The stunning situation in Yemen, as the country’s foundations shake and slowly collapse, is an example of the structural weaknesses that plague many countries in the Arab world. If you want to teach someone about why the Arab world continues to lurch from conflict to conflict in a region-wide maelstrom of political violence and state… اقرأ المزيد
Sitting next to Iran’s foreign minister Sunday as he said that another extension of the nuclear talks isn’t “in the interests of anybody,” it seemed clear that this particular can isn’t going to get kicked down the road much farther. The likelihood that the Iran negotiations are reaching a make-or-break point was reinforced by President… اقرأ المزيد
Mazin Sidahmed| The Daily Star BEIRUT: The $25 million weapons donation from the United States to Lebanon will provide the Lebanese Armed Forces with a new strategic advantage in fighting rebel groups on the Lebanese border, experts say. “The weapons that the Army received will raise their standards and take them to another level,”… اقرأ المزيد
Hezbollah unyielding in support for Aoun despite calls for consensus presidentfurther complicate the presidential deadlock as it runs contrary to local and regional calls for the election of a consensus candidate to end the 8-month-old vacuum in the country’s top Christian post. The Hezbollah position came a day after French presidential envoy Jean-Francois Girault ended… اقرأ المزيد
Jordan’s public opinion, political leadership and regional and international dynamics today offer very useful insights into the current condition of the Arab world, and should be studied carefully by anyone interested in how things operate in the region and wondering where the Middle East may be heading. The immediate mass anger among Jordanians to the… اقرأ المزيد
Niccolo Machiavelli, perhaps the shrewdest political philosopher in history, believed that great events were shaped by luck – or “fortuna” as he called this unpredictable force of life. The same actions might produce success or failure, depending on the whims of the goddess Fortuna.You wouldn’t know it by listening to gloomy commentators, but the United… اقرأ المزيد