Worldcrunch
The United States, which was stung twice in Afghanistan, recently warned Syria’s new administration against adopting hardline policies like the Taliban. While HST leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has said that he did not want to turn Syria into a copy of Afghanistan, doubts remain over the former al-Qaeda member’s assurances and pledges.
The previous world order, based on the domination of a few superpowers, has been turned upside down in 2024. Will this be the year of explosions, or the year of reactions? French political theorist Jacques Attali explains the theory of order through noise.
The radical far-right in Israel’s government is demanding to build settlements in the Gaza Strip. Israel’s army is creating the conditions for this.
Stunning reports of positive exchanges between the long imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish government, coupled with the collapse of the Syrian regime, are reshaping the dynamics for the Kurds scattered across the Middle East. But beware of betrayal.
Also: a look inside the slippery world of stand-up comedy in China and Ukraine’s clandestine online school network.
Replacing the dominant roles of Russia and Iran exerting influence over Syria, following the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey and Israel are best positioned to divide up their respective roles on the territory of the shared neighbor.
A self-immolation that started a wave of revolutions, the death of a dictator and the premiere of the longest-running American animated series.
The Americans already have direct contact, and the French are arriving tomorrow. While remaining “vigilant” about the Islamist nature of Syria’s new rulers, Western nations are reestablishing ties with Damascus to support a return to stability. Turkey, however, is already one step ahead.
A region torn by centuries of conflict, caught in the relentless grip of global power struggles. The Middle East’s wars are no longer just battles for territory, but for control over narratives, lives, and destinies. And it’s all playing out on your phone.
Since he fled in the cover of the night to Russia with his wife and three children, Bashar al-Assad’s entourage and extended family have expressed their anger and humiliation at his deception. He also betrayed his regional allies who went out of their way to protect his regime for years.
Taking advantage of the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey, the United States and Israel separately carried out airstrikes on targets in different areas of the country, each with its own agenda. The reclaiming Syria’s sovereignty will be one of the most important and complex challenges facing the country’s new rulers.
The overthrow of the Assad regime is about more than just Russia’s boasting rights as a major power. It will have consequences on the war in Ukraine, and Russian expansion in Africa. Indeed, it may be proof that it is not a major power.
While the Islamic Republic of Iran mulls an official response to the fall of its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad, Iranian politicians are already voicing their anger at the “backstabbing” conduct of two key powers, Turkey and Russia. Could Tehran be the next to get left to fend for itself?
Returning to their destroyed villages in the south, Lebanese found no one waiting for them. Others have no possibility to return. Meanwhile, Israel considers it just a 60-day pause in fighting. What deal was cut behind closed doors?
The surprise attack by rebel groups on Syrian government forces in Aleppo has raised many questions since it coincided with the ceasefire deal in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel. With so many forces and interests around Syria, don’t expect the reignited conflict to end anytime soon.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, use of the term “evil” has increased. The more heinous and public the murder, the more the evil of the murderer would be revealed and “the world” would be pushed to intervene. Yet in both Syria and Gaza, that world has been satisfied with symbolic responses.
Israel and Lebanon have reached a U.S. and France-brokered ceasefire agreement. It’s an intricate agreement that requires a withdrawal of Israeli forces within 60 days, contingent on Hezbollah retreating north. And it shifts focus, allowing the war in Gaza to continue unabated.
The Arab nations and people are facing a general state of failure that includes actions of regimes, societies and political parties, armed militias, national liberation and resistance movements. And while Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Lebanon is abhorrent, Arabs hold most of the responsibility.
Turkey has become increasingly concerned about Israel’s expansionist ambitions, both for peace in the region and the Turkish claims to contested territory, given Israeli officials’ comments about “Greater Israel.”
A shocking political assassination, a middle-eastern country gaining its independence, and the election of the most powerful woman of the 2000s.
Trump is seen as a “transactional” operator by leaders in the Middle East. But the appointments to all key positions related to the region suggest that Arabs should brace for the worst of all deals.
A video in the summer of 2023 showed Julia Alli playing the piano in her home southern Lebanon. In the fall of 2024, a new video emerges of Israeli soldiers in the ruble of that home and piano. For writer Badia Fahs, the contrast also links to the story of Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning Holocaust drama The Pianist.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said he is not out to topple Iran’s revolutionary regime, but his administration may, at the very least, seek intolerable concessions to the West from Tehran, or sink it with sanctions if it refuses.
A photographer captured the seasoned Iranian official Ali Larijani laughing on his visit Thursday to Beirut, fully aware of what laughter means in such a situation. The seasoned Iranian diplomat knows that many Lebanese hold his regime responsible for dragging their country into a bloody, senseless, and destructive war.
In his first term, Donald Trump tried to undermine the strategy that Jordan had bet on for more than two decades, to protect itself from the risk of transferring the Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to Jordan. What will a second Trump term mean for the country?
One Arab writer takes issue with a noted scholar who assigns the lion’s share of the blame to the establishment of the Jewish State. Israel has excelled, not only, because of its military strength and Western allies, but also because of its ability to build a state of institutions and relative freedom.
Relations between Egypt and Iran have been growing closer. But the return of Donald Trump to the White House could be a setback for the rapprochement, given that Iran is among his top enemies.
With the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House, we must expect a major shift in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a return to the vision of the “Abrahamic Peace,” which includes no reference to the Palestinians’ right to a state.
Whether it is Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, aggressive bullying or hypocritical well wishes, the actual decisions of U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East always follow the same cynical script.
In Egypt, public support for a Palestinian homeland is deeply felt but constrained by the government that has had 40 years of diplomatic relations with Israel. Will the bloody war just across the border in Gaza change something?
Israel and the West are seeking a stabilized Middle East to shorten the trading corridor with India and Asia. It’s a win-win situation for prosperous economies and the West, but what about Tehran’s truculent regime?
The Arab community has long supported the Democrats during elections, but the ongoing conflict led by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon is changing the dynamics, and could give Trump an opening in this crucial swing state.
We, the children of “front edge” villages, have seen thousands of homes disappear into rubble. Our loss is not limited to memories and dreams, but also to the stories of our villages.
In the Middle East and North Africa, divisions are as stark as they can be. War-torn nations stand side-by-side with wealthy oil-rich countries where the elites feel disconnected from the rest of the region. But, as Yemeni freelance journalist and a human rights defender Afrah Nasser, warns, these inequalities breed monsters, and wealth will not prevent oil-rich countries from experiencing chaos and destruction.
Iran’s 40-year policy of seeking the destruction of the Jewish state and “taking back” Jerusalem became the north star of the Tehran’s foreign policy. Now it may be its undoing.
“Then the white man found the Middle East: a distant place, rich in nature and humanity, with a beautiful climate. He invaded it, then divided it, then separated the sections accordingly.”
A landmark decision last year by the Mexican Supreme Court is part of a push in Latin America to expand abortion access. But as seen by the U.S. overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the presidential election in November of this year the issue is moving in different directions around the world.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has specialized in getting gangsters and low-lives to undertake its terror operations abroad, making it more difficult to thwart its longstanding, and laughable, claim that it is a victim, not a sponsor of terrorism,.
The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack is just the latest Israeli strike against those who have tried to monopolize the notion of “resistance” as a purely military pursuit. The result has been the absolute destruction of Gaza, and now Lebanon, and the reinforcement of the Israeli occupation.
Updated Oct. 17, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. Raqqa was declared fully liberated from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria on this day in 2017. Why was Raqqa so important in the Syrian Civil War? Raqqa was of strategic importance because it served as the self-proclaimed capital of ISIS and was a center for the […]