FEATURED

Iran’s Route to Perdition

Hamas had a very effective three-pronged strategy against Israel, but it lacked support from Muslim states. Now, the attack on Iran shifts the entire calculation. The Israeli-Iranian war is in full swing, and it threatens to spread even further. It may be the right time to look at some of its roots. Hamas’s offensive plan […]

FEATURED

Israel against Iran – Peace or More War

Israel attacked Iran to stop the salami tactics. Now Tehran and Moscow will choose to raise the stakes or to bargain. The uncertainty about China. Israel attacked Tehran’s Ayatollahs to stop the salami tactics of an unwinnable proxy war with Hamas in Gaza, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and the Yemenite Houthis, while Iran was completing its nuclear […]

FEATURED

Post-Syria New Domino Effect to China

A decade after the Syrian Jasmine Revolution’s unsuccessful struggle against Assad, the same revolutionaries defeated him in a week. What made the difference? Previously, Russian and Iranian military support propped up the regime. Now, those old allies are preoccupied elsewhere, depleted of their forces, and unable to provide the blood transfusions that once kept the […]

FEATURED

A Reassessment on Lebanon’s UNIFIL

I visited the UNIFIL II mission in Lebanon in the spring of 2007 and already then the Hezbollah militiamen were irresponsive on urgings about disarmament or moving north of the Litani River as directed by the UN Security Council resolution 1701 (2006).Beyond the rules of engagement (linked to Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter) […]

FEATURED

Putin’s firing of the Middle East

A year after the October 7 massacre, Israel is stronger than ever, and its enemies are weaker than ever. Yet, as the shadows of wars cloud half of the world, politics lags behind weapons—except for Putin. A year after the brutal October 7 pogrom, the political situation surrounding Israel, the victim of the attack, is […]

FEATURED

Force and Reason: Advice from a Mongol Khan to Pope Francis

The “force of reason” and the “reason of force” have been central to the relationship between ideology/religion and political/military power in Europe and the Mediterranean—and later the world—for millennia. The combined strength of the Aristotelian argument and the Macedonian phalanx enabled not only the rapid conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC […]

FEATURED

A Way for the Pope with Israel?

The Pope’s decision to declare October 7th a day of fasting is a farsighted warning on a historical level. The fast shows the world public opinion of three important facts: The terrorist violence of Hamas and Hezbollah as well as the recent missile attacks by Iran against Israel have distanced the prospect of a Palestinian […]