In a highly polarised world, authoritarianism thrives in the Middle East. According to a credible survey, a majority of citizens across the Arab world are losing faith in democracy as a system of governance to deliver …
Articles by: "Amin Saikal"
World politics has reached an ominous phase of polarisation. The struggle between the US-led democracies and the Russo-Chinese-led autocracies primarily underpins this development. Yet there’s also another dangerous dimension to it: the emergence of close …
Ten months into their extremist theocratic rule in Afghanistan, the Taliban are facing growing resistance in different parts of the country. Leading the way is the National Resistance Front (NRF), headed by Ahmad Massoud—the son …
The issue of whether the religion of Islam is a faith that endorses extremism, and more specifically violent extremism, or is used and abused by extremist groups for notional objectives, is an important one. This …
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has embarked on what he calls ‘a new era in foreign policy’. He has lately made strenuous efforts to mend relations with a few Middle Eastern countries with which he …
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken up friends and foes in the Middle East. They are engaged in reassessing their relationships with the United States and Russia. Whether this will lead to a more stable …
As the world is grappling with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the tragedy that has beset the Ukrainian people, it’s important that we don’t forget the ongoing human-made crises in other parts of the …
The widespread view in the West is that Russia is applying the same scorched-earth approach to Ukraine as it did in Syria and Chechnya, destroying cities, killing, terrorising and dislocating populations, and creating a massive …
Russia claims that the number of its soldiers killed and injured in the first six days of its invasion of Ukraine is a fraction of what Ukraine has said to be more than 5,000 dead …
The Ukraine crisis has confronted three Middle Eastern countries—Turkey, Israel and Iran—as well as India, with serious policy quandaries. For different reasons, they face the conundrum of how to strike a balance between opposing Russia’s …
This month marks the 43rd anniversary of the advent of Iran’s Islamic regime. It took power in the wake of the revolution of 1978–79 that toppled the Shah’s pro-Western monarchy, transforming the mainly Shia Iran into …
The Afghanistan war is over for the United States and its allies. But the suffering of the Afghan people has multiplied under the extremist, repressive rule of the Taliban in the name of Islam. No …