Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Karam Nama
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Gaddafi nostalgia isn’t a political movement
Libyans once used the phrase ‘reckless boy’ to describe anyone who loudly cheered Muammar Gaddafi at the height of his power. It was a popular mocking expression aimed at the clowns and opportunists who had lost their sense — or pretended to. It was a simple piece of folk wisdom:…
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Why Barham Salih cannot be like Francesca Albanese
The appointment of Barham Salih as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is not just a technical decision. It is a political statement, signalling that the UN is investing in the wrong future. It is a future in which a politician who was part of Iraq’s occupation machinery and…
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Sick Europe
Europe is no longer a fully sovereign partner in the international order. Nor does it pose a real threat. Instead, it has become a suspended political entity, living off the memory of power rather than reality, and negotiating from a position of fear rather than parity. Since the tax agreement…
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A belated admission of leaving Iraq to fail
Twenty-two years after the invasion of Iraq, a new American voice has emerged to concede that the war was not just a political miscalculation, but rather a structural failure that struck at the heart of the Middle East. Tom Barrack’s remarks as the US Presidential Envoy to Syria read like…
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Yasmine Belkaid’s ever-growing capital
My personal physician — one of Britain’s most renowned doctors and recipient of one of the highest honours from the late Queen Elizabeth II — always finds time to chat about things other than medicine the moment he remembers I am a journalist. During my last visit, he raised the…
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When the machine issues fatwas and the cleric falls silent
In her article in Financial Times, Rana Foroohar—author of Don’t Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles—and All of Us—leads a collective reflection on how Christians, particularly Catholics, are responding to the rise of artificial intelligence. Yet the discussion isn’t about the technology itself, but about the believers’…
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How can Iraq reach the zero equation?
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani, chose Newsweek magazine to present himself as a model for a ‘future Iraq’, appearing on the cover of its latest issue shortly after the parliamentary elections. Paid media coverage like this is an old political trick, yet it has never produced results that…
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The inspired Guardiola: A moral voice on Palestine
Pep Guardiola, the Spanish manager of Manchester City, is a visionary in football tactics and a moral force when it comes to human values. In an era of government collusion and institutional silence, this Catalan speaks out on issues that many dare not address: The world has abandoned Palestine. This…
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Iraq’s elections are over, but the country has yet to begin
The elections have ended, but the real struggle has just begun. The outcome of the elections is not in doubt, because Iraq’s political landscape is not shaped by ballots, but by militias, regional loyalties and the wealth now concentrated in the hands of a sectarian oligarchy. Iran-backed militias did not…
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From London to New York: The moral misunderstanding of Muslims
Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli’s reaction to Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York offers a textbook example of the West’s moral misunderstanding of Muslims. Chikli wasn’t expressing a uniquely Israeli anxiety. His warning – “New York is walking with open eyes into the abyss that London already fell…
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The sectarian equivalent in Iraq
In Iraq, political positions are not measured by programs—they’re measured by vocabulary. In a country restructured after 2003 on the basis of sectarian quotas, words have become keys to deciphering agendas, not intentions. So it’s fair to ask: How many times has Ammar al-Hakim said “Shia”? And how often has…
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The poem that cannot be killed
When Yitzhak Shamir stood in the Israeli Knesset, reciting with bitterness and historical humiliation the searing lines of “Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words” in Hebrew, he wasn’t merely quoting a poem—he was confronting a linguistic bombshell that shattered the illusion of Israeli permanence. He was exploiting historical disgrace to…
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Matthew Parris, a British voice who sees the Middle East without tourist glasses
Matthew Parris is not just a name on the opinion page. He is a journalist and former politician who left the Conservative Party to become a regular columnist for Fleet Street. He is a writer who does not repeat the discourse of hegemony, but rather exposes the failure of Western…