“So far as Syria is concerned, it is France and not Turkey that is the enemy.” – T. E. Lawrence, February 1915. It was a curious comment by the oddball but unarguably brilliant British agent and scholar, Thomas Edward Lawrence. The time was World War I, and...

The article originally appeared at Muftah.org and is reprinted with permission.The recent offensive by forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), along with their allies, opens a new chapter in the conundrum of violence that has devastated Iraq throughout...

A recent New York Times account of the reemergence of Ahmad Chalabi as one of the leading candidates to replace Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opined "everything old seems new again in Iraq" – as if to confirm the growing sense here in the US that Iraq...

Iraq’s new Parliament met for the first time today, but lawmakers ended the session quickly after failing to select candidates for the important posts of prime minister, speaker of the parliament, and president. At least 82 people were killed today, mostly militants, and nine more were wounded.

Unbelievably, former Vice President Dick Cheney, after being wrong on every foreign policy issue for more than a decade, has again crawled out of his Wyoming cave and begun outrageously sniping at Barack Obama’s performance in foreign policy. Although I am certainly...

Barack Obama has asked Congress for $500 million to train and arm rebels of the Free Syrian Army who seek to overthrow the government. Before Congress takes up his proposal, both houses should demand that Obama explain exactly where he gets the constitutional...

With only a few weeks remaining before the Jul. 20 deadline, the Barack Obama administration issued a warning to Iran that it must accept deep cuts in the number of its centrifuges in order to demonstrate that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. U.S....

At least 47 people were killed and 82 more were killed to close out the month of June, the deadliest in several years.

Did Russia’s annexation of Crimea on March violate the 1994 Budapest agreement among Ukraine, Russia, Great Britain and the U.S.? Specifically, in Paragraph One, Ukraine agreed to remove all nuclear weapons from its territory in return for a commitment by Russia,...

The recently announced sale of fighter-bombers to Iraq by Russia and Belarus marks a turning point in the country’s escalating conflict. On a structural level, the purchase by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s regime reveals the desperation of the Iraqi military,...