Middle East

As shown by Asharq Al-Awsat in a series of reports, exclusive interviews, and U.S. federal court and government documents, an elaborate case brought to trial by September 11 victims and insurance companies against the Islamic Republic of Iran has...

Last week in these pages, we noted that more than 120 largely extremist and sectarian television channels in Arabic have captured a combined viewership in the tens of millions across the Middle East and North Africa. While the U.S. policy discussion...

Belgian investigators have taken a beating since failing to disrupt the Brussels bombings last week. They took more than four months to locate Salah Abdeslam in the very neighborhood he grew up in. Belgian investigators also missed the network’s...

In the context of its continuing rivalry with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s response to limited success in Yemen and setbacks in Syria has been to try and reassert its influence, contain its enemies, and close ranks—reevaluating some of its alliances...

When strangled, an animal fights wildly, kicking and screaming to avoid death, hoping to create a window of opportunity through which to survive. Today, in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State  gasps for air. A year ago, it prospered...

When Turkey downed a Russian jet last November, it did so in the hopes of containing Russian efforts in Syria. Instead, it may have triggered a process that is putting Vladimir Putin in the driver’s seat in redrawing the...

The 2015 National Security Strategy of the United States recognizes the potential use of nuclear weapons and materials that pose a grave threat to national security by irresponsible states or terrorists. In the last decade and a half, two...

Foreign Affairs Great powers have long supported unsavory dictatorships in pursuit of strategic interests, such as natural resources, military security, and financial gain. The relationship usually involves an impressive array of incentives, including diplomatic carrots such as treaty agreements...

If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan thought last November that by downing a Russian Su-24 bomber near the Turkish-Syrian border he could contain Vladimir Putin’s Middle Eastern ambitions, he is certainly regretting that now. An incensed Vladimir Putin vowed...