After Israel killed a string of its leaders, Hamas anointed new commanders to top ranks, this time shrouding their identities in secrecy to protect them from assassination. Israel vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack, launching a blistering offensive in Gaza that has massively weakened the …

Israeli forces are expanding their control over neighboring territories in an effort to prevent further attacks by hostile forces, but in the process complicating conflict resolution efforts. The renewed expansion of the Israeli military presence in Gaza has not advanced U.S.-led efforts to end the conflict there. Israeli penetration into …

Iran and the U.S. are moving toward nuclear negotiations, even as Trump builds up forces that could be used for military action against Iranian installations. Responding to U.S. coercive diplomacy, including the buildup as well as maximum economic sanctions pressure, Iran has accepted new negotiations with the Trump team. The …

The Arab world lies in one of the most important global strategic locations, controlling most of the major commercial transportation routes. It is rich in natural agricultural and industrial resources and has always been a prime target for Western colonial powers, which periodically launched military campaigns to occupy and control …

Half a century has passed since the outbreak of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War, a vicious, multifaceted conflict characterised by sectarianism, foreign intervention, powerful militias and a state struggling to impose itself. But while the guns may have stopped firing at each other, those characteristics shape today’s Lebanon. Despite the …

If you ask someone to name the worst military or geostrategic blunders in history, the standard answers will tend to center on doomed invasions of the Russian interior, either in the form of Napoleon’s 1812 campaign or the Third Reich’s invasion of the USSR. Someone with a deeper well of …

For Israel, Qatar’s silence on a fatwa calling for “armed jihad” against the Jewish state is deafening. On April 9, Israel’s Foreign Ministry implored Doha to publicly reject the religious edict, which the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) issued on March 31. The fatwa instructs Muslim governments to …

Can Shara’s Government Unite a Country Ready to Explode? In late March, Ahmad al-Shara, Syria’s new leader, introduced a caretaker government that would supervise the country’s transition from five decades of dictatorial rule. He gave some cabinet positions to figures outside his Islamist milieu, including naming a Christian woman minister …

How to Turn Maximum Pressure Into Personal Diplomacy On Saturday, April 12, American and Iranian officials will restart talks over curbing Tehran’s nuclear program. The talks come after U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter, in early March, to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proposing negotiations. “We have a very …

Nord Stream 2—the only U.S.-Russian business project that looks like a viable prospect once the fighting in Ukraine ends—raises more questions than answers. Renewed diplomatic contact between Moscow and Washington under U.S. President Donald Trump has quickly become economic as well as political. Statements from both sides about wanting to …