Commentaries

Ramadan is approaching amid escalating challenges imposed by the Israeli police inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Police and administrative measures are intensifying in ways that are no longer read as temporary security steps, but rather as accumulated tools producing a new status quo. In this context, the slogan “custodianship does not mean sovereignty” is not advanced merely as a legal…

▪️ The rise of European skepticism regarding the viability of the strategic partnership with Washington and the renewed prominence of the concept of European “strategic autonomy.”▪️ The erosion of trust within NATO as a result of increasing American unilateralism and the reordering of security priorities.▪️ Accumulated trade disputes between the two sides, exacerbated by tariffs and reciprocal threats.▪️ A widening…

The security architecture of the Middle East has, for several years, been undergoing profound and overlapping transformations that have reshaped the contours of the regional environment. The expansion of fragile states, the continuation of Israeli military operations and their repercussions for regional stability, coupled with the decline of U.S. engagement and the erosion of the effectiveness of the “security umbrella”…

Muscat, the capital of Oman, hosted last Friday a new round of “indirect” U.S.–Iran negotiations—an attempt to identify common ground that might pave the way for an agreement capable of defusing a potential war. Such a confrontation could erupt if the United States were to launch a military strike against Iran, a move that would likely compel Tehran to respond…

The American researcher and one of the most prominent scholars in international relations and U.S. foreign policy, Jeffrey Sachs, does not hesitate, in his commentary on the American campaign against Iran, to state that Israel today fully leads America in the Middle East. This is something many now regard as one of the core assumptions in analyzing U.S. foreign policy.…

The European tour of the Jordanian ministerial delegation to promote investment reflects a growing awareness of the centrality of the economy in shaping foreign policy. This visit comes in the wake of the signing of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement between Jordan and the European Union, which includes a package of European assistance and investments worth approximately €3 billion for…

President Lai Ching-te National Day address on October 10, 2025, marked a clear shift in priorities compared to his previous speeches. It reflected a more cautious and pragmatic approach to cross-strait relations, alongside stronger emphasis on domestic national identity, national defense and internal security, and Taiwan’s global standing. This contrasted with the previous year, when his remarks strongly underscored Taiwan’s…

There are entrenched “rules of the game” that Iraqi political forces have consistently sought to institutionalize with every electoral cycle—rules that have ultimately produced a political system some scholars classify as a form of competitive authoritarianism. Iraq’s political arena has thus become confined to a limited set of actors who continuously reproduce the status quo, reducing elections to little more…

The article addresses the limitations of using genocide discourse to describe Israeli crimes in Gaza by analysing how, over recent months, this discourse has been subjected to manipulation that empties it of its content and redirects its purpose from delegitimizing Israel to protecting it. This manipulation has frequently been deployed to contain escalating protests against the existing order at all…

The Kurdish question remains one of the most pressing and consequential issues shaping the political order of the Middle East. Across Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran, Kurdish aspirations for self-determination have repeatedly collided with the territorial integrity of existing nation-states. Despite numerous historical attempts to establish an independent Kurdish state, these efforts have largely failed, giving rise instead to fragmented…