Category: Middle East

Will US-UK strikes against the Houthis halt their Red Sea aggression?

JUST IN They’re seeing red. On Thursday, the United States and the United Kingdom carried out air and missile strikes in Yemen after weeks of attacks by the Houthis on shipping vessels in the Red Sea that had disrupted global commerce. Will these strikes deter the Iranian proxy group from further attacks? Will they embroil

China’s bid for a new Middle East meets reality

The year 2023 was supposed to be China’s big break in the Middle East. It began in March, when China brokered a historic détente between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, sidelining the United States. The image of China’s top diplomat Wang Yi beaming with Saudi and Iranian ministers in Beijing prompted swift comparison by

Mercenaries and Gaza

In Season 1, Episode 10 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by Renad Mansour, an expert on Iraq, Iran, and allied groups. As the region convulses from the war in Gaza, they begin by assessing reports that the Wagner Group has been tasked with transferring a Russian air defense system

Can Turkey help resolve the Israel-Hamas war?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has emerged as one of the world’s harshest critics of Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack. Yet Erdoğan did aspire to secure a role for Turkey in de-escalating the conflict and to serve as a “guarantor” of a future ceasefire and peace agreement. Despite Erdoğan’s change in tone

Why is the UN secretary-general so worried about Gaza but not Ukraine?

Article 99 of the United Nations (UN) Charter allows the UN secretary-general to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.” On December 6, 2023, invoking Article 99 for the first time since he took office, Secretary-General António Guterres called

An ugly truth in the Middle East

As tensions increase with Iran and its proxies in the Red Sea, it’s growing harder for Biden administration officials to avoid an ugly truth: The Iranian regime is pivotal to most of the Middle East’s worst problems, and US inattention will only make those problems worse. Hamas’s terrorist strike on October 7 wouldn’t have happened

Opposition to Israel’s war for survival fails to understand Hamas’s goals

If, during a protest against Israel, you chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” then you are ultimately calling for the destruction of Israel, echoing a goal of Hamas, not the Palestinian cause. If you are a college president who, without hesitation or equivocation, does not immediately denounce “calling for the