New Islamists value power over ideology and Turkey's Erdogan is their master
Ezgi Basaran is a Turkish journalist turned academic who has written a new book examining the outsize influence of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party over Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party a...
25 Jul 202417min
How Iran may look under new Reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian
The election victory of heart surgeon Masoud Pezeshkian has aroused hopes and doubts in Iran and beyond. He is a Reformist who says he will be more lenient towards women and will seek to reduce tensio...
15 Jul 202442min
Benyamin Poghosyan on why Armenia's peace bid with Azerbaijan, Turkey is proving so hard
Washington is piling pressure on Azerbaijan to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan that would allow Turkey to normalize its relations with Armenia. But Azerbaijan is resisting calls to finalize a d...
3 Jul 202426min
Vali Nasr explains why Iran's presidential elections matter and how a Western-friendly heart surgeon might win
Iran is due to hold presidential elections on June 28 that were precipitated by the death in May in a helicopter crash of former President Ebrahim Raisi. Although real power is held by the country's s...
20 Jun 202433min
Why Iran is stronger, Israel more vulnerable, and the US needs to engage more in the Mideast
As the Gaza conflict enters its eighth month, Iran stands out as the one country that has succeeded in projecting further as a result. Israel is more vulnerable than it’s ever been and the United Stat...
13 Jun 202437min
Syrian-Kurdish leader Saleh Muslim says it's the people, not US or Turkey, who decide local elections in northeast Syria
The Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria is planning to hold landmark local elections in the majority Kurdish and Arab areas under its control. Syrian-Kurdish leader Saleh Muslim says "radica...
4 Jun 202421min
Why did Kuwait, one of the most democratic countries in the Mideast, take a sharp autocratic turn & what comes next?
Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, unpacks Kuwait's dramatic turn last week when the country's ruling Emir suspended the parliament and parts of ...
15 Mai 202428min
As Greek PM heads to Ankara to meet Erdogan, is this truly 'a new era' between Turkey & Greece?
Greek academic Ioannis Grigoriadis believes that no major breakthroughs should be expected during Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis' visit. Keeping the channels of communication open and building on ...
9 Mai 202434min
