Politicians and pundits wrongly claim that Hamas and its armed allies secured nothing in the latest Egyptian ceasefire plan beyond what was offered in its initial proposal, put forward in mid-July.

Despite the loss of the Mosul dam, a major reverse in Iraq, the Islamic State (IS), remains a supremely confident organisation that counts God on its side and believes that ultimately its “Islamic state” or cross-border caliphate will survive and succeed. The recorde

US President Barack Obama should be ashamed.

Instead of celebrating the rites of the Arab Spring with freedom, democracy and good governance, the region has entered a dark season of war and destruction comparable to the era when the Mongol leader Hulagu besieged and sacked Baghdad.

Gaza’s fate might have been very different if Israel had adopted a positive policy towards the narrow Mediterranean coastal strip after the 1967 occupation.

While Israel stepped up its latest assault on Gaza, Lebanese marked the eighth anniversary of Israel’s 2006 war on their country. This onslaught killed 1,100, wounded thousands, and drove a million from their homes.

Always applied in this region, double standards are particularly egregious these days. The Syrian air force is roundly condemned for striking insurgent held strongholds with barrel bombs while the Western world remains silent as Iraqi helicopters target Mosul, sometimes with bar

The Obama administration is still living in fantasy land as it tries to deal with the insurgencies in Syria and Iraq. The administration’s approach to the crises in these countries is even more fantastic than the line peddled by the Bush administration, which was that Bagh

US Secretary of State John Kerry paid unannounced visits to Baghdad and Erbil this week with the aim of pleading with Iraqi Arab and Kurdish politicians to adopt a national approach to the crisis in the country. In Baghdad, he told dominant Shiites that they had to stop discrimi