By far the loudest cries of alarm about the Iran nuclear agreement are coming from the only country in the region that has a nuclear arsenal — Israel. A view of Israel’s Sorek nuclear reactor center near the central Israeli town of Yavne. 5 July 2004. (AP Photo, file...
By Harvey Morris In a dramatic turnabout, Turkey has launched air strikes against Islamic State (IS) forces that hold territory in neighboring Syria and Iraq. After a year in which Turkey stood aside from a struggle to defeat IS jihadists, the Ankara government’s...
James Clad served as a senior U.S. official in Iraq after Saddam Hussein fell. He draws lessons from the occupation in an interview. A U.S. soldier stands in a convoy as smokes billows from a truck destroyed in Najaf, Iraq, 2 April 2003. (AP Photo/Jean-Marc Bouju)...
Street celebrations following a nuclear deal in Tehran, Iran, 14 July 2015. Iran is emerging from its reputation as a Middle East pariah. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) By Jonathan Lyons The geopolitical logic in support of the Iran arms deal is certainly compelling,...
By Jonathan Lyons Instability across the heart of the Muslim world underscores an undeniable fact of modern life: religion matters as much today as it did more than 1,300 years ago during the formative period of Islam. The upheavals introduced by the U.S. invasion of...
As an American in Tehran, I was reminded that most everyone is already in Iran keen to do business, everyone except Americans. (All photos by Dick Simon) As one of the only Americans in the largest international hotel in Tehran, I was reminded that most everyone is...
By Alistair Lyon Yemen’s green terraced mountains, exuberant architecture and proud heritage of music, poetry and Islamic learning, not to mention its inhabitants’ fondness for whiling away the afternoons chewing mildly narcotic leaves, mark it out from its Arab...
By Harvey Morris The golden rule of Israeli politics has always been to avoid any public spat with the Americans. The theory was that the electorate would punish any politician who endangered the country’s relationship with its closest and most powerful ally. Benjamin...
By Harvey Morris The destruction of ancient artifacts by militants of the Islamic State in areas under their control in northern Iraq goes beyond the ancient tradition of sectarian iconoclasm. In the religious turmoil of the Byzantine Empire, zealots destroyed images...
By Harvey Morris It was the spring of 1991. A few weeks earlier America and its allies had ousted Saddam Hussein’s invading forces from Kuwait, providing the signal for rebellions among his oppressed Kurdish and Shia communities in Iraq. In the north, the Kurds had...