US moves against Iran raise spectre of wider regional conflict
James M. Dorsey | US President Donald J. Trump. in a step that could embolden Saudi Arabia to move ahead with plans to destabilize Iran,...
US plan to (re)occupy Iraq faces resistance
M K Bhadrakumar | The US’s longstanding project to push for an independent Kurdistan in the oil-rich regions of northern Iraq and Syria in the...
Qatar scores, at least on the soccer pitch
James M. Dorsey | Qatar won more than a symbolic victory with a decision by European soccer body UEFA to award controversial television network Al Jazeera’s...
Bloodshed continues in Syria
News Analysis | A Syrian military unit was ambushed on Thursday by insurgent near the capital, Damascus, triggering a firefight that killed 28 government troops....
The Gulf crisis: A battle of megalomaniacs
James M. Dorsey | There are fundamental problems in trying to learn lessons or draw conclusions from the Gulf crisis for the role of small...
China takes a leap of faith in the Middle East
M K Bhadrakumar | Like a deer caught in the headlight on the median of the highway at night, South Block stands paralyzed as the...
Deconstructing Trump: Iran sanctions
M K Bhadrakumar | There is an old impish yarn that Noah was stunned to see the two cats he’d put in the Ark trooping...
Is democracy consistent with Islam?
Nauman Sadiq | Some people are under the impression that democracy and Islam are incompatible. But I don’t see any contradiction between democracy and Islam,...
Doha turns to Islamabad as the Gulf crisis festers.
News Analysis | Amid the simmering Qatar crisis, Doha has asked Pakistan to play its role to defuse the row with fellow Gulf countries. Last...
Refugee or migrant? Sometimes the line is blurred
A dozen years before the influx of refugees and migrants to Europe’s shores would force policymakers to take heed, Michael Winterbottom’s 2002 docudrama In this World brought the...
Of slapping sanctions and regime change; the noose tightens on Tehran.
News Analysis | A day after dishing-out the second certificate of Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, the Trump administration announced new sanctions on individuals...
Trump’s Afghanistan strategy is simply old wine in a new bottle
Michael Kugelman | Afghanistan has suffered through a harrowing summer, even by the nightmarish standards of a country convulsed by conflict for decades. A cycle of...