Middle Orient

The road to Iran’s freedom is paved with well-intentioned U.S. grants — but intent alone has never toppled a dictatorship. The Trump administration’s broad pause on foreign assistance includes a hold on funding distributed by the Near East Regional Democracy (NERD) program, which is aimed at supporting democracy in Iran. …

Top Iranian officials reportedly authorized Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi to “advance any diplomatic initiative in relation to the United States,” according to an Iranian expert close to the regime.[1] It is not clear who precisely authorized Araghchi to begin “any diplomatic initiative,” but Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would …

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Self-determination movements of former colonies often advanced together toward independence. The ideological backing of socialist states in the Eastern Bloc and various Asian and Islamic countries fueled many anti-colonial movements. However, this left-Islamist alliance has adopted starkly different stances on the Kurdish and Palestinian struggles. This disparity has led to …

It was only a matter of time until the Haya’t Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) gunmen of Syria’s post-Bashar al-Assad interim government took violence against non-Sunni Muslims into their own hands. Reports emerged early on March 9 about large-scale round-ups, home invasions and subsequent street executions of Alawite Syrians in the Alawi …

Since September 27, the region has experienced significant escalation following the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and senior Hezbollah leaders, Assad’s primary ally. This was compounded three days later by an Israeli ground incursion into southern Lebanon and statements from Israeli officials regarding the establishment of a new Middle East. In …

The ongoing discussions between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the new Syrian administration over the integration of military forces have hit a series of roadblocks, reflecting deeper tensions in the country’s post-Assad transition. While the administration pushes for a unified army under the Ministry of Defense, the SDF seeks …

The accord was brokered with American and French support and overseen by prominent Kurdish figures, including Masoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces. In a significant political development, the Kurdish National Council (ENKS) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) …

More than three months after the fall of the Assad regime, Syria and its neighboring countries are grappling with the persistent threat posed by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). This shared concern has prompted a significant regional initiative: the establishment of a joint operations center to coordinate efforts in combating …

While both historians and political scientists are concerned with understanding human societies and their pasts, they do so from fundamentally different angles. Historians focus on narrating events based on surviving records—chronicles, letters, artifacts, and official documents—aiming to piece together a coherent picture of what happened. Political scientists, however, approach the …