This will be the region’s most representative tournament, amid broad changes in its footballing landscape.
Issam Kayssi
Source: Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1994
Iran was defeated by Iraq in a brutal eight-year war that ended in July 1988. Thirty months later Iraq was defeated by the United States and its allies in Operation Desert Storm. Iran's military leaders have carefully examined the reasons for their defeat and the allies' victory. The country has now embarked on a major rearmament program that has alarmed it neighbors and caused great concern in Washington. Shahram Chubin analyzes Iran's rearmament program and its strategic implications for the region.
This will be the region’s most representative tournament, amid broad changes in its footballing landscape.
Issam Kayssi
By reminding the world that Lukashenko is a threat to NATO and Ukraine, Kyiv is trying to return the focus to why the Belarusian regime needs to be contained rather than rewarded.
Artyom Shraibman
The U.S.-Iran war has crossed a dangerous threshold: water infrastructure in the Gulf is now a target. Ecological statecraft is no longer peripheral to security, it's part of its foundations.
Olivia Lazard, Ali Bin Shahid
In Basra, an ethnoracial minority wages a constant struggle to assert itself in the face of marginalization.
Zeinab Shuker
Baku’s backing for Ukraine is less about confronting Russia than about quietly broadening the mix of partners it relies on.
Zaur Shiriyev