US President Joe Biden’s months-long efforts to organize a Gaza war ceasefire and talks intended to secure a sustainable Middle East peace are stalled by a confusing tangle of disparate views between Israel and Hamas – and even within the American administration – about how negotiations should proceed. In almost desperate tones, the Biden administration […]

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Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a personal letter to Iran’s leaders asking them to refrain from military action against Israel while he attempts to mediate between the two countries, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. The letter was hand-delivered by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who arrived in Tehran on Monday. Shoigu is […]

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The missile that struck a building in southern Beirut on Tuesday, killing Hezbollah’s senior military commander Fuad Shukr, had been widely anticipated. Three days earlier, a Hezbollah rocket – which had no doubt missed its military target in northern Israel – struck a football pitch in the Israeli-controlled Syrian Golan Heights. Twelve young people between […]

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The killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran early Wednesday followed by the targeted assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr prompted headlines warning of wider conflict in the Middle East. The price of oil rose by US$3. Gold had traded somewhat higher prior to the killing of Haniyeh, but did not move on the […]

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Palestinian militant group Hamas says its top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has been killed in his home in Tehran. It blames Israel for the attack, saying it was “a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president.” Iran has not yet given any details on how […]

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A missile strike that killed 12 children playing soccer in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on July 27, 2024, has prompted international concern that the Middle East conflict could expand into the disputed territory. Israel has blamed the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and it has already conducted retaliatory strikes, with more expected. To explain the importance […]

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The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in intense diplomacy to persuade the protagonists to pull back from the brink. But US efforts have not paid off so far, given its lack of sufficient leverage […]

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As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to address a joint session of US Congress on July 24, 2024, the nation he leads continues its slide away from democracy. Even before Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, the country was engulfed by an intense debate over government-led reforms aimed at limiting judicial power, which […]

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Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington has placed the political spotlight on divisions within the Democratic Party over the war in Gaza. After Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, inherits a politically thorny issue. It’s an issue that has plagued the president since the Hamas attacks in October 2023. […]

The post Harris has decidedly different view on Gaza than Biden appeared first on Asia Times.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, where he will try to navigate the political minefield of a heated US presidential election campaign where all sides want to exploit the Gaza war to their own advantage. Netanyahu will kick off his US schedule Wednesday (July 24) with a speech to the US Congress. He […]

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Good news for democracy in Iran – words which in recent times, particularly in Western news reports, are rarely seen in the same sentence. But the election of Masoud Pezeshkian as president of Iran must be seen as a positive development. Pezeshkian is a known democrat with a track record as the health minister in […]

The post Iran’s Pezeshkian a ray of hope for the West appeared first on Asia Times.

The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah recently released videos showing footage from one of its drones flying over the Israeli city of Haifa and the surrounding area. Hezbollah released the videos shortly after American special envoy Amos Hochstein went to Beirut in a bid to get Lebanese political leaders to pressure Hezbollah to withdraw from the […]

The post Hezbollah brandishing drones to deter an Israel war appeared first on Asia Times.

It was the moment when Israel’s military acknowledged the failure of its eight-and-half month war in Gaza – certainly the failure of the mission set out by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he said after the October 7 Hamas attack that he would destroy the militant group. On June 19 the spokesperson for the […]

The post IDF admits it can’t win; Netanyahu isn’t listening appeared first on Asia Times.

Iran’s presidential election on June 28 may provide Tehran an opportunity to press reset on foreign policy issues after years of increasing hawkishness. Indeed, a key campaign issue has been the extent to which the candidates may – or may not – pivot to more engagement with the West. While the supreme leader – the […]

The post Will next Iran president make nicer with the West? appeared first on Asia Times.

Months of relentless exchanges between Israel and Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah have seen mass civilian evacuations and widespread death, injury and destruction. The violence has worsened since early June, accompanied by increasingly heated rhetoric. Both sides have prevented the tit-for-tat attacks from escalating into a full-blown war, recognizing the likely catastrophic consequences. The question is […]

The post Israel-Hezbollah escalation could pull in Iran, US appeared first on Asia Times.

Israel has announced that it is ready to go to war with Hezbollah – a move that is likely to undermine US President Joe Biden’s chances in the 2024 election even further. Israel says that Hezbollah – the Lebanese political party and militant group – has pushed it close to an all-out war after the […]

The post Israel’s Hezbollah war threat hurts Biden more than Trump appeared first on Asia Times.

Prior to the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan posited that the Middle East had been “quieter than it has been for decades.” This is obviously no longer the case. On the contrary, the heart-wrenching state of the region has inflamed tensions and inspired generation-defining protests across the world. […]

The post Biden or Trump, US wants a lesser Middle East role appeared first on Asia Times.

In 1990, US President George H W Bush tasked Secretary of State James Baker to organize comprehensive Middle East peace talks to include Israel, the Palestinians and Israel’s other long-time adversaries throughout the Arab world. By June that year, Baker ran out of patience with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who had refused negotiations with […]

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Thousands of Iranians came out on the streets to mark the funeral processions of Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran, Mashhad, and Tabriz, after he died in a helicopter crash alongside the foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian. During these processions, huge banners were put up naming Raisi as “the martyr of service”, while other banners carried […]

The post Raisi’s ghost looms like a martyr over Iran’s election appeared first on Asia Times.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s three-day visit to China signaled improved diplomatic relations, upgraded bilateral trade and investment ties, and a significant step toward Turkey’s accession to the anti-Western BRICS bloc. Fidan met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and other senior Chinese government officials in Beijing from June 3-5. He later stopped in the Xinjiang […]

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