A collection of 16 posts
America and the West have once again betrayed their Kurdish allies. Al-Sharaa’s assault on the Kurds of northern Syria, with Turkish backing, is just the latest chapter in the Kurds’ long struggle for self-rule.
Fragile ceasefires are holding for now, but the volatile region may be headed for another explosion next year.
Israel’s multi-front war has transformed the Middle East.
The post-11 September wars set in motion political forces that constrained and undermined American power at the moment it was needed most.
Israel prepares for a final push into Gaza—but will it be stymied by criticism from abroad and discontent at home?
The ongoing Arab–Israeli war appears to be entering a new escalatory phase, in which the eye of the storm has shifted to Syria and Yemen, as well as back to Gaza.
The media’s obsessive focus on the Israel–Palestine conflict obscures the broader picture of the ubiquity of jihadism in the Middle East, and the crucial role it plays in stoking and perpetuating turmoil and strife.
Syria’s new leader will have to balance his Islamist beliefs with the more pressing tasks of state-building and economic development.
The atrocities committed by the Assad regime were no secret—but they were met with Western inaction.
The Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 set a series of events in motion that have shifted the balance of power in the region in a way the terrorists themselves never intended.
Iran and Russia have suffered serious setbacks over the past year, but grave dangers remain.
Syria’s crisis demonstrates the importance of power.
The future is unwritten, and a future of space cooperation and peaceful settlement remains possible.
The conditions that first produced ISIS have been left to fester as part of a wider malign neglect toward the Muslim Middle East in the aftermath of the Iraq war.
Dr David Adesnik, Director of Research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, talks to Jonathan Kay about ISIS, Syria and the Kurds.