The backlash after the heady Arab revolutions of 2011. The rumblings of war with nuclear-aspiring Iran. The bloody persistence of Bashar al-Assad in civil war-torn Syria. Not to mention a Europe mired in its biggest crisis since World War II and an American presidential campaign that distracted and depressed in equal measure. If ever there […]
The announcement in the New York Times that Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister and former prime minister, is retiring from politics is a serious blow to anyone who wants to see the Jewish state take a rational and reasonable approach to global security issues. From his time as an officer in Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal special forces […]
Early in 2012, a small group of US congressmen looking for alternatives to the Obama administration’s AfPak policy made recommendations for two changes in the region. The first, that instead of fantasizing about incorporating the Taliban into the Afghan political system the United States ought to rearm the Northern Alliance, had been discussed previously. The […]
Over the decades Turkey has dictated its Middle Eastern relations based on opportunities presented by shifts in the regional balance of power. In the early 1990s up until around 2006, Turkey was finely enmeshed in Western sentiments and policies. But beginning in 2006 it recognized a leadership vacuum in the Middle East and began attempting […]
Early in his first term, Obama wasn’t especially warm towards India. However, he soon visited India, hosted Manmohan Singh as the first foreign leader at the White House, and advocated a permanent seat for India on the United Nations Security Council. Obama has since tried to rope India, along with Japan, into a hedge against […]
One day before announcing Wednesday, Nov. 21’s cease-fire agreement, at a brief news conference prior to talks between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, late on Tuesday night, the secretary announced that her itinerary included Ramallah and Cairo in addition to Jerusalem. The visit to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was […]
A close observation of the recent developments in Gaza might reveal broader implications for the region: Israel‘s operation Amud Anan (“Pillar of Cloud”) in Gaza could be preparation for an Israeli strike on Iran. The story begins late October when a mysterious blast destroyed the Sudanese military base Yarmouk on the outskirts of the capital, Khartoum. The Yarmouk was […]
This month, a curious thing happened in the annals of diplomacy. A country offered up a peace plan to put an end to a seemingly endless civil war in Syria. This country was not one of the usual foreign policy suspects — it was not the United States, it was not in Europe, and it wasn’t Syria’s […]
The militants of the Palestinian group Hamas are sending a clear message: They are prepared to take great risks to kill Israelis. When it fired rockets at Jerusalem today from the Gaza Strip — the first time Jerusalem has been targeted — Hamas hoped to hit Jewish residents. The rockets, however, might just as easily have damaged Islamic holy […]
As President Barak Obama resettles in the Oval Office and casts his gaze again beyond US politics, he may well be reminded that few eyes were on the ball when the Arab uprisings appeared to erupt suddenly in the spring of 2011, catching pundits and politicians by surprise, and re-positioning Washington’s Middle East policies. Today, […]
looking beyond borders 