Analyses
Arab Region
The Gulf Between Defending the Vision Frameworks and a New Security Architecture
Luca Marin 6 November 2025
Two years after the events of October 7, 2023, the Middle East is undergoing a profound phase of redefinition. The conflict between Israel and Hamas, rising tensions with Iran, and intensifying global competition have prompted the Gulf countries to reassess their strategic priorities. In this context, the perspective of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) revolves around two central axes: the protection of their domestic transformation programs—the so-called Visions—and the safeguarding of security within an increasingly multipolar environment.
  • Abraham Accords: Syria and Lebanon Facing the Test of the Arab Concert
    Riccardo Cristiano 11 July 2025
    United by geography and a long history that, since the end of the Ottoman Empire and especially during the long rule of the Assads, has taken on the characteristics of colonialism and occupation in the name of a “Greater Syria,” Lebanese and Syrians today share the same hope: that tomorrow will be different from today, putting an end to conflicts and reducing them to “wars of the past.” Reality demands this. In 2018, Lebanon’s GDP exceeded 55 billion dollars; today, it barely reaches 20 billion. One hundred thousand Lebanese pounds, which were worth 65 dollars at that time, are now worth just one. In Syria, in 2011, when the brutal repression of anti-government protests began, GDP reached 45 billion dollars; today it is only 9 billion.
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    Qaraqosh: The Fragile Rebirth of Iraq’s Christian City
    Ilaria Romano 2 September 2024
    Brother Wissam drives his pickup truck to the convent where he lives alongside other Franciscan friars. He’s on his way back from Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where he picked up his nephew Francius, 19, on vacation in Iraq on his own for the first time. Like many Christian Iraqis, especially ordained ones, Wissam studied abroad for a few years, but never considered leaving his country permanently. The city he calls home is Qaraqosh (in Syriac) or Bakhdida (in Arabic), thirty kilometers from Mosul, the symbol, since 2014, of the Islamic State’s fury against Christians.
  • Biden is Right: the US’ 2003 Catastrophe
    Should be Avoided at all Costs
    Hussein Ibish 20 October 2023
    Hamas obviously thinks that if it wants to take over the Palestinian movement, it needs another sustained insurgency against Israeli occupation. Hamas is hoping to lure the Israeli military back into the interior of Gaza for the urban combat that favors insurgent groups. Hamas hopes a sustained insurgency can eventually result in a steady drip of killed and captured Israeli conscripts, allowing Hamas to claim that it alone is actively fighting for Palestine. What this means is that in trying to fulfill the pledge to “eliminate Hamas,” Israel could well deliver everything Hamas is counting on.
  • Away from Treacherous Traps:
    Why Biden is Holding Netanyahu Back
    Siegmund Ginzberg 19 October 2023
    Why does Hamas deliberately flaunt the horrors it perpetrates? To demonstrate Israel’s lack of preparation and Hamas’s own military prowess? To spread terror? To disorient, to humiliate, to foster a sense of paralysis and powerlessness? To say: look, we can get you when and how we want? Or perhaps to say: yes, we are the beasts you say we are, come and avenge yourselves, come and get us in Gaza?
  • Saudi Arabia Plays East Against West While Smothering Dissent
    Federica Zoja 11 November 2022
    Mohammed Bin Salman is deftly playing a chess game aimed at positioning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a foreign policy leader both regionally and internationally, exploiting each of the great powers’ primary weaknesses (and desires): energy prices in the US, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and China’s desperation to assert its regional dominance. His sudden rise to the head of the desert kingdom was consolidated recently with his appointment as Prime Minister and heir apparent to his aging father, securing his untouchability and immunity when it comes to human rights violations, putting partners like the United States in the particular quandry of not being able to use their traditional soft power levers and leaving evermore domestic dissidents at risk.
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