Iran is an immediate winner of the Taliban takeover
A staple of observing politics is watching rhetoric curdle into reality. Operation Enduring Freedom, thought up and slapped together in…
Pakistan is the true winner from the Afghan debacle
‘Everyone is getting out – and fast’, the man tells me over a crackling line. He is tired, clearly subdued.…
My roots burnt with Greece
On 11 March this year my father passed away from prostate cancer after several weeks in a hospital in central…
Iran is running out of water
It’s far from an exact science, but if you want to get a sense of where the world is heading…
The tragedy of Lebanon — from safe haven to bankruptcy
Mountains are humanity’s most comforting topographical feature. Wherever you find them you will also find those who have flocked to…
Tehran is repeating the Shah's mistakes
The Iranian province of Khuzestan is oil-rich but water-poor. At the best of times, the southwestern region is a problem…
The dark past of Iran's new presidential favourite
‘Each vote counts…come and vote and choose your president. This is important for the future of your country.’ These were…
Israel's shadow war with Iran explodes into 'nuclear terrorism'
If time flows at an even pace, then history does not. Joe Biden may still be new in the job,…
Greece and Britain’s long history of fighting autocracy
As I write, it is mid-morning in Athens and fighter jets are roaring overhead. My windows rattle, the sky splinters,…
Walls go up after the Berlin Wall comes down
In her 2017 travelogue Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, the writer and poet Kapka Kassabova meets Emel,…
Iran’s missile diplomacy
It’s a time for delivering messages in the Middle East, where messages rarely come without their near constant attendant: violence.…
The toxic side-effect of the Trump Twitter ban
Almost two weeks on from the storming of the US Capitol it’s becoming plainer that the most substantive changes to…
Iran's people will pay a heavy price for Khamenei's vaccine politics
The Middle East is changing. Israelis now splurge at Gucci and Rolex in Dubai. Saudi women speed down desert highways;…
John le Carré’s London of exiles is alive and well
‘I’m an Englishman born and bred, almost.’ So says Karim Amir, protagonist of Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of…
Why Egypt's brutal regime is cracking down on critics
History is accelerating in the Middle East once more. Nuclear scientists are dying in Iran; and again, in Egypt, the…
Why Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed now
Yesterday afternoon someone assassinated yet another scientist working on Iran’s nuclear programme. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh headed up the ministry of defence’s…
Can dynastic restoration revive Lebanese fortunes?
Once more Lebanon is in crisis, and once more its leaders turn to what they most understand to solve things:…
Iran's embargo imbroglio
If 2020 is generally accepted to be a global annus horribilis, then it is perhaps fitting that the Islamic Republic…
Je Suis Charlie and the legacy of jihadism
‘You have insulted the prophet – we are al-Qaida Yemen.’ These words, terrifying yet clichéd, were spat at a female…
Did Erdogan order his generals to sink a Greek warship?
Could war finally be coming to the eastern Mediterranean? It’s not as excitable a question as it might first appear.…
An assassination verdict divides Lebanon
Almost a decade ago, I went to Lebanon to investigate who had killed its Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. It was…
Will health trump freedom in our post-coronavirus world?
Bernard Henri Levy’s latest book, The Virus in the Age of Madness, contains a striking quote from Rudolf Virchow, the 19thcentury…
The Israel-UAE peace deal was made in Iran
The last time I was in Israel people were preparing for the worst. ‘This crazy bastard is going to annex…
Lebanon’s existential crisis
It had to happen. On Monday evening, just under a week after 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in a…
No bread, no heat, no hope: Life in Lebanon after the Beirut blast
Once again, crisis comes to Lebanon. Once again, people are dying young in the Middle East. Last night an explosion…
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