Can Europe summon the empathy needed to solve its refugee challenge in 2026?
One of the most compelling dramas I watched this year was Thomas Vinterberg’s Families Like Ours. The film…
Buffeted by great powers, where does the Middle East stand at the end of 2025?
The ability to separate deterrence and control from unintended slippage towards wide confrontation is receding, not only in…
The US won the Cold War decades ago. It is paying the price for it today
In 1977, Ronald Reagan neatly summed up the more aggressive American attitude towards the Cold War with the…
When Nato’s Rutte talks of war on the scale ‘our grandparents endured’, that only means world war
Do most countries want peace or war? If you take the statements of leaders at face value, nearly…
Syria must stay the course for a better future
That Syria would undergo its most dramatic change of direction since at least the beginning of the country’s…
My hope is for Syria to remain in the news for happier reasons than in the past decade
In September 2015, the image of two-year-old Alan Kurdi’s small, helpless body washed up on the shores of…
Could Pakistan ever help Iran against Israel?
As two Muslim-majority neighbours with historic ties, Iran and Pakistan are no strangers to bilateral visits. Iran’s President…
My father, like so many other Lebanese and Arab immigrants, came to the US – and helped build it
Last week, I was in my hometown of Utica, New York. I had been invited to keynote an…
Syria’s drugs trade won’t be stopped overnight
Undoubtedly, Syria is a changed country. To take just one example, last week interim President Ahmad Al Shara…
The Afghanistan-Pakistan violence could still spiral into a regional conflict
Over the past fortnight, Indians and Pakistanis experienced something that was at once both familiar and unexpected. Pakistan’s…
Economic growth and environmental protection are allies, not adversaries
During this week’s gathering of the conservation community at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi, we…
How Estonia and the UAE are measuring ambition with precision
When the UAE unveiled its campaign last month to become the “startup capital of the world”, it did…