| The Daily Star Events on the ground in several countries are proving correct what many of us have been saying publicly and privately for the past two years: Daesh (ISIS) is not a serious military force or a credible or legitimate sovereign entity, and once confronted seriously on the three battlegrounds where it operates… اقرأ المزيد
| The Daily Star Two years or so since Daesh (ISIS) declared itself and its caliphate in parts of northern Syria and Iraq, we are now finally approaching the moment when decisive, coordinated, pervasive and sustained military force will be used against it to destroy its territorial enclaves in several countries. This will bring to… اقرأ المزيد
A fascinating aspect of the escalating feud between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the variety of views and actions by the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Two of them – Saudi Arabia and Bahrain – cut off diplomatic ties with Iran, three others only recalled their ambassadors, and Oman has maintained full diplomatic… اقرأ المزيد
At least a dozen different dynamics are shaping the deteriorating relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the consequences will have an impact across much of the Middle East for some time. The crisis is comprehensible through a dizzying array of lenses. These include, notably, relatively recent Sunni-Shiite tensions, the rearing of wider Middle Eastern… اقرأ المزيد
While the world has been preoccupied with the ISIS and its global terrorism threat that emanated from the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, 17 countries that met in Vienna last weekend agreed on a stunningly ambitious and impressive timetable to wind down the conflict and move Syria toward a political transition within the coming 18… اقرأ المزيد
The dangerous and destructive situation on the ground in Israel-Palestine is painful for both parties, though Palestinians are being killed at a rate seven times faster than Israelis, so the situation is not a symmetrical one that should elicit simplistic calls for all sides to restrain themselves and stop killing each other. Restraining oneself and… اقرأ المزيد