By Mehmet Enes Beşer Southeast Asia is uncomfortably in the middle of 21st-century great power rivalry. China-US competition speeding up with military interventions, economic decoupling, and competing visions of the region has placed ASEAN countries uncomfortably in the middle. With the South China Sea, cyberspace, and sea lanes as the fulcrums, regional strategic contours are increasingly defined by the hopes ...
by Yunus Emre Özgün When Washington and Tel-Aviv launched their sudden offensive against Tehran, the shockwaves didn’t just hit the Middle East—they immediately fractured whatever was left of a European consensus. Caught entirely off-guard, European capitals are now scrambling to draft a cohesive response. But in Paris, the calculus is especially brutal. France finds itself juggling an unprecedented military buildup, ...
The United States has deliberately incited a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran’s reactions following the US assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei came as no surprise to Washington. Contrary to what some argue, I do not share the idea that the US was expecting a “regime collapse” in Iran following the assassination. One does not need deep ...
By Dure Akram, from Lahore / Pakistan No state can ignore armed groups crossing its borders to kill its citizens. Pakistan’s strikes inside Taliban-ruled Afghanistan must be understood first in that context of self-defense. Years of escalating attacks inside Pakistan have convinced its leadership that the Afghan frontier can no longer be treated as a passive security problem. Washington has ...
When the Israeli-born Jewish academic Prof. Dr. Israel Shahak said, “The Nazis made me afraid to be Jewish; the Israelis made me ashamed to be Jewish,” he was questioning the legal identity of the state of Israel. Similarly, the American linguist, philosopher, and political activist of Jewish origin, Noam Chomsky, describes Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories as “far ...
Many things are being said, but it’s not known for sure whether the decision to attack Iran was a miscalculation based on information the CIA gave Trump claiming that Iran was fragile and therefore an easy target to defeat. Or it could have been the opposite: that the Pentagon warned him about the risks a large-scale military operation posed to ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer Let’s be honest: the old “one sheriff in town” story is tired. You still hear it in policy speeches—usually delivered with a straight face—but it doesn’t describe how the world actually behaves anymore. Power is scattered. Influence is negotiated. And most countries, if you catch them off-script, will admit they’re already living in a world where ...
From Cairo / Egypt With the successive strikes hitting the Gulf states since the outbreak of the American-Israeli aggression against Iran, many are wondering whether the transformation of these countries into a battlefield—in a war to which they are not a party—might force them to align with the aggressors against Tehran. The Reshaping of the Middle East Before the outbreak ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer China’s economic rebound since the pandemic has been patchy, paradoxical, and sometimes misleading. While macroeconomic metrics—exports, manufacturing production, and state-led infrastructure investment—blink flashes of strength, the foundation of the rebound remains weak. Maybe nowhere is that weakness more evident than in the country’s treatment of its 300 million migrant workers. These workers, who have driven China’s ...
Following the US and Israeli attack, Iran responded regionally. The effects of the conflict are beginning to be felt worldwide. What are the perceptions of politicians and experts in South Asia? We asked leaders and experts in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Bangladesh Workers’ Party: Iran the latest chain after Venezuela, Cuba With a population of 170 million, Bangladesh is the seventh ...
UWI author and political scientist Onur Sinan Güzaltan was guest to Türkiye’s Ulusal Kanal to evaluate the latest developments in the war between the US-Israeli and Iran. We present the main points of Güzaltan’s evaluation, translated into English. ———————————————————————————— Mr. Güzaltan, the US-Israeli strikes are ongoing, and Iran is continuing its retaliatory responses. Where are we now, what stage of ...
The Youth Union of Türkiye (TGB) and the Republican Women’s Association (CKD) organized a historic action titled “Angels of Minab” in front of the Istanbul Consulate General of the Islamic Republic of Iran, standing against the aggression of the United States and Israel targeting Iran. In the statement, which emphasized that “Iran’s defense is Türkiye’s defense,” a defiant message was ...