Position Estimation

The ongoing war in Lebanon can no longer be understood as a limited military round between Israel and Hezbollah, nor even as a subsidiary extension of the U.S.–Israeli confrontation with Iran. Recent developments indicate that the conflict has shifted to a new level, where immediate military objectives are intertwined with broader strategic stakes related to reshaping Lebanon’s strategic environment and…

This assessment proceeds from the premise that the Israeli–U.S. war on Iran has moved beyond the stage of proxy warfare into a phase of gradual attrition, cost escalation, and the reconfiguration of the region’s geopolitical and strategic environment. Drawing on a modified Delphi approach that synthesizes the assessments of a number of experts and researchers, the paper seeks to distill…

In exceptional times-when the deep structure of the state begins to tremble and the central question becomes one of regime survival-systems tend to revert to their most weighty figures in both institutional standing and collective memory; to those who embody accumulated layers of experience, legitimacy, networks, and foundational narrative. It is precisely through this lens that one may interpret the…

The ongoing escalation on Lebanon is no longer a security event that can be managed through the conventional tools the state has relied on in previous phases. The open confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah, occurring alongside the broader war on Iran, not only signals Lebanon’s transition into a more dangerous field phase, but also reveals the country’s entry into a…

The politics and society institute held a closed discussion session via Zoom on February 25, 2026, titled “The West Bank in the Context of Structural Transformation: Security, Political Legitimacy, and the Jordanian Strategic Environment.” The session addressed the ongoing transformations in the West Bank and their regional implications, in light of the rapid political and security developments in the region.…

Since the outbreak of armed clashes in April 2023, Sudan has entered a phase of open conflict between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, a conflict that has gone beyond a dispute between two military commands to reveal a deeper crisis related to the structure of the Sudanese state itself. The confrontation that began in Khartoum quickly spread to…

The rise of the new Syrian government under the leadership of Ahmad al-Shar‘ marks a pivotal turning point in the reconfiguration of regional balances-not only within Syria, but also across the Lebanese arena. The organic linkage that once bound Hezbollah to the former Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad constituted one of the central pillars of the party’s regional project.…

The issue of parliamentary elections in Lebanon at the present moment does not appear to be a crisis of the electoral law or a problem related to a special district for expatriates as much as it appears to be a crisis of political timing within a turbulent regional context. The debate surrounding the sixteenth district (related to the election of…

Masoud Pezeshkian’s experience embodies a living manifestation of the reformist’s predicament when he is summoned after the moment has passed—not as a project of structural transformation, but as an instrument for managing deadlock and reducing the costs of systemic collapse. The legacy of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri represents a latent horizon of internal transition, one that may still allow for…

In recent months, debate inside Israel has intensified over the future of exemptions granted to the Haredi community, amid demographic and sociological transformations that render the old arrangement increasingly untenable. This debate is not confined to the question of conscription or the distribution of economic burdens; rather, it reflects a deeper crisis in the structure of Israel’s social contract, which…