As Baghdad devalues the dinar and Gulf governments confront mounting fiscal pressures, the Middle East faces a reckoning over oil dependence, Iranian proxy warfare, and the economic cost of perpetual conflict.
“We don’t want new roundabouts or malls. We just want to live.” That was the message from one protester in Aleppo as demonstrations over soaring fuel prices spread across Syria on September...
US President Donald Trump has fulfilled the promise he made to Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in May 2025, to give Syrians “a chance at greatness.” At the end of August of this year, Trump...
China extracts a sweet deal from a global financial institution just a few blocks from the White House.
Blackouts across Central Asia should be a light-bulb moment for Washington as it seeks to diversify critical-mineral supply chains. An August 14 blackout across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and...
Venezuela’s recovery from the June 24 earthquakes has grown increasingly costly as the death toll has risen, infrastructure damage has become clearer, and reconstruction has placed new pressure...
Beijing must not benefit from reconstruction contracts for infrastructure it helped destroy
For Syria, Qatar’s money is power. On July 31, the Qatar Fund for Development announced plans to fund a surge of natural gas deliveries to Syria. Deliveries began on August 2. The gas, which is flowing...
The G-7 countries are meeting this week in Kananaskis in Alberta, Canada. This G-7 meeting will focus on geopolitical issues. While many disagreements currently prevail among the G-7 countries,...
With Washington’s blessing, Qatar and Turkey are cementing their role in post-Assad Syria. On May 29, Syria signed a $7 billion memorandum of understanding with the United States, Qatar, and Turkey to...
President Trump has just struck one big, beautiful deal with Ukraine — and its impact could reach far beyond rare earth minerals. Unveiled yesterday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent,...
Ending fossil fuel funding doesn’t reduce emissions but does hurt the world’s poorest people
A “bloc” of lawmakers, political parties, media outlets, and non-governmental organizations are peddling a platform that distracts attention from the paramount importance of disarming Hezbollah and...
Cast your mind back to September 6, 2019, when presidential candidate Joe Biden, campaigning in New Hampshire, took the hand of a 24-year-old activist. “Kiddo,” he said, “look in my eyes. I...
One of the biggest threats to human health, and a major source of air pollution, is regularly hidden in statistical reports as “renewable energy:” the burning of dung, wood, and lump coal. While most...
Egypt has made significant strides in purging school textbooks of antisemitic content and other problematic material, revising over 350 state-issued books since 2018 as a part of an ambitious reform program....
Egypt has made significant strides in purging school textbooks of antisemitic and anti-Christian content, with approximately 80 percent of Egyptian students in elementary and preparatory education now...
The GCC rhetoric on Israel masks its true aims to decouple Syria's Assad and the Islamic Republic and declaw Hezbollah in Lebanon
A centerpiece of President Biden’s agenda was a government led effort to greatly reduce production and consumption of fossil fuels. One of the key policies Biden enacted to pursue this goal was ending...
Maximum Pressure to Make a Comeback: President-elect Donald Trump plans to increase sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran as part of a return to his previous administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign, former Trump administration officials told The Wall Street Journal.