Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Karam Nama
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The politics of ‘toxic infotainment’: When the destiny of nations becomes a digital plaything
In a world that increasingly consumes its political catastrophes as daily blockbuster thrillers, Financial Times columnist Jemima Kelly recently provided a searing psychological autopsy of what she termed “Trump’s many unhappy returns.” Kelly argues that the Western political landscape has fallen into a state of “psychological stagnation.” Major political shocks…
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When a brave journalist looks away: Iraq and Yvonne Ridley’s half‑seen map
No one familiar with the career of British journalist Yvonne Ridley doubts her courage for a moment. She is a woman who built her reputation in the field, not behind a desk; who crossed burning frontiers, confronted regimes, and paid personal and professional costs to bear witness to the oppressed.…
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The World Cup in the age of Trumpian transaction
No matter how intently we listen to FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s repetitive hymns extolling the “purity of the game” and its pristine detachment from politics, reality strikes back with a naked truth: football is no longer just a sport. It has morphed into a fierce breed of modern politics, serving…
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What awaits Iraq’s militias under Tom Barrack?
It won’t take long to understand what lies ahead for Iraq—and for the Iran‑aligned militias—after President Donald Trump appointed Tom Barrack as his Special Presidential Envoy for Syria and Iraq. All one needs is the paragraph Barrack published just hours after the announcement. He wrote that “the balance of power…
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Trump wants Netanyahu useful, not unrestrained
The story of Benjamin Netanyahu is not merely the story of a man in power. It is the story of a political structure that allowed one individual to grow beyond the institutions meant to contain him, until he became—psychologically and politically—larger than the state itself. The question in Israel today…
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Why does Muqtada al‑Sadr expect us to believe him?
Muqtada al‑Sadr’s latest announcement—that his militia, Saraya al‑Salam, will be “integrated” into the Iraqi security forces—has been received with a mixture of skepticism and déjà vu inside Iraq. For many Iraqis, this is not a reformist gesture but another attempt by a political cleric to reinvent himself at a moment…
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The illusion of a political solution in Ali al-Zaidi and the Green Zone
There is a familiar analytical noise that rises with every new government in Iraq, a noise that feels like replaying an old recording at a higher volume, nothing more. What is happening today with Ali al-Zaidi’s government is no exception; it is a pale repetition of what we saw with…
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The Gulf Cooperation Council is shooting itself in the foot
The most accurate portrayal of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is perhaps the 2017 Kuwait summit, which was held at the height of the Saudi-UAE-Bahraini blockade of Qatar and was attended by none of the quarrelling states’ leaders — except for Qatar’s Emir, Tamim bin Hamad. Kuwait’s late Emir, Sabah…
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The crisis of leadership in the West: From the charisma of ideas to the tyranny of public relations
During his official visit to Beijing, President Donald Trump faced a challenge of a peculiar kind. A White House official later revealed that the President was strictly prohibited from using his personal smartphone due to stringent security protocols imposed by Chinese authorities. For a man who views that small screen…
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Unanswered questions before Prince Turki Al-Faisal
In his recent article in Asharq Al-Awsat, Prince Turki Al-Faisal offers a sober and realistic reading of the balance of power in the Arabian Gulf. With his deep security and diplomatic experience, Prince Turki presents an analysis that commands the attention of observers. Western media often treat his statements as…
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Britons now measure politics by the price of a bottle of milk
In Britain today, no one is truly winning. Even when Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, steps forward to celebrate what some newspapers have called a “political earthquake,” the picture—on closer inspection—looks far less solid than advertised. His “victory” is not a mandate; it is a cry of anger from…
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Ted Turner: The mastermind behind the imperialism of satellite broadcasting
Ted Turner, the man who built what can only be described as the imperialism of satellite broadcasting through CNN, has died. He was the first to turn news into a 24‑hour live stream, transforming television from a medium of entertainment into a global news platform. CNN’s CEO Mark Thompson described…
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Apple… The digital Strait of Hormuz
I return to my favourite writer, John Thornhill, and borrow from him that rare glint of insight. When he replaced the Strait of Hormuz with Apple, the analogy seemed exaggerated at first glance, almost too bold. But the more one contemplates it, the more its precision reveals itself. The Strait…
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War…Netanyahu’s perfect definition of himself. So who will define him by peace?
When speaking about Israel today, it is easy to borrow the irony of British writer and historian Max Hastings, who has witnessed and chronicled many wars. Just as he once mocked America’s appetite for conflict by asking, ‘What if they started a war and nobody came?’, we may now invert…
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A ceasefire without meaning and a strait without horizon: How the war betrayed Iranian hopes
The recent statement by U.S. President Donald Trump about Iran’s financial losses from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is less a policy position and more a late attempt to justify a political, military, and moral failure. Instead of addressing what the world was actually waiting for — the…
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Can Sistani save Iraq from its predicament?
The question posed by the title of this article is more than just a political inquiry. At its core, it is a question about the nature of authority in Iraq, the limits of the state, and the role that a single cleric can play when domestic crises intersect with regional…
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From Beirut to Baghdad and Sana’a… can this moment be generalized?
What the Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is attempting—at least on the level of political discourse—is nothing less than reclaiming the definition of the state from the grip of the “mini‑state.” His speech opens the door to a larger question: could what happened in Beirut be a precursor to what might…
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Celebrating division as a success in Libya
This week, Libya witnessed two events that were celebrated as signs of progress, even though they express nothing more than the normalisation of division within what is supposed to be a single state. This happens in a country that the Greek historian Herodotus once described as “the source of all…
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The illusion of a substitute: Turkey is not the region’s replacement for Iran
Whenever the question of Iranian influence in the Middle East arises, Turkey is often presented as a ready-made alternative. The logic seems straightforward: if Iran’s power diminishes, Ankara will naturally step forward to fill the void. However, this assumption is based on a misleading comparison between two countries whose regional…
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Tell me how this war will end
We need today to revive the question General David Petraeus posed after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, launched under fabricated pretexts: “Tell me how this ends.” But we ask it now in a completely different context, as we speak about Iran and a war that seems to be moving without…
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Why do some Iraqis defend Khamenei’s regime?
To understand why some Iraqis today defend the Islamic Republic of Iran with a fervor that borders on devotion, one must return to the 1980s—specifically to the eight brutal years of the Iran–Iraq War. The answer begins there, in the trenches, before it is distorted by the post‑2003 political order…
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A regional union or a union of isolation between Iraq and Iran?
When politics collapses into a full‑fledged state of isolation, fragile states begin inventing projects that exist only on paper—or in hurried phone calls. This is precisely what Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian did when he proposed to Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid the creation of a “regional union” to promote development…
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Al-Sudani deserves political pity
The statement issued by the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, announcing the summoning of the US chargé d’affaires and handing him a “strongly worded” protest note, as reported by Reuters, appears in the balance of realpolitik closer to a performance of sovereignty in a country that does…
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Moscow will not shed political tears for Tehran
The Nowruz greeting Vladimir Putin sent to Iran’s leadership and people is little more than a seasonal postcard—politically meaningless in a time of war. The Kremlin announced that Putin had extended congratulations to Mojtaba Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian on the occasion of the Iranian New Year. But anyone familiar…