WITH oil prices at their present highs and Iraq at last making tentative progress towards stability, the last thing anyone wants to hear is that conditions in the Middle East could be about to take an abrupt turn for the worse. Unfortunately, they could. Recent weeks have brought a spike in chatter about the prospect [...]

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A comprehensive and well detailed report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, released last week, sheds a pile of information on the state of nuclear proliferation in one of the world’s most volatile regions — the Middle East.
Indeed, as John Chipman, director general and chief executive of IISS, points out in a publication entitled [...]

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Without much oil under its sands, Dubai is no petro powerhouse. But you can’t beat it for being the most colorful sheikdom in the Middle East–or the most ambitious. What other desert land can claim one of the world’s largest indoor ski slopes, featuring fresh powder year round? While flying in on the stylish, state-owned [...]

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Is there a significant chance that Israel will attack by year end Iran’s nuclear facilities? The German magazine Spiegel argues so in a two-part article “Mission Doable“ and “‘We Will See a Middle East in Flames’“ (hat tip to Fabius Maximus):
While the Europeans continue to pin their hopes on diplomacy and are convinced that [...]

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Supporting moderation in all things Islamic may seem like a no-brainer, but woe betide the policymaker who tries to turn a plausible idea into a workable strategy.
Of all the cures commonly proposed for the many ailments afflicting the Middle East, there is one tonic nearly everyone seems to agree on: boosting moderate Islam.
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But this belief [...]

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The Golan Heights, whose 1981 annexation by Israel remains unrecognized by the world, is widely considered the most gorgeous part of the country. Rising from the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee to Mount Hermon, it is about the size of Los Angeles but has only 40,000 residents—half Israeli settlers, half Druze Muslims who, [...]

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The Golan Heights, whose 1981 annexation by Israel remains unrecognized by the world, is widely considered the most gorgeous part of the country. Rising from the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee to Mount Hermon, it is about the size of Los Angeles but has only 40,000 residents—half Israeli settlers, half Druze Muslims who, [...]

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In itself, Iran’s recent application for membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is probably little more than diplomatic posturing. But coupled with the end of Lebanon’s political stalemate, Turkey’s mediation between Israel and Syria, and Egypt’s attempts to broker a truce in Gaza, it can be seen as part of a new dynamic that [...]

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A building frenzy is raging in Asia, Russia and on the Persian Gulf. And cities like London and New York don’t have the money to compete. Will Western urban landscapes soon look outdated? By Ulrike Knöfel, Frank Hornig and Bernhard Zand more…

Photo Gallery: The East’s New Skylines
The Rise of Dubai: A Queue in the Sand
Unveiling [...]

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The BBC’s Middle East Editor, Jeremy Bowen, looks at increasing speculation that Iran may come under attack because of its nuclear programme.
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The talk has alarmed, among others, the former German Foreign Minister, Joshka Fischer.
Germany has, with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, taken the lead in talks with Iran about its nuclear [...]

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Is Islam a religion of peace? Daniel Pipes, a leading Islamic scholar, says yes and no. If Islam prevails, becoming the world’s pervasive religion, the answer is yes; and since it will require war for Islam to prevail, for the time being the answer is no. But to begin to understand Islam, Pipes says it [...]

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In effect, the BRIC countries collectively took the place of the United States as the locomotive of the global economy, helping to haul the rest of the planet along.
But there is a problem. They may not be able to keep it up, because just as it looked like the world had found a new economic [...]

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As recent reports make clear, Russia is now forcing its way back into the Middle East - and not necessarily in the most encouraging manner. By dangerously increasing its arms sales to the region, Moscow is seeking to restore prestige, bolster influence and - not least - to make money.
The latest example came with reports [...]

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The West might be alarmed at the prospect of the mullahs arming themselves with nuclear weapons, but it is the Arabs who are first in their direct line of fire.
Relations between Tehran and the Saudis have been strained ever since Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were implicated in the 1996 bombing of the US Marine base in [...]

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Yet, even though it has an economy comparable with America’s, it stands as a political dwarf in responding to the rapidly changing geopolitical environment. The combination of slavishly following the US lead (with the possible exception of the invasion of Iraq), its reluctance to contemplate badly needed strategic initiatives (as in the Middle East) or [...]

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Iran’s disputed nuclear program has sent a wave of interest in atomic energy across the Middle East, a think tank said Tuesday, warning that it risked setting the scene for a regional nuclear arms race.
At least 13 Middle Eastern countries either announced new plans to explore atomic energy or revived pre-existing nuclear programs between February [...]

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The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president — but this cold war is with Iran.
That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today — the struggle for influence [...]

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At about $124 a barrel, the price of crude oil has more than doubled since the start of 2007. The vast majority of government forecasters, stock analysts, economists, traders, and journalists who follow oil failed to see it coming. Even now their price estimates for the next several years are all over the place, ranging [...]

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My forecast is based on the assumption that current trends in the world and in the Middle East will continue in the next decade and may even intensify. We should also recall that 10 years are, more or less, the time required to develop new weapon systems. The Israeli experience also proves that every 10 [...]

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ISRAEL’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY
Israel’s right to exist is questioned on a daily basis — and not just by radical Palestinians, but also by prominent intellectuals. As the country celebrates its 60th anniversary, they are sending their case against Israel in messages disguised as birthday greetings. But their supposed concern about the Middle East is really just [...]

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Energy demand in the Middle East is growing as fast as in industrial powerhouse China and will help to offset any decline in the United States, the world’s top fuel burner, as well as keep prices high.
Although it has only a fraction of the population, huge fuel subsidies and an economic boom fuelled by record [...]

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