Normalization of diplomatic ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad raises troubling questions for humanists who are also realists. When an evil regime wins a bloody war that allows it stay in power, how can a liberal-democratic state express solidarity for victims of that regime’s brutality without engaging in fantasy politics? …

By any definition, Libya is a so-called fragile state and a high-priority challenge for international security. Since 2011, it has been wracked by repeated cycles of internal division and proxy warfare. It is a key node of arms smuggling and human trafficking, and a feeder of violence, conflict and human …

Iran’s chief negotiator traveled to Oman a day after Qatar’s foreign minister visited Tehran in what seemed to be diplomatic efforts for an impetus to US-Iran nuclear talks. Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani was in Oman, one of the very few allies of the Islamic Republic in the …