Iranian officials split over response to US demands
For all of Iran's fierce verbal response to fresh U.S. threats of tougher sanctions, some senior officials in Tehran believe the door to diplomacy should stay open. On Monday, U.S.…
Rising tensions in the Korean Peninsula
With dictators the threat of foreign invasion is a time-tested pretext to camouflage their one-man rule, and nowhere has it worked so successfully as in North Korea. From grandfather to…
The same old Pakistan
Over two weeks have passed after the country’s most durable politician was disqualified from office and it seems that nothing much has changed. True, within hours of the judgment, Muhammad…
Of shadows and fears
For more than a decade and a half, Muslim countries from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Palestine have been the targets of the most colossal war machines that the…
Making sense of Syria
The declining US influence in the Middle East has prompted the Trump administration to militarily intervene in the festering Syrian civil war. After the chemical attack in the Syrian town…
Contesting Kashmir
Given the ulterior agendas of global powers like the US, the UN record of resolving the status of contested domains is poor. Eritrea, Kashmir, Palestine, East Timor and Western Sahara’s…
Obama courts Gulf kings keen just to see him go
President Barack Obama will make another trip to Riyadh to consult Washington's Gulf allies on the crises in Yemen and Syria this week, but may not receive a royal welcome.…
Egypt’s sham trials
Last week, the first democratically elected leader of Egypt since the Pharaohs' time, Mohammed Morsi, ousted in a military coup the US wouldn't call a coup was handed life sentence…
Obama courts Gulf kings keen just to see him go
President Barack Obama will make another trip to Riyadh to consult Washington's Gulf allies on the crises in Yemen and Syria this week, but may not receive a royal welcome.…
View Point: Saudi-Iran row and us
Saudi decision to execute Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr along with 46 other critics/opponents of the regime seems to have been taken without a care for the consequences. The execution…
