Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Robert Williams • February 2, 2026 at 5:00 am
Unlike alliances that fluctuate with electoral cycles, the U.S.-UAE partnership has proven durable because it is grounded in shared strategic instincts: opposition to political Islam, preference for state stability over chaos, and a pragmatic understanding of power. From counterterrorism cooperation to energy security and regional normalization, Abu Dhabi has repeatedly aligned with U.S. objectives when it mattered. Under U.S. President Donald Trump, the UAE played a central role in the Abraham Accords — one of the most consequential diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East in generations. The Accords succeeded because they were deal-oriented, interest-based, and insulated from ideological illusion. In Ukraine, the Western toolkit has been largely binary: sanctions or weapons. AI introduces a third vector — structured information dominance — enabling better forecasting of economic stress, battlefield dynamics, energy flows, and negotiation windows. Abu Dhabi offers what fragile states do not: political stability, centralized decision-making, and the ability to translate technology into governance outcomes. This is not outsourcing American power — it is multiplying it through a reliable strategic node. One of the most underappreciated assets in modern diplomacy is trustworthiness across adversarial lines. Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed has valued precisely this asset. During the Trump administration, this approach proved effective in the Middle East, where MBZ acted as a stabilizing force capable of translating American objectives into regional outcomes. In the Ukraine context, such a figure matters. The United States cannot credibly mediate without appearing partisan, and Europe lacks both cohesion and leverage. Russia and Ukraine, meanwhile, require off-ramps that do not resemble capitulation. A trusted intermediary with credibility in Washington — and channels to Moscow and Kyiv — becomes indispensable. The UAE fits this profile better than any European actor. Importantly, this role does not replace U.S. leadership; it extends it by enabling outcomes Washington cannot directly engineer. A U.S.-UAE-enabled AI architecture could support a structured quadrilateral framework involving the United States, the UAE, Russia, and Ukraine — not for symbolic summits, but for continuous, data-driven de-escalation. AI systems can model ceasefire stability, monitor compliance using satellite imagery and open-source intelligence, forecast humanitarian and energy impacts, and identify negotiation windows based on battlefield and economic indicators. These tools already exist, but remain fragmented and politically underutilized. What is missing is a solidly dependable architecture and convener. The UAE, with U.S. backing, can provide both. AI-backed governance — applied carefully and under U.S. strategic oversight — could help stabilize a post-conflict Ukraine by strengthening verification mechanisms, transparency, and reconstruction oversight. For Washington, this aligns directly with a Trump-era doctrine: achieve peace through cooperation, not endless war. It avoids U.S. troop involvement, limits financial drain, and reasserts American leadership through outcomes rather than ideology. The choice facing U.S. policymakers is not between victory and surrender, but between strategic innovation and strategic exhaustion. The Ukraine war has exposed the limits of escalation without resolution. Artificial intelligence, when embedded in loyal, committed alliances, offers a new instrument of American statecraft — one that favors precision over destruction and trustworthiness over attrition. The U.S.-UAE partnership is uniquely positioned to pioneer this model. Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed has demonstrated that credible intermediaries can deliver where traditional diplomacy fails. Under a results-oriented American leadership, this partnership could help transform AI from a battlefield advantage into a peace-building architecture. The lesson of the Abraham Accords still applies: real peace is made by those willing to deal, not posture. In an age of endless war, peace through AI — backed by power, reliability and strategy —could well be the most productive solution of all.
Unlike alliances that fluctuate with electoral cycles, the U.S.-UAE partnership has proven durable because it is grounded in shared strategic instincts: opposition to political Islam, preference for state stability over chaos, and a pragmatic understanding of power. From counterterrorism cooperation to energy security and regional normalization, Abu Dhabi has repeatedly aligned with U.S. objectives when it mattered. Pictured: The President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, hosts the US-Russia-Ukraine trilateral talks with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Russian Military Intelligence Director Igor Kostyukov, Kyrylo Budanov, chief of staff to the Ukrainian president, and other senior officials from Russia and Ukraine, on January 24, 2026 in Abu Dhabi. (Photo by Emirates News)
For decades, American foreign policy has struggled with a recurring failure: winning wars tactically while losing peace strategically. Ukraine risks becoming the latest case. As the conflict grinds on, costs rise for U.S. taxpayers, European economies weaken, global energy markets destabilize, and Washington's strategic focus drifts away from the primary long-term challenge — China. Against this backdrop, the United States needs partners that deliver not rhetoric but results. The U.S.-UAE relationship stands out as one of the few alliances that has consistently transcended administrations, ideologies, and regional crises. Today, this relationship — particularly in artificial intelligence and advanced technology — offers Washington something rare: strategic leverage.
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by Con Coughlin • February 1, 2026 at 5:00 am
Trump's attempts to improve ties with both Turkey and Saudi Arabia brought about the US lending its endorsement to al-Sharaa's Islamist regime in Damascus. The result is that al-Sharaa has now set about, at the very least, failing to prevent (here, here and here) wholesale attempts, apparently by his own government's security forces, to slaughter Syria's religious and ethnic minorities: Druze, Alawites and Kurds, including America's presumed allies, the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces Army (SDF), who courageously defeated Syria's Islamic State terrorists. Syria's Christians may well be the al-Sharaa government's next target. Trump's willingness to give his backing to al-Sharaa is said to be the result of his attempts to deepen ties with Middle East states such as Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia which, for different reasons, appear keen to see an Islamist government in power in Damascus -- as elsewhere. For Qatar and Turkey, supporting al-Sharaa fits in with their long-established policy of backing radical Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, while the Saudis' backing for the new Syrian regime is based on their desire to prevent Iran's ayatollahs from re-establishing a foothold in a country, Syria, that was once Tehran's closest regional ally. If the US ever does pull its troops from Syria, the vacuum will most assuredly be filled instantly by Turkey and other Jihadists, as well as by Russia again and possibly China. The US president could find himself facing an extremely difficult predicament, especially during midterm elections, if, as a result of his support for Syria's Islamist leader, more Americans and others are killed or suffer serious injury at the hands of al-Sharaa's government, IS terrorists who have escaped from Syrian prisons, as well as al-Sharaa's apparent commitment to ethnically cleanse, then Islamise, Syria.
US President Donald Trump's campaign to prevent Islamic State (IS) terrorists from staging a comeback is in serious danger of being undermined because of his support for Syria's Islamist "interim" president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. Pictured: Trump hosts al-Sharaa at the White House on November 10, 2025. (Image source: Donald Trump/Truth Social/Wikimedia Commons)
US President Donald Trump's campaign to prevent Islamic State (IS) terrorists from staging a comeback is in serious danger of being undermined because of his support for Syria's Islamist "interim" president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. It was not that long ago that al-Sharaa had a $10 million bounty on his head after Washington designated him a terrorist for his close links to al-Qaeda in both Iraq and Syria. The bounty was subsequently lifted after al-Sharaa, with significant military backing from Turkey, succeeded in overthrowing the Baathist dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.
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by Amir Taheri • February 1, 2026 at 4:00 am
What is clearly a political opinion is redefined as a crime, and the French nation, supposedly sovereign and in charge of its own destiny, shouldn't be allowed to decide who to vote for. Worse still, denying [Marine] Le Pen the right to stand for any elected office for five years came into effect upon her March 2025 conviction, even before her appeal has been decided. The dictatorship of the judges claimed another victim in 2025, former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was sent to jail on charges that the court itself admitted it couldn't prove but insisted that the intent to commit them was there. In other words, even the mere intention of committing a crime together with others could send you to jail and make you ineligible for office, even before a final appeal is heard. The world order shaped after World War II is clearly shaken, both inside many countries and across the globe, with the seemingly endless Ukraine war, a clear case of trying to efface a nation's sovereignty by force. Redefining national sovereignty won't be enough. We also need to be clear about the consequences of violating it, either by segments within a society or by outside powers.
What is clearly a political opinion is redefined as a crime, and the French nation, supposedly sovereign and in charge of its own destiny, shouldn't be allowed to decide who to vote for. Worse still, denying Marine Le Pen the right to stand for any elected office for five years came into effect upon her March 2025 conviction, even before her appeal has been decided. Pictured: Le Pen after delivering a speech during a campaign event in Marseille, France on January 16, 2026. (Photo by Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images)
National sovereignty is a phrase that, before President Donald Trump brought it into question with headline-grabbing shenanigans on Venezuela, Iran and Greenland, among other places, was seldom heard outside political science classrooms. Now, however, it is at the center of debates about international law, the future world order, and the need for peace and stability. The concept is under attack not only from Trump but also from elements within many societies, including some Western democracies. But before we examine those threats, let us remember what sovereignty means. It means a power or an authority that has the final word on all human affairs and, in the case of some religions, the fate of the universe as a whole. In the ancient world, that is to say in the early Mesopotamian civilizations, priest-king figures represented sovereignty.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • January 31, 2026 at 5:00 am
Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, China, and other states provide Iran with safe geography, money, energy markets, financial loopholes, proxy shelters, and diplomatic cover. Iran's regime enjoys a "back door" that keeps it alive even under heavy international pressure. It is a door that the West has left open for too long. President Donald J, Trump's solution appears to be a "deal" that Iran's neighbors have evidently conned him into accepting, to spare them having to live in a truly democratic and peaceful Middle East where their corrupt dictatorships might be exposed. Worse, this "deal" would seemingly leave in place the savage mullahs who slaughtered more than 36,000 of their own citizens, apparently in just one night: January 8-9. Iran's mullahs need to be offered an off-ramp to take the money and run, as Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro was. If countries such as Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan -- all committed sponsors of terror -- do not want to see a Middle East freed of it, too bad for them. For only then will not just the Iranian people -- but the entire region -- be able to move forward toward stability and security, far away from their destructive reach.
Iran's mullahs need to be offered an off-ramp to take the money and run, as Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro was. Pictured: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro meets with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on October 22, 2016, in Tehran. (Image source: khamenei.ir)
One of the most effective ways to keep weakening Iran's brutal regime, hopefully on the path to escorting it out, is not only to put direct pressure on the regime itself, but also on the countries that allow it to operate freely, fund its proxies, and expand its influence. Iran's regime survives largely because it has enablers to help it move money, recruit people, transfer weapons, and rebuild after every round of sanctions. If these countries face real consequences for advancing Iran's activities, the regime's ability to rearm itself will shrink dramatically. Weakening Iran requires cutting off not just its internal power, but also the foreign platforms that let it breathe, operate, and grow.
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by Drieu Godefridi • January 30, 2026 at 5:00 am
According to [Gad] Saad's thesis, empathy becomes misdirected into a type of benevolent altruism that prioritizes the perceived feelings and needs of "marginalized" or external groups at the expense of the survival, security, and interests of one's own group and its values. The outcome is the weakening, and ultimately the destruction, of the very civilization that expressed this emotion. The problem? This concept of suicidal empathy unfortunately does not work. As the term predicts, it ends up killing its host. What we observe, however, in many people, is a highly selective empathy, precisely the opposite of caring about everyone. What shows up is an exclusive, and exclusionary, concern for certain groups — asylum seekers, ethnic minorities, people unhappy with their gender, racialized people (whatever that means), criminals, for example — at the same time paired with indifference or even open hostility toward other groups that might be equally minoritized, victimized, or marginalized. What becomes harder to defend as genuine empathy is the increasingly common pattern of displaying loud, intense, public identification with distant victims while simultaneously showing indifference, contempt or outright hostility toward victims right under one's nose, here in one's own society, whose suffering is visible and immediate. We might be dealing then with a moral posture, a political performance, a selected narrative for virtue or social status. In short: selective empathy -- with selective hostility or indifference nearby -- is not "higher", "purer" or "more universal". It is just a posture wearing empathy's clothes. Many people seem to be incubating a rage looking for somewhere to go. Dogmas that admit no dissent provide a perfect vehicle for that. This new rage appears to have nothing to do with empathy — or even selective empathy — but more with envy, frustration, and possibly opportunism, perhaps accompanied by large payments. When there are real protestors out on the streets risking their lives, as recently in Iran, there is scant support. What vibrates in Western outbursts, on the left and on the right, appears to be rage looking for a cause, and constantly feeding on new dogmas. Sadly, there seems to be no shortage of them.
Pictured: Gad Saad speaks at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest convention on December 18, 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)
The theory of "suicidal empathy," taken up and developed by Canadian Professor Gad Saad in his book Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind, describes a psychological and societal condition in which excessive or misguided compassion leads Western societies — particularly, it seems, "progressive" ones — to adopt self-destructive attitudes and policies that will ultimately "succeed" in destroying them. The process, however well-intentioned, is a form of civilizational suicide. According to Saad's thesis, empathy becomes misdirected into a type of benevolent altruism that prioritizes the perceived feelings and needs of "marginalized" or external groups at the expense of the survival, security, and interests of one's own group and its values. The outcome is the weakening, and ultimately the destruction, of the very civilization that expressed this emotion.
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by Bassam Tawil • January 29, 2026 at 5:00 am
Both Israeli and Arab political analysts recently have pointed out that Saudi Arabia's renewed anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric shows that the kingdom is moving away from normalization with Israel in favor of an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar and Turkey, especially now that the US has approved Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's request for American tanks and F-35 stealth fighter jets. [B]ehind the scenes, "the Saudis and the Qataris led a campaign for Trump not to strike Iran.... [The Saudi leadership] heard [exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi] said the new Iran will normalize relations with Israel, and this drove the [Saudi and Qatari] leadership crazy. Imagine Iran and Israel together... the Shi'a and the Jews together; it's their biggest nightmare." — Edy Cohen, research fellow at the Israel Center for Grand Strategy, jewishinsider.com, January 28, 2026. "Now, with the Saudis no longer celebrating the Abraham Accords, they are trying to undermine their foundations of support, from Morocco to the Emirates... 'If I don't fly, nobody flies.'" — Amit Segal, Israeli journalist, January 22, 2026. Saudi Arabia's latest anti-Israel campaign raises serious questions about the kingdom's purported desire to join the Abraham Accords in the first place, as well as the long-term reliability of other professed allies: in particular Qatar, Turkey, Russia and Pakistan. Over the past few years, Mohammed bin Salman found excuses to procrastinate, often by conditioning normalization with Israel on the establishment of a Palestinian terror state next to Israel. In the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, it is obvious that such a state would pose an existential threat to Israel, as would the presence of Qatar, Turkey, Hamas, Russia and Pakistan planted on the Gaza Strip when Trump will no longer be in office to guard it. Perhaps this is the right time for Trump to reconsider his ties with bin Salman -- and other putative "friends" -- and cancel the recent contract to sell the Saudis that fleet of F-35 stealth fighter jets.
Both Israeli and Arab political analysts recently have pointed out that Saudi Arabia's renewed anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric shows that the kingdom is moving away from normalization with Israel in favor of an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar and Turkey, especially now that the US has approved Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's request for American tanks and F-35 stealth fighter jets. Pictured: Bin Salman shakes hands with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, on June 22, 2022. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)
In December 2025, Sheikh Saleh bin Abdallah bin Humaid, a prominent imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and a member of Saudi Arabia's Council of Senior Scholars, delivered a Friday sermon in which he prayed for God to punish "the Jews" and described Israel as a "cruel Zionist entity." "Oh Allah, deal with the Jews who have seized and occupied, for they cannot escape your power," bin Humaid said. "Oh Allah, send upon them your punishment and misery, that can never be repelled by the wrongdoers. Oh Allah, we seek your protection from their harms, and we seek refuge with you from their evils." The imam praised Palestinian children as "among the most joyful examples and noble images are the young children of Palestine." "Heroic children whose fathers were killed while they watched and whose homes were demolished while they witnessed," he said. "Jerusalem and Palestine will remain high and lofty in the hearts of Arabs and Muslims."
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by Gordon G. Chang • January 28, 2026 at 5:00 am
Russia, despite all the horrible things it does, is not able to challenge Canada without its partner. Carney was quick to name China as the biggest security threat to his country during a federal election debate last April. At Davos, however, he was not willing to talk about China posing a danger to his country. Carney had it right the first time: Canada's top threat is China. At the top of the world, Russia and China are close partners. China is now studying and surveying Arctic waters to help its submarines both navigate and evade detection. Beijing has had Canada in its sights for a long time, and it has not limited its threatening activities to the seas. "Canada's underfunding stems from post-Cold War complacency, reliance on the U.S., and prioritization of social programs over military defense." — Charles Burton, Sinopsis think tank, to Gatestone, January 2026.
In much of the Arctic, Canada is America's first line of defense. China is now studying and surveying Arctic waters to help its submarines both navigate and evade detection, and, within a few years, will be able to send armed submarines to the North Pole. There, they will be close to potential North American targets. Pictured: The Chinese polar icebreaking research vessel Xuelong sets off from Shanghai on November 8, 2017. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
"Russia is without question a threat in the Arctic," Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said this month at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "Without question, Russia does lots of horrible things." Russia, despite all the horrible things it does, is not able to challenge Canada without its partner. Carney was quick to name China as the biggest security threat to his country during a federal election debate last April. At Davos, however, he was not willing to talk about China posing a danger to his country. Moreover, his foreign affairs minister was similarly reluctant. Anita Anand in Davos did not name names when reporters asked her to cite the top threat facing Canada. Carney had it right the first time: Canada's top threat is China. Before showing up at Davos, Canada's prime minister traveled to Beijing where he agreed to a trade deal and mentioned a "new world order."
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by Daniel Greenfield • January 28, 2026 at 4:00 am
Now [Sigrid Kaag] has been picked for a seat on the Gaza 'Executive Board' by the Witkoff team. Kaag had been ousted from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1994 after she secretly married a top member of the PLO, Anas Al-Qaq. The same behavior that made her untrustworthy, however, qualified her for a job at the UN. There she worked for the IOM, the UN's mass migration group, and UNRWA, the UN's 'Palestinian' agency known as a front for Hamas. [D]espite having been previously ousted from the ministry for her marriage to a PLO official, she became the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands. The Netherlands was struggling with Muslim mass migration and appeasement of Muslim terrorists, and Kaag had the expertise to make both of those problems worse. In 2018, Kaag, who had previously discussed her relationship with Hezbollah, visited Iran and met with its leaders while wearing a 'headscarf.' Geert Wilders, the popular Dutch leader who had rallied the public to defy Islamization, blasted Kaag for "submissively" bowing "for the fascist ayatollahs of Iran" at a time when Iranian women were risking their lives to appear in public without a hijab. Kaag was forced to admit that her ministry had helped pay the salaries of Rina's killers through a 'nonprofit' acting as a front group for a terrorist organization. Kaag had allowed $12 million in funding to the 'nonprofit' despite being repeatedly warned that the money was going to terrorists. Kaag was forced to admit that her ministry had helped pay the salaries of Rina's killers through a 'nonprofit' acting as a front group for a terrorist organization. Kaag had allowed $12 million in funding to the 'nonprofit' despite being repeatedly warned that the money was going to terrorists. However, Kaag developed ties with Witkoff, whose disastrous tenure included adopting the Biden administration's policies on Gaza. And Kaag and Witkoff apparently bonded. Unfortunately, the Trump administration's foreign policy has been hijacked by the same swamp and foreign policy blob that threw billions of dollars and decades of prestige into creating a 'Palestinian terror state'. That's the cause that Kaag is still dedicated to. Now with our backing. Kaag's appointment is yet more evidence that the architects of this disastrous policy are hostile to Trump, to America, and to the free world.... The move undermines American national interests, the interests of Dutch patriots and of Israel. Whose interests are being served by elevating a Dutch leftist UN globalist who hates Trump?
Pictured: Sigrid Kaag speaks at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, on September 1, 2025. (Photo by Ramon van Flymen/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
"The entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine," Sigrid Kaag, the UN's coordinator for Gaza, falsely claimed, echoing Hamas propaganda. "Israel must halt its devastating strikes." Kaag, a leftist Dutch politician and UN official, had been picked for the role in Gaza by the Biden administration. And she had all the right credentials, including the UN's World Health Organization (WHO), the World Economic Forum and leftist politics. She had cheered the BLM race riots and claimed that America was systematically racist because New Yorkers had mistaken her husband, who worked for a Muslim terrorist group, for a janitor. Now she's been picked for a seat on the Gaza 'Executive Board' by the Witkoff team.
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by Daniel Greenfield • January 27, 2026 at 5:00 am
From Syria to Gaza to Iran, Qatar is hijacking the Trump administration. Syria's Al Qaeda regime is massacring Kurds to free imprisoned ISIS terrorists, state sponsors of Hamas in Turkey and Qatar are being named to boards running Gaza and thousands of democracy protesters are being massacred in Iran while Al Jazeera defends the regime. This isn't American foreign policy, but it is Qatar's foreign policy. [A]s thousands die in Iran after empty promises of support, there is a bigger picture here of institutional capture by a tiny and powerful Islamic terrorist state. There is a consistent throughline here and it isn't America First, it isn't "isolationism", it isn't Israel and it isn't MAGA, but it very much is Qatar along with its Islamist allies: Turkey and Iran. And this throughline has an ominous similarity to Obama's New Middle East policy and the way that it consistently empowered Islamist takeovers and protected Iran's Islamist terror regime. Iranian protesters are being massacred, and Hamas and Al Qaeda are being propped up, not because it serves our national interests, but because it serves Qatar's Jihadist agenda. Qatar's foreign policy objectives have been consistent and clear. It elevates and props up Islamic Jihadists and then offers its services in 'negotiating' with them. That means bringing an Al Qaeda affiliate to power in Syria, bringing the Taliban to power in Afghanistan through a fake deal during the first Trump administration, helping Hamas maximize its gains from Oct 7, and preserving the Islamic terrorist regime of the Ayatollahs that it is allied with in Tehran. Whatever their agendas are, there is little doubt about what they've done and who benefits. What ISIS couldn't accomplish in Syria with suicide bombings, it managed to pull off by putting Al-Jolani, now Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in a suit, and the world watched while ISIS terrorists were sprung from their jails, much as the Taliban had freed Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists after Qatar masterminded a deal with the Taliban that, much like Hamas, they were never going to keep. This isn't MAGA, it's not America First, it's Obama sneaking back in wearing a red cap. And the same domestic and foreign enemies who were behind that one are behind this one too. The question of Israel is a distraction from the real subject, the one that we're not talking about, of why we're propping up Al Qaeda and Iran, and what it really means about who's in control of foreign policy. The real question is why are we supporting Islamic terrorists and who's calling the shots? The Trump administration is not the first administration to be torn apart by malicious factions, and the best evidence of that is how different Trump's great foreign policy in Asia, Europe and Latin America is from his policy in the Middle East. The president is being badly served by infiltrators acting on behalf of special interests, and it's time to clean Qatar out of MAGA. Rather than learning our lesson from 9/11, we let Qatar control our policy. And the only question is how many have to die this time before we take back our foreign policy from the terrorists?
From Syria to Gaza to Iran, Qatar is hijacking the Trump administration. Iranian protesters are being massacred, and Hamas and Al Qaeda are being propped up, not because it serves American national interests, but because it serves Qatar's Jihadist agenda. Pictured: Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian (L) and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at a joint press conference in Doha on October 2, 2024. (Photo by Karim Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images)
From Syria to Gaza to Iran, Qatar is hijacking the Trump administration. Syria's Al Qaeda regime is massacring Kurds to free imprisoned ISIS terrorists, state sponsors of Hamas in Turkey and Qatar are being named to boards running Gaza, and thousands of democracy protesters are being massacred in Iran while Al Jazeera defends the regime. This isn't American foreign policy, but it is Qatar's foreign policy. The White House's foreign policy in the Muslim world is now virtually identical to Qatar's foreign policy apart from Israel. And as thousands die in Iran after empty promises of support, there is a bigger picture here of institutional capture by a tiny and powerful Islamic terrorist state.
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by Nima Gholam Ali Pour • January 27, 2026 at 4:30 am
The European Union has still not designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization. This requires a unanimous decision within the Foreign Affairs Council, a decision-making body of the EU, chaired by the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas. Countries such as France, Italy, Spain, and Luxembourg are still blocking such a terrorist designation, despite the fact that tens of thousands of Iranians have been murdered this month. As of this writing, the number of killed by the regime is estimated at 36,500, with 330,000-360,000 wounded, including 7,000 eye injuries documented from one hospital alone. This says a great deal about the gap between words and actions among certain European leaders. There is much talk about values, but little is done to uphold them. Even if the EU were not to stand up for human rights in Iran, one would expect the EU to stand up for its own security. Unfortunately, there have been far too many European politicians maintaining close relationships with Iran's regime. The Iranian people have risen up against a barbaric regime that represents everything the EU should oppose.
The EU must also decide once and for all whether it merely wants to talk about Western values and human rights or actually stand up for them when it truly matters: Now. The Iranian people have risen up against a barbaric regime that represents everything the EU should oppose. Israel and the United States stand ready to help. Where is the EU? Pictured: Iranians protest against their regime on January 8, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Anonymous/Getty Images)
The extreme violence used by the mullahs' regime to crush the protests in Iran confirms that external support is required to free the Iranian people from the regime's tyranny. Unarmed civilians confronting armed and indoctrinated militiamen and soldiers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) can only result in a bloodbath. Through the massacre carried out on January 8-9, the mullahs' regime has demonstrated that it acts more like an occupying power. Iran is a country that needs to be liberated, and the Iranian people need the support of the international community.
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by Lawrence Kadish • January 27, 2026 at 4:00 am
In 1901, British journalist William Thomas Stead published a provocative and surprising foresighted examination of America's growing global influence at the start of the 20th century. His central thought was that the United States, through its industrial might, technological innovation, and cultural exports, was creating a new form of empire. Today's European leaders should go back and read Stead's insight regarding how America has played a role in defining Europe and much of the world. Pictured: Stead in 1900. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump's strategic decision to reorder our relationship with Europe may be startling Old World diplomats, but that is because they do not know their own history. In 1901, British journalist William Thomas Stead published The Americanization of the World. It was a provocative and surprising foresighted examination of America's growing global influence at the start of the 20th century. Stead wrote that American power was reshaping international commerce, culture, and politics in unprecedented ways. His central thought was that the United States, through its industrial might, technological innovation, and cultural exports, was creating a new form of empire. It must have been stunning for the British author because his Victorian world was built on colonial conquest. Meanwhile, America was becoming a global competitor by creating economic dominance.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • January 26, 2026 at 5:00 am
Hamas is clearly unfazed by Trump's repeated threats that it must give up its weapons. The terror organization maintains that Israel is the one that needs to be disarmed. Hamas has become used to Trump's recurring threats over the past year -- especially with Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on Trump's new Board of Peace to make sure that Hamas is left untouched. Hamas is apparently convinced that Trump's threats are just a means of scaring the terror group. Trump seems to regard the Gaza Strip as a real estate enterprise that can be managed by earnest investors, politicians and technocrats, and not as a terror hub for Hamas and other Islamist Jihadists committed to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamist state. These countries will undoubtedly serve as Hamas's representatives on the Board of Peace and make sure that the terror group preserves its political and military presence not only in the Gaza Strip, but in the Palestinian arena as well. The assumption that Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or other Arab and Islamic countries would participate in any effort forcibly to disarm or demote Hamas and the other Palestinian terror groups is nothing but a starry-eyed make believe. "The composition of the Gaza administration committee is also flawed, as all its members are loyal to the Palestinian Authority, masquerading as technocrats and professionals." — Yassin Ezzedine, Palestinian political analyst, felesteen.news, January 18, 2026. Palestinian poet and journalist Ali Jahiz described the Board of Peace as "a major catastrophe... a peace board for the occupation of Gaza and the disarmament of the resistance. It is headed by the criminal Trump, and consists of bodies led by Zionists, with nominal participation from regional countries. In short: A dangerous occupation with multiple fronts." Another important fact that Trump and his advisors need to pay attention to: Hamas is threatening to attack members of the proposed International Stabilization Force in the Gaza Strip. Hamas's refusal to disarm, its opposition to the Board of Peace, and threats to kill members of the International Stabilization Force signal that the terror group and its supporters have total contempt for Trump or anyone who seeks a better life for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. For the Islamist terrorists, the Jihad to destroy Israel takes precedence over reconstruction, economic prosperity, everything.
Hamas is clearly unfazed by Trump's repeated threats that it must give up its weapons. Pictured: Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists share a moment of friendship for the crowds in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on November 28, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
What is the terror group Hamas's true position regarding demands to lay down its weapons and the formation of the Board of Peace headed by US President Donald J. Trump? Hamas is clearly unfazed by Trump's repeated threats that it must give up its weapons. The terror organization maintains that Israel is the one that needs to be disarmed. Hamas has become used to Trump's recurring threats over the past year -- especially with Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on Trump's new Board of Peace to make sure that Hamas is left untouched. Hamas is apparently convinced that Trump's threats are just a means of scaring the terror group. Hamas and many Palestinians, however, have significant reservations about Trump's Board of Peace. They view it as a "new round of colonization" in the Middle East by the US and other Western powers.
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by Raymond Ibrahim • January 25, 2026 at 5:00 am
"I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!" — US President Donald J. Trump, Truth Social, November 1, 2025 Muslims slaughtered five Christians because they were selling pork too close to a mosque in Yumbe.... "Yumbe was dedicated to Allah from the beginning. We cannot allow pork shops to operate here. Every Muslim youth must rise and defend the honor of our faith. Let no Christian business that promotes sin remain standing in our land." — morningstarnews.org, November 12, 2025, Uganda "Once minority girls are declared Muslim, they are often warned that leaving Islam would make them apostates – a label that can lead to targeted violence. These threats trap girls in marriages they did not freely choose and leave them vulnerable to lifelong abuse in what can also be described as sexual slavery masked as marriage." — Katherine Sapna, who works with Christian survivors of forced conversion and forced marriage, morningstarnews.org, November 26, 2025, Pakistan Father Rico, a priest with the Order of St. Elias in Argentina, and a Christian layman named Diego, have been traveling through Pakistan "with the sole purpose of freeing Christian slaves." In 2025 they managed to free 110 Christians, and 200 in 2024, thanks to the donations they collected to help free the slaves. — persecution.org, November 21, 2025, Pakistan "The Christian is considered 'chura,' which ... is equivalent to saying 'excrement.' .... After a life of eating garbage, being treated like garbage, and suffering constant violence, some of them don't know what it's like to be human. That's why we have to get them to where they can live in peace, practice Christianity, and raise their children." — Father Rico, persecution.org, November 21, 2025, Pakistan "Since the change of power, with a jihadist government at the head of the country, the situation is untenable, not only for Christians, but also for moderate Muslims and for any minority that feels genuinely threatened. [According to Brother Fahdi Azar, a Franciscan friar currently stationed in Aleppo:] 'The international community must intervene to change the current situation of instability and fear, because the attacks are incessant.' ...many young people lose their jobs because they are Christian, women are forced to wear the niqab, and threatening posters against those who do not convert to Islam adorn the streets near churches." — christanophobie.fr, November 21, 2025, Syria "Historians say there are around 100,000 Christians in Turkey today, compared to nearly four million at the start of the 20th century, with the numbers falling significantly due to forced exile or massacres....For decades after Turkey became a republic, Christians and Jews were regularly described by certain government officials and media outlets as 'the enemies inside' and were targeted by discrimination and violence—even into the early 2000s." — Report from aina.org, November 24, 2025, Turkey Salah "had consumed extremist propaganda online," including searching "for videos of 'infidels dying,'" and watching "videos depicting ISIS terrorists murdering people." In a cellphone video taken days before the crimes of conviction, Salah declared, "America. We are going to destroy it." — US Department of Justice, November 7, 2025, United States of America According to a Nov. 3 report, a Christian man has been in prison for nearly a year-and-a-half on a false blasphemy charge, and his impoverished family has been unable to afford legal representation.... " His Muslim colleagues were also opposed to him when he turned down their attempts to convert him to Islam." — Report from britishasianchristians.org, November 3, 2025, Pakistan
According to a November 24 report, "Despite some progress in restoring their rights, Christians in Turkey are still struggling against inequality..." Citing the famous boast by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured) that "In Turkey, 99 percent of the population is Muslim," Yuhanna Aktas, president of the Assyrian Union, which represents Christians in southeastern Turkey, said: "Every time he says that I feel excluded because he always fails to mention the non-Muslim minorities. We are not seen as full citizens." (Photo by Serdar Ozsoy/Getty Images)
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of November 2025. The Muslim Slaughter of Christians
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by Amir Taheri • January 25, 2026 at 4:00 am
To me, circulation of information in a society is like that of blood in the human body, essential for staying alive. Throughout those tumultuous decades, Le Figaro remained a compass, always trying to prevent the pendulum of history from getting stuck in one extreme or another. The unwritten rule was that there is no absolute truth engraved in marble forever and that the main task of a newspaper is to challenge certainties, affirm shared values and praise human achievements. Yes, a single newspaper has and still can help a nation find its way out of historic dead-ends or negotiate a rough patch traced by circumstances. Next time you pick up a newspaper, remember that it could be something more than a wrapper for your fish and chips.
Pictured: The offices of Le Figaro in Paris, France. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
"Tell me what is your nightmare and I will tell you who you are!" The quip attributed to Freud may be apocryphal, but I think it contains a grain of truth. I don't know what your nightmare is, but I have known mine since I bought my first newspaper in Ahvaz as a child. It goes like this: I am up in the morning, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and breakfast is ready. But I suddenly realize that something is missing: the day's newspaper. Like most addictions over the years, my being hooked on reading newspapers grew and grew until, at one point, Asharq Al-Awsat provided me with an average of 15 newspapers in four languages every day. To me, circulation of information in a society is like that of blood in the human body, essential for staying alive.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • January 24, 2026 at 5:00 am
For decades, Iranian leaders grew accustomed to Western caution, diplomatic hedging, and carefully measured statements designed to avoid escalation. They learned that repression at home would provoke criticism but rarely consequences. They learned that terrorism abroad would be condemned but tolerated. They learned that nuclear deception would lead to negotiations, not punishment. Trump combines two instruments that authoritarian regimes fear more than anything else: open moral alignment with their victims and credible willingness to use force. Through words, Trump has broken a long-standing taboo in American policy. He has spoken directly to the Iranian people, not as passive subjects trapped behind borders, but as political actors whose struggle is important.... This matters. Authoritarian regimes depend on isolating their populations psychologically, convincing them that they are alone, forgotten, invisible. When the president of the United States openly recognizes their struggle, this wall of isolation cracks. Most importantly, military consequences were not just threats but were made explicit and carried out. For years, US presidents, for their own convenience, pretended that protests in Iran were just isolated economic grievances or temporary outbursts, and pretended that regime survival was the same as legitimacy. Any country that chooses to do business with the regime should understand that it is indirectly financing torture, executions, and crushing democratic aspirations. Military pressure must remain credible: deterrence saves lives. When a regime believes it can massacre protestors without consequence, it will do so. When it fears international retaliation, it hesitates. Trump's explicit warnings regarding executions and escalation altered calculations in Tehran. When Trump hesitates, Iran resumes executions. Removing the mullahs' fear would be a gift to the regime. Moral pressure must remain constant. The Iranian people must continue to hear that their struggle is seen, respected, and supported. Silence kills hope. Recognition strengthens it.
President Donald Trump has altered the psychological balance of power between Washington and Tehran in a way no previous American leader had dared to do. For the first time since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Iranian leaders face a U.S. president who they believe is willing to act on his threats. The Iranian regime for the first time understands that mass executions, regional escalation, or accelerated nuclear weapons development will no longer be met with statements of concern but with force. Pictured: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Tehran on October 6, 2024. (Image source: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader)
Never in its forty-six-year history, thanks to the Trump administration and Israel, has the Iranian regime been weaker. Never, since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 1979 Islamic Revolution, has the clerical system faced such a convergence of internal rebellion, economic collapse, military vulnerability, and psychological defeat. Never have the mullahs appeared so exposed and so afraid of their own population. This historic weakening is the outcome of sustained pressure and — above all — the courage of the Iranian people, who have risen against a system that has ruled them for generations through prisons and executions.
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