Ukraine may force Middle Eastern rivals to upgrade their toolkit
By James M. Dorsey Struggling to remain on the sidelines of the 21st century’s watershed war in Ukraine, Middle Eastern nations are discovering that they may be fighting their battles…
New Books Network Review: Islam and the Arab Revolutions
Usaama al-Azami’s Islam and the Arab Revolutions: The Ulama Between Democracy and Autocracy (Oxford University Press, 2022) focuses on the responses of several prominent Muslim religious scholars towards the 2011 Arab popular…
Israel in Africa
by Neville Teller At present Israel is in a rather equivocal position on the African political scene. The issue cannot be resolved until 2023. The problem revolves around the African…
Russian societal tensions are mirrored in Putin’s Orthodox church
By James M. Dorsey The Russian Orthodox Church blesses rather than fires weapons. In doing so, it has emerged as a powerful weapon in its own right in President Vladimir…
France opens the way for Islamic State
by Neville Teller In what looks like a loss of will and abdication of responsibility, France’s President Macron announced on February 17 that French troops are being withdrawn from Mali,…
Saudi Arabia and Indonesia: Clashing visions of ‘moderate Islam.’
By James M. Dorsey Two diametrically opposed visions of moderate Islam have emerged as major Muslim powers battle to define the soul of their faith in the 21st century in…
Ukraine: Middle Eastern states eye cost of hedging bets
By James M. Dorsey Emiratis celebrated their failure to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the United Nations Security Council as the end of an era in which the…
Ukraine: Lessons not being learned
By James M. Dorsey Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the international condemnation it generated contains key lessons for policymakers. They are lessons that should have…
Imaging the day after a Russian conquest of Kyiv: Not a pretty picture
By James M. Dorsey It may be only a matter of time before Russian troops control the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and topple President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However, that may not…
Middle Eastern states walk a tightrope that Ukraine spins ever tighter
By James M. Dorsey Israel and Gulf states struggle not to fall off the tightrope they walk as a Russian attack on Ukraine makes hedging bets increasingly tricky. Unlike Israel,…