The victory of President Obama represents not only a defeat for the Republican Party but an embarrassment for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has made his disdain for the President and his policies no secret. It is crucial, however, to distinguish between their contrasting personalities and the overall U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship, which remains as strong as…

Listening to Israeli and Hamas officials about the nature of their conflict and what precipitated the current conflagration, one comes to a definite conclusion: they are both right. At close scrutiny, however, one finds that while both may indeed be “right” they also are dead wrong. Both sides have successfully managed over the years to…

Widely spread rumors circulating within the media in recent days suggest that the United States and Iran have agreed to enter into bilateral talks soon after the U.S. presidential elections in an effort to end the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program, which the U.S. suspects is designed to produce nuclear weapons—a suspicion Iran emphatically refutes….

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved without the direct and active involvement of the United States, using both inducements and coercive diplomacy to bring about a peaceful solution. If the conflict remains unresolved over the next couple of years it will most likely precipitate a massive violent conflagration to the detriment of the Israelis and…

The flurry of reporting and analysis about the tragic death of the US Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans strongly suggests there is a strikingly limited understanding behind the complex underpinnings of this outrageous act of violence. The hatred and animosity toward Western powers, especially the United States, by extremist Arab Muslims…

Yemen as a nation has gone through dramatic turmoil brought about by internal violent conflicts occurring over the last several decades. The forced resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh (replaced by Vice President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi) in February, along with the formation of a transitional unity government, has had little effect on the fundamental…

As the situation in Syria continues to deteriorate with the collapse of the Assad regime becoming increasingly more imminent, further direct intervention by Iran in the Syrian conflict in an effort to save the regime should not be ruled out. For Iran, the Assad regime represents the linchpin to their regional hegemonic ambitions and as…

The latest UN resolution sponsored by Western powers (the United States, England and France) designed to increase the pressure on Assad and force him to step down was once again rejected by Russia and China, making it abundantly clear that all diplomatic efforts have come to a dead end. If Russia, the main proponent of…