In President Barack Obama’s sometimes maddeningly cautious foreign policy, you can see him struggling to answer what may be the hardest question of his presidency: How should the United States project power in a disorderly world without making the same mistakes it did in Iraq and Afghanistan? Obama, whose deliberative approach often resembles that of… اقرأ المزيد
BEIRUT: The Future Movement and the Amal Movement have begun a dialogue designed to defuse Sunni-Shiite tensions and resolve some key political issues that have threatened to paralyze the role of Parliament and the Cabinet, a ministerial source said. The ongoing dialogue was launched recently between top aides of Speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the… اقرأ المزيد
As we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, we can get a better understanding of the conditions of that time by following closely events in Palestine this week. That is because Israeli behavior provides the best window we have into the mindset of the Western colonial powers a century ago,… اقرأ المزيد
BEIRUT: A breakthrough in the long-running crisis over public workers’ salaries is expected next week, a ministerial source revealed to The Daily Star Thursday. “We are close to an agreement on holding a Parliament session on July 17 to pass laws adopting the new salary scale and government expenditures,” the source said. The ministerial source… اقرأ المزيد
As American policymakers ponder the future shape of the Mideast, they should perhaps recall that the United States was opposed to the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, the famous “line in the sand” that is now said to be dissolving. American’s opposition back then was based on its rejection of the secret diplomacy between Britain and France… اقرأ المزيد
It was obvious several years ago, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was Iran’s president and the Islamic Republic was expanding its power in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian areas and Yemen, that this endeavor would provoke a backlash from the Sunni Arab states. And it was just as clear that this backlash, to compensate for Iran’s demographic and… اقرأ المزيد