Media coverage of America’s recent talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia focussed almost exclusively on the prospects for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Russia and the U.S. probably want different outcomes from the talks. But President Trump is better placed to reach a deal with President Putin that he was in …

Iran won’t engage in any direct negotiations with the US as long as the Islamic Republic is subject to pressures, sanctions and threats, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi stressed. Speaking at a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart in Tehran on Tuesday, Araqchi said Iran’s stance on the nuclear negotiations …

A few weeks ago, rare earth elements, critical minerals, and other natural resources seemed like just one more factor in efforts to end Russia’s war on Ukraine. Now they are front and center, a dominant focus of U.S. talks with Kyiv and a prominent vein of the intensifying diplomacy that …

Despite a Sunni majority in Syria, the Assad regime has managed to maintain its dominance through a combination of autocratic and kleptocratic rule, using patronage to secure loyalty. On 8 December 2024, following a 10-day uprising, Bashar al-Assad, son of Hafez al-Assad, was brought down along with the entire Assad …

In his sudden haste to see Ukraine repay the US for the billions of dollars appropriated by Congress to the country in its war against Russian aggression, Donald Trump, aka “Mr. Art of the Deal,” has deployed his tactless “Trumplomacy” with its attendant extortive strongarm tactics to gain access to …

Exposing the superficial religious attitude, the prophet Isaiah recorded: “This people draw near to me with their mouths and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Isaiah 29:13) This piercing critique cuts through the veneer of hollow devotion like a knife through butter, revealing a …

It has the feeling of a ghastly ending, one pushed along by desperation and eagerness. First, levelling Gaza and turning it to an uninhabitable moonscape, with the promise of a territory free of Palestinians. Then, displacing and destroying the already precarious holdings of Palestinian residents in the West Bank, all …

The Country Is Open to Talks but Will Fight a Forced Deal Since his return to office in late January, U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear he wants to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as he can, irrespective of what that means for Ukrainians. Breaking with the …

The Fall and Rise of Nationalism In 1852, the Black American writer and abolitionist Martin Delany lamented that “the claims of no people . . . are respected by any nation, until they are presented in a national capacity.” He was urging the emigration of Black people from the United …

How Trump Wields American Power Donald Trump has already transformed the American political order. Not since Ronald Reagan has a president so dominated the national landscape or shifted its ideological terrain. In his second term, Trump could reshape global order in ways no less profound. Today’s reigning, U.S.-led international system—call …