Joseph Khalil Aoun. He’s mostly unknown outside his native Lebanon, but is already helping transform the Middle East. Having previously served as the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), the new Lebanese President has been quick to make his …
Britain’s last chance to stop Islamic State
In 2019, my colleagues and I uncovered a British Islamic State affiliate held in a Syrian refugee camp. Tooba Gondal, the so-called “ISIS matchmaker” known for grooming and recruiting young women online, while publicly exulting in IS’s worst acts of …
Why Iran needs foreign journalists
It doesn’t make much difference if it was hostage diplomacy or old-school press trampling — or, as now seems clear, the tit-for-tat response to the detention of an Iranian in Italy. He, it turns out, was accused of supplying drone …
China’s stooges: the real Covid conspiracy
The World Health Organisation ended 2024 by reminding us that it is five years since it discovered a virus was sweeping through the Chinese city of Wuhan. These were the first signs of the pandemic that went on to destroy …
The West still doesn’t understand Iraq
Last year was, on balance, a miserable one for the world. And while only a fool attempts to predict the future in geopolitics, I am firm in the conviction that 2025 will be worse.
If 2024 was depressing, it was …
The new Sino-Indian War
Expect bloodshed. The opening salvos have been fired between India and China in Asia’s bizarre Historikerstreit. Its instigators, strangely enough, are two British historians — Peter Frankopan and William Dalrymple — who substantively agree with one another. Not that this …
A fearful Christmas in Syria
The small city of Al-Suqaylabiyah has long been an indicator of Christian-Muslim relations in Syria. And two days ago, masked militants doused the northern Syrian city’s Christmas tree in petrol and set it alight. The message is clear: Christians beware. …
Why Christmas Eve is date night in Japan
In Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel Silence, the apostatised priest Cristóvão Ferreira tells a Portuguese compatriot a bitter truth about Japanese Christianity. “The Japanese till this day have never had the concept of God,” he proclaims, “and they never will.” For …
Donald Trump’s cultural renaissance
It is certainly possible to hope that the inauguration of Donald J. Trump will be greeted by a resurgence of the American spirit, from new inventions to a revival of entrepreneurial drive and the renewal of American industry and crafts. …
The grief of Gaza’s Christians
Just as they do in England, Gaza’s Christians normally celebrate Christmas with a special meal. It might be stuffed lamb or chicken, with a rich array of salads, vegetable stews, flatbreads and fragrant rice. Their traditional dessert is burbara, a …
Syria is doomed to instability
The House of Assad endured for over half a century, but crumbled in 10 days. Ba’athism is dead and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani now finds himself the de facto leader of a government in Damascus, led by his rebel coalition Hay’at …
The Turkish Left’s love for Assad
Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for 24 years before getting his comeuppance, received silent support from one of the unlikeliest places during his dictatorial rule. Numerous groups in Turkey’s splintered Left, from self-professed Maoists to Stalin …
Colombia is doomed by corruption
I owe my functioning right hand to the business acumen of Pablo Escobar.
That claim might — indirectly — almost be true. Seven years ago, during a paddle in a jungle pool in the province of Guaviare in Colombia, I …
The sanctions-busters funding Iran
Donald Trump isn’t yet back in the White House — but his Iranian policy is clear. Like he did in his first term, he’ll pursue a vigorous policy against Tehran, hampering its nuclear programme and backing its rivals across the …
How Syria will shape Europe’s future
War is of its nature an uncertain business. Only in retrospect does Assad’s fall, so improbable last week, now look fated. It is ironic, given the opprobrium with which Arab normalisation with his regime was greeted by pro-rebel advocates, that …