Why does the United States continue to support the Saudi intervention in Yemen?

Although the Saudis have promised a high-level committee to investigate civilian deaths from their airstrikes in Yemen, they continue to strike civilian targets with countless deaths and destructions.

For instance, among those recently killed in...

The United States should rethink its ties to a country that engages in mass executions and disastrous military campaigns.

Like other totalitarian regimes that have no legitimacy and no base of support, the Saudis are wrapping themselves in religion. Saddam Hussein in the 1990s and currently Bashar al-Assad -- the...

On the last day of the Paris climate talks, President Barack Obama issued an ominous warning to Russian president Vladimir Putin against intervening in Syria's civil war to preserve President Bashar al-Assad's regime. To emphasize his desire for regime change, Obama declared that al-Assad must leave his office...

Despite everything, hawks are still pushing President Obama to send ground troops to Syria. He would be wise to reject their advice.

For the last few decades in the Middle East, the policy of western powers -- led by the United States -- has been to ensure the flow of...

Turkey's offering Washington a fig leaf of cooperation against the Islamic State, but it's turning all its firepower against the most effective anti-ISIS fighters in the region -- the Kurds.

In the country's last election, the Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lost its...

There may be a responsible way to fight the Islamic State, but the U.S. will have to leave its boots in the closet and the drones in the hangar.

The atrocities of ISIS become more shocking every day. In June, the Iraqis exhumed nearly 600 bodies of Shia...

In the U.S. war on Iraq, hundreds of thousands died the sort of deaths that, if broadcast in an ISIS video, would have inflamed international opinion.

The Middle East is suffering the blowback from rotten U.S. policies, disastrous wars, and cultural turmoil. ISIS and its ilk are one result.

ISIS...

An anonymous U.S. official caused a dustup when he called the Israeli prime minister "chickenshit." Others might have said worse.

Last month, an anonymous U.S. official stirred a tempest in a teapot when he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a chickenshit" in comments to the Atlantic's

Like layers of an onion, ISIS supporters can be carefully peeled away. But not if Obama goes into Syria and Iraq with a mallet.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a symptom -- not the cause -- of turbulence in the Middle East. It is a symptom...

Terrorism is defined by Merriam Webster's dictionary as: "the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal." One could say Hamas fits this definition out of desperation and a lack of moral leadership.

But Israeli actions...

The headlines and pundits alike are spouting the traditional clichés about Iraq: Baghdad is falling. Iraq is splitting into three parts. Shias and Sunnis have been fighting for a thousand years.

We heard many of the same claims during the heightened sectarian conflict in Iraq from 2005 to 2007. But...

Iraq's latest elections were relatively free and fair, but they won't do much to resolve the country's stark sectarian divides.

Despite his failure to heal the country's stark sectarian divides, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is nearly guaranteed a third term at the helm after the latest elections.

In his speech in Brussels on March 26, President Barack Obama refuted Vladimir Putin's assertions regarding the wrongs of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Rhetoric aside, the Russian president has no moral standing for the invasion and annexation of Crimea. Nevertheless, it is important to look at Obama's...

Algeria descended into civil war when its military suppressed the country's democratically popular Islamists. Could the same happen in Egypt?

Back in the days of Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian elections were won with an overwhelming majority due to the machinery of state intimidation. Egyptians saw the same tactics used...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants negotiations with the Palestinians to continue for decades to come. But the Palestinian leadership would be foolish to go along with this charade.

When I was a child in Baghdad, we had a special Assyrian holiday for kids called Nusardil. As...

The Egyptian people face a very difficult choice. They must choose a path that does not lead toward greater violence, further economic decline, dictatorship, or even civil war. Egypt must somehow avoid the fate of Syria (a civil war with over 100,000 civilian casualties), Iraq (a confessional conflict that produces...

The good news? President Obama's surprise decision to consult Congress about launching a U.S. strike on Syria has returned crucial powers to the people's representatives, allowing a much-needed public discussion about the U.S. stake--or lack thereof--in Syria's civil war.

The bad news? Obama has claimed the authority to...

Egyptians continue to find themselves in the throes of a revolution that began in January of 2011. Rarely are these easy periods for any nation, but now the darkness of oppression has brought the worst upon the people of Egypt.

The recently deposed President Mohamed Morsi came to power last...

The taxi driver was excited. Driving through the busy streets of Cairo a little more than a year ago, he wanted us to see his most prized token from the revolution that brought Egyptians to the streets in 2011. He passed his cell phone to the back seat to share...

President Barack Obama stands on the brink of engaging the United States in another war of choice in the Middle East.

Ostensibly because the Syrian regime crossed Obama's self-declared "red line" by using chemical weapons, Washington will deliver small arms, including antitank weapons, to Syrian...