajectories of diplomacy and military force progressing simultaneously. Indeed, the two sides have divergent objectives: Washington seeks to prevent Tehran from…

Major defeats are often born of major miscalculations. The 1967 war between Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Israel; Sharon’s invasion of Beirut and the expulsion of Fatah (PLO) in 1982; Saddam Hussein’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990 despite the massive military buildup against him. The…

The generational clash in Iraq is changing. It is no longer tied to the political class’s struggle for power and spoils. While this class is busy managing a transition, a new generation is forming: the post-“October Uprising” generation. The elite seeks to maintain power and wealth through the…

On February 11, Japan marked its annual National Foundation Day. This anniversary provided an opportunity, a few days ago, for me to write again after an involuntary break imposed by daily preoccupation with local, regional, and international political developments at a pivotal moment for our…

Last Tuesday, as Iranians organized mourning ceremonies on the 40th day of the deaths of thousands of protesters across the nation, a samizdat was distributed in the city of Qom, the bastion of Iranian clergy. The single page tract included parts of a poem by Sanai, an 11th century Persian poet…

The anniversary of Libya’s February 17, 2011 revolution remains a bittersweet occasion. The fall of the dictatorship is rejoiced, but there is almost nothing left of this joy amid grief over the calamities that followed: a series of grave crises, failure to rebuild the state, erosion of state…

Russia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will mark a historic moment for both countries on February 19, the centenary of their bilateral diplomatic relations. On this day in 1926, the Soviet Union became the first state to recognize the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd and its dependencies, the polity that…

In large swaths of European political culture, and to Europhile American intellectuals, American affairs often seem incomprehensible, unacceptable, or irrational, as well as encapsulating a dose of violence that had been assumed obsolete. Among many other factors, lies an "aberrational" historical…