In much of the West, Netanyahu is perceived as a tough guy, cozying up to strongmen in European capitals and to President Donald Trump in Washington, but many Israelis understand there is a good deal of bluster behind this image. Though he is now unwilling to discuss a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, Netanyahu […]
After publicly escalating against Israel’s enemies across the region last month, Netanyahu has had to carefully manage the cycle of responses and counter-responses. And he’s also facing a duo of internal issues: a showdown with the semi-autonomous Palestinian government and a looming corruption investigation. Read Here – National Interest
Conventional wisdom holds that intelligence data is collected and safeguarded to gain an advantage on the battlefield if and when war breaks out. In recent years, however, Israel has come to increasingly rely on deliberate public disclosure of intelligence data as an instrument of influence and coercion. Read Here – WarOnTheRocks
When President Donald Trump finally followed through on his threats and withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, it looked like he was after something far more ambitious. Shortly after the announcement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined 12 conditions for the U.S. to lift the sanctions At the Group of Seven summit in France, […]
“There were probably Arabs before there was Arabia,” writes Tim Mackintosh-Smith in his extraordinary new survey of these peoples. After all, what does the word “Arab” even mean? For Arabs themselves the term remains elusive: the Egyptian writer and public intellectual Taha Hussein argued that the people to whom the label applied were “in utter […]
The Strait of Hormuz links the majority of the world’s people who live along the shores of Asia and East Africa to the heart of the Middle East. Long before the discovery of oil, it was the world’s carotid artery. Cut off the blood supply almost anywhere else and the world would adapt. Here, however, […]
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 30-year reign at the helm of Iran reveals a dual Machiavellian modus-operandi as supreme leader—puppeteer for the elected and patron for the unelected—and explains the current power dynamic in Tehran. Read Here – The National Interest
So why did the Islamic powers in the Gulf embrace Modi over the past five years despite presumptions suggesting otherwise? The answer lies more within the interests of the Gulf nations itself than Modi government’s outreach, which however successfully lassoed in the interest of these cash-rich states looking towards the Indian economy to secure their […]
Geography tells a more important story in the Gulf region: The current tensions are less about Iran and the Persian Gulf than about China and the Indian Ocean. Whether the Trump administration realizes it or not, what is occurring in the American-Iranian standoff is about something much vaster. Read Here – The New York Times
Forty years after the revolution that ousted the Shah, Iran’s unique political-religious system and government appears strong enough to withstand US pressure and to ride out the country’s current economic difficulties. So how should the US minimize the risks to the region posed by the regime? Read Here – Project Syndicate
