(First published on May 12, 2021) After its history was manipulated, shrine rarely attracted Islamic attention Reporting on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa compound, Western media depicts it…
Browsing: Middle East
Jordanians protesting soaring fuel prices don’t distinguish between the severe economic crisis and the widespread corruption – and the king’s foreign policy on the U.S. and…
Has Khamenei’s regime really disbanded the morality police, as reported by the AFP on Sunday? The decision, if true, would be represent a very big surprise.…
The Abraham Accords, now past their second anniversary, have offered a new and different model for regional relations and, in many ways, have already shaped a…
A heaving mass of flesh and energy has brought life to the host nation’s matches at the World Cup. They are Qatar’s loudest fans, but they’re…
ROME – Nine months after the eruption of the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis Friday sent a letter to the Ukrainian people praying for peace and…
INTRODUCTION The Ukraine war is most certainly not going according to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan — or indeed, according to any of the revisions of…
Before February 24, 2022, many observers in Europe and North America considered Russian President Vladimir Putin a ruthless but pragmatic autocrat. But after the murderous invasion…
The second week of November 1942 has much to tell us about the region’s geopolitical centrality, its enduring political currents, and its role in the future…
President of the United Arab Emirates Federation, the Ruler of Abu Dhabi created a surprise two days ago by traveling to Russia for a meeting with…
By David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, and Spencer Faragasso Download PDF Background The Institute for Science and International Security has analyzed open-source information compiling reported or…
Rarely is there good news to write about in the Middle East. The same seems to be true of foreign policy more generally. So when something…
The collapse of a six-month truce bodes ill for an already battered country. In early October, a United Nations-brokered truce in Yemen that had held…
Just after midnight on August 21, 1991, a column of armored personnel carriers manned by soldiers from a unit of Russia’s 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division,…
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has blown new life into Turkey’s vision of a Turkic world that stretches from Anatolia to Xinjiang in north-western China. …
Lawmakers are demanding that the US withdraw its military from the cartel leader over its decision, which stands to put Russia on better footing. By…
The Iranian regime’s brutal killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini — who was reportedly brutally beaten after she was detained for showing too much hair — has…
In an interview, Ali Fathollah-Nejad discusses the recent protests in Iran, and long-term prospects for the post-revolutionary political order. Ali Fathollah-Nejad is a German-Iranian political…
Russia’s top leader visits Beijing, meets with his Chinese counterpart, issues a joint communiqué condemning the expansionist policies and aggressive nature of the United States and…
KUWAIT: Minister of Information Abdulrahman Al-Mutairi meets senior officials of the ministry. KUWAIT: The information ministry has promised it would employ all potential to provide subjective,…
When Iraq’s finance minister stepped down last month, he didn’t go quietly. By Robert F. Worth On August 16, as the leading members of Iraq’s government gathered…
The below is an edited transcript of David Petraeus’s interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto. On the war’s momentum: It has fundamentally shifted, and I’m normally…
With all the headlines announcing possible replacements for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran – which claims Western demands are all political – is still careful not to…
Istanbul- Despite having no organic ties, he managed to convince everyone in the world -except Russia- that he was “Putin’s Brain”. The fame of the…
(Originally published by Shaffaf and the Beirut Daily Star on March 17, 2007. A news article by the Associated Press reported yesterday (September 8) that “2…
(Undated picture of Enzo Ferrari posing with faulty parts in his “error museum” displayed at an exhibit in Modena, Italy in August 2022.) * An…
(Giampaolo Silvestri, secretary general of the AVSI Foundation (L), Cardinal Mario Zenari, Vatican envoy in Syria, and Franciscan Father Fady Azar, head of the Open Hospitals…
A lot is happening in Syria’s Suwayda Governorate, but Damascus still remains the dominant outside actor. The southern Syrian district of Suwayda, with its Druze…
In light of Tehran’s concerted efforts to reverse last year’s electoral setback, it has become too risky to let Baghdad’s nascent democracy simply fend for itself.…
The Russian leadership, while refraining from mass mobilization has sought to portray the war in Ukraine as an existential struggle for Russia on the order of…
Istanbul- Salman Rushdie, the writer of Satanic Verses, a novel that ignited outrage among some religious circles, who considered its content to be blasphemous and was…
Whether or not Tehran is proven to be involved, the incident holds significant implications for the regime’s international diplomacy and terrorist activity—not to mention its claims…
Istanbul-Shaffaf As Ankara signaled new dialogue with Assad regime following the Sochi summit of Erdogan and Putin; Former Turkish FM and PM Davutoglu, one of the…
After President Erdogan’s joint intelligence statement last week and Pro-Govt media reports of a possible Assad-Erdogan phone call, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in his last…
President Joe Biden was not wrong when he declared that “justice has been served” with the killing of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri in a US drone strike.…
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the new head of the Italian bishops conference, smiles during a press conference in Rome, Friday, May 27, 2022 (Credit: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino.)…
The effort to block Iran from turning into a nuclear power is at its lowest ebb ever, apparently headed for failure. In 2015, the U.S.-led agreement…
A memorial is pictured near a train car symbolizing the Drancy camp, at the Shoah memorial Tuesday, July 12, 2022 in Drancy, outside Paris. The Paris…
(Erdogan surrounded by supporters and guards after landing Istanbul Ataturk Airport in the morning of the coup d’etat) The previous week, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg…
President Biden has a powerful moral imperative for ending his feud with the crown prince: to ensure that the kingdom’s gradual pivot away from extremism doesn’t…
Negotiations between Finland and countries and the NATO Alliance were concluded in Brussels on July 4. On July 5, the Swedish and Finnish foreign ministers signed…
Shaffaf Exclusive from Istanbul He might be the second Abraham that “all” peoples of Middle East adored most in history, and he was in Jerusalem…
President Biden has a powerful moral imperative for ending his feud with the crown prince: to ensure that the kingdom’s gradual pivot away from extremism doesn’t…
After a series of damaging failures, a senior Iranian intelligence official lost his job and a Revolutionary Guards general was said to have been arrested. …
Ukraine’s success in contesting the skies turns the West’s airpower paradigm on its head — it offers an alternative vision for pursuing airspace denial over air…
Watching the Ukraine conflict, Middle Eastern leaders see the Russian president has approached matters in the same way as they would. Without wanting to fall…
Interview by Vazha Tavberidze Print A polyglot American born to Jewish parents in World War II Romania and raised in Italy and England, he…
US President Bill Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk sign the Trilateral Agreement on transferring nuclear weapons from Ukraine to Russia and…
Two countries that have long clashed are tempting fate with escalations that could soon spiral well beyond their borders. The ongoing war between Israel…
A number of state buildings in Ankara these days have an uninvited guest: main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. 73 year-old who twisted the fate of…