May 2019 has seen a marked deterioration in the long-running US-Iran standoff.  Back on 8 May Washington announced it had acquired credible intelligence suggesting a possible Iranian attack on US troops on…

Results of a recent annual survey of Arab youth concerns about their future suggest that Arab autocracies have yet to deliver expected public services and goods, explain autocratic efforts to…

Following Israel’s general election and the confirmation of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister for the fourth time, Washington announced that the Trump peace plan – dubbed by the President as…

Political transition in the Middle East and North Africa operates so far on the principle of ‘The King is dead, long live the King.’

Just a few years ago the Islamic State (IS) was only too real.  Spread across Syria and Iraq, It covered more than 34,000 square miles and controlled millions of people.…

Once upon a time states that emerged victorious from war were entitled to claim sovereignty over any conquered territory.  Indeed it was on this basis that the colonial empires of…

Both parties considered this first high-level summit a success, and agreed to hold further Arab League-EU summits regularly, alternating the location between Arab and European states. The next is scheduled…

Many have framed the battle lines in the geopolitics of the emerging new world order as the 21st century’s Great Game. It’s a game that aims to shape the creation…

At last the penny has dropped.  Gazans are finally coming to realize that the appalling conditions under which they, and most of the population of the Gaza Strip, have been…

The people of Yemen are in desperate straits.  The vicious conflict that has engulfed the nation has led to the worst humanitarian crisis in today’s world.  At this moment the vast majority…