RUSSIA’S MOVE ON UKRAINE POLLS POORLY IN ARAB GULF – BUT SO DOES THE U.S. As the Russia’s war on Ukraine drags on, some Americans are hoping that the major…
IRAN‘S NUKES: THIS TIME THE WOLF IS HERE About 25 years ago, as a junior State Department bureaucrat, I was tasked with introducing a senior American official to his Israeli…
HELPING SYRIA’S KURDS WEIGH THEIR OPTIONS Amidst today’s strident new debate “normalization” with Bashar Al-Assad’s brutal but tenacious regime in Syria, one key piece of the puzzle is missing: the…
China and Mideast Leverage:Hiding in Plain Sight For the past decade and more, U.S. foreign policy, under Democratic and Republican presidents alike, has been struggling to “compete with China” through…
How Not to Repeat My History with The Taliban? The Taliban reconquest of Kabul is a trauma for many Afghans – but, one must admit, a triumph for others. Each…
Algeria-Morocco Rupture: An Unfunny Comedy of Errors Amidst all the bad headlines lately about Afghanistan, most readers undoubtedly missed another, less fateful yet still sad and significant one, at the…
IRAN NUKE DEAL OR NOT, SOME SYRIANS STILL SEE ASSAD’S FALL In Vienna, best known lately for hosting the Iran nuclear negotiations, there is also a substantial population of Syrian…
IRAN’S PROPAGANDA OUTLETS TAKE A HIT. FOR ME, IT’S PERSONAL. This week, seemingly out of the blue, the U.S. government announced that it had seized the websites of several dozens…
SINCE GAZA WAR, ISRAEL AND HAMAS EXPOSED FOR WHAT THEY ARE This week, after the cease-fire in the latest armed clash between Israel and Hamas, both parties revealed more of…
AFTER THE GAZA CEASE-FIRE, WHAT NEXT? The Gaza cease-fire announced last night is holding, at least for today. So right now, after the fourth major round of fighting between Hamas…
Is Stalemate the least bad option in Syria? Far beneath the surface of the Biden Administration’s understandable preoccupation with problems at home, and with China and Russia abroad, a quiet…