Middle Orient

The message they [nationals of Lebanon] are sending to a new US administration is: The Lebanese people are hoping that you will help them get rid of Hezbollah. Cozying up to Iran would further embolden Hezbollah and allow it to destroy Lebanon by turning it into an Iranian-controlled colony.

The Islamic State has conducted several attacks in recent weeks on the Sunni-majority provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin. The Islamic State (IS) has in recent days claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on the Siniya oil refinery in Iraq’s northern Salahuddin province and for the killing of soldiers, policemen, local …

Four days after a top Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated, the country’s conservative parliament overwhelmingly adopted a draft bill calling for significant breaches of Tehran’s obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal.

The United Arab Emirates deepens its strategic partnership with Greece and its influence in the Eastern Mediterranean in a coalition to check Turkish ambitions. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is participating for the first time, along with new arrival France, in the joint Greek-Egyptian-Cypriot Medusa-10 training exercises being held Nov. …

Iran’s parliamentary elections last month were an unmitigated success for conservatives and hard-liners. Aided by unprecedented low turnout and the disqualification of thousands of their opponents, they won 221 of the legislature’s 290 seats, while reformists and moderates took only 19—down from 121 in the 2016 elections.

Reactions in the United States to the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani have tended to fall into three broad categories. Those who support the strike argue that it eliminated a uniquely irreplaceable figure advancing Iran’s regional influence, while also reestablishing deterrence against Tehran.

Earlier this month, a prominent researcher and security expert in Iraq, who was close to the new prime minister and to Western governments, was gunned down outside his home in Baghdad.

If Iran is in fact responsible for the recent attack on Saudi oil facilities, whether directly or through its proxies in Yemen, it suggests that Iranian cruise missiles and drones are getting more sophisticated.

n late August, an Israeli airstrike on a compound south of Damascus killed two Hezbollah fighters, who had reportedly been working alongside members of the Quds Force, the elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to launch drone attacks on Israeli territory. According to the Israeli army, the airstrike …

The Trump administration’s strategy of applying “maximum pressure” on Iran has succeeded in inflicting unprecedented economic pain on the country, particularly since the U.S. withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and subsequently reimposed punishing sanctions.