Position Estimation

Executive Summary This paper argues that, after 2026, Jordanian foreign policy entered a phase that requires a shift from managing balances to managing Jordan’s own position within the regional conflict system. Over the past decade, Amman succeeded in preserving stability, defending its red lines on Palestine and Jerusalem, and consolidating security and economic partnerships that gave the state a high…

The war that began on 28 February 2026 has outlived its ceasefires. The pattern is now diagrammable:[1] Iran interferes with shipping near the Strait of Hormuz; the United States retaliates; Tehran hits American assets across neighbouring Arab states — including Qatar, even as Doha mediates; mediators urge restraint; talks resume; a temporary understanding is reached; the underlying disputes remain untouched;…

There is a kind of catastrophe worse than being blindsided: the one you were warned about, in plain language, by the people whose job is to know — and chose to discount. The 2026 war against Iran is of this kind. Its defining feature is not an intelligence failure but a failure of reception. The event the intelligence correctly predicted…

The military escalation between Washington and Tehran in June and July 2026 was neither merely a successive exchange of strikes nor simply the abrupt collapse of provisional understandings reached only weeks earlier. Framing the crisis exclusively through the lens of military operations produces an incomplete reading. What is unfolding in the Gulf extends beyond a contest over military targets or…

A concise assessment on the shift in Israel’s national security strategy and its implications for Jordan and the region: This paper argues that, after 7 October 2023, Israel entered a new phase in which it is redefining its security concept, not as a limited military review, but as a broader change in the relationship among security, geography, and politics. The…

Do organizations end with the assassination of their leaders? This question was raised by the world after the killings of Osama bin Laden and al-Baghdadi, and it resurfaces today with Trump’s announcement of eliminating the second-in-command of ISIS at the heart of Africa[1] in the Lake Chad region. But before analyzing the event as a victory or a failure, the…

Sometimes, parties do not ally because they agree on the future, but because they fear the past. This is almost exactly what is happening today with Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid under the name “Beyachad/Together.” The two men, who were brought together by a short experience in government in 2021, are not returning today with a new political project as…

Introduction: When Social Media Becomes a Battlefield Since October 7, 2023, war has no longer been confined to the ground. A parallel front has opened in the digital space — a contest over narrative, over image, over who controls what reaches the eyes of millions. But this front did not emerge suddenly, nor was it born of the Flood. In…

Introduction The current war in the Middle East is unfolding within an intense regional context in which the ability to predict the trajectories of the conflict and its political and military outcomes has significantly diminished. Since October 7, the region has entered a new phase in which the war has expanded and assumed a multi-front character that is no longer…

The escalating transit crisis at the King Hussein Bridge – Al Karameh (Allenby) Crossing—manifested in congestion, prolonged waiting lines, and repeated closures—demonstrates that it is not merely an operational malfunction detached from its political context. Rather, it constitutes a complex, layered crisis shaped by overlapping Israeli restrictions on movement and mobility through procedural controls (operating hours, number of buses, sudden…