James M Dorsey

By James M Dorsey The irony of Middle Eastern geopolitics is that Israel makes it increasingly difficult for US President Joe Biden to support it, while Iran strengthens domestic US anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli hardliners. The hardliners are emboldened by the failure of calibrated US strikes in response to numerous attacks on US forces in the […]

The post Iran Facilitates Biden’s Support For Israel, But Tel Aviv Makes It Increasingly Difficult first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey A recent Lebanese public opinion poll suggests there may be limits to Iran-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah’s restraint in confronting Israel. It also suggests why Iran feels emboldened by escalating tensions in the Middle East. The poll results are significant with Hezbollah and Israel engaged in tit-for-tat cross border attacks that both […]

The post Hardliners Ride High In Miidle East As Border Hostilities Escalate Unexpectedly first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey History repeats itself. Palestinian airplane hijackings and attacks on Israeli civilians in Israel as well as on Israeli and Jewish targets abroad pockmarked the 1970s and 1980s. The violence put the Palestinian issue on the world agenda. The violence erupted, and at times, was driven by fierce debate among Palestinian guerilla […]

The post History Repeats Itself With The Killing Of Senior Hamas Official Saleh Al-Arouri first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Think that the heart wrenching images streaming out of the Gaza Strip suggest that Israel has Hamas over a barrel? Think again. Talks in Europe and in Cairo suggest otherwise. The talks stalled after Hamas insisted that it would not engage in prisoner exchange negotiations unless Israel halts fighting and agrees […]

The post Israel, Hamas Prisoner Exchange Talks Further Mired first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Israel wasn’t slamming the door on renewed indirect prisoner swap negotiations with Hamas when it this week barred David Barnea, the head of Mossad, the country’s foreign intelligence agency, from travelling to Qatar to explore possibilities for renewed exchanges. Instead, it was manoeuvring for greater leverage in potential talks and expressing […]

The post Hamas Manoeuvring Complicates Efforts To Secure Prisoner Swaps With Israel first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Spanish philosopher George Santayana didn’t have Palestine in mind when he coined the phrase, ‘history repeats itself. ‘Yet, Santayana’s maxim may apply to Hamas when comparing the group’s political evolution to the 16-year-torturous road traversed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from classification by Israel and its Western allies as a […]

The post Counterintuitive Palestine Politics: Hamas May Be Treading A Path Paved By PLO Earlier first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel has not just divided Muslim political leaders. It’s also solicited diverse responses from religious figures and institutions, reflecting deeper divisions about what Islam stands for in the 21st century. At the core of the differences is the ability and willingness to empathise with innocent victims […]

The post Gaza Conflict Ends Up Separating Wheat From Chaff Among Religious Leaders first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Israel’s options are central to discussions about the day after the guns fall silent in Gaza. Absent from the debate is what Palestinians want. Also absent is any discussion of funding for Gaza’s reconstruction, although the assumption is that oil-rich Gulf states will step up to the plate. The significance of […]

The post Israel In Gaza: Only Limited Options Available When The Guns Fall Silent first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey It took 11 days and the death of 256 Palestinians for US President Joe Biden’s preference for a bear hug rather than a sledgehammer approach to get Israel to halt the Gaza bombing in 2021. Even then, Biden needed to be blunt and go public to get what he wanted. After […]

The post President Biden’s Bear Hug Of Israel’s Netanyahu Is A Double-Edged Sword first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Israel will likely win the Gaza war on the battlefield. Even so, it has already been defeated in the court of public opinion. It no longer really matters who attacked Gaza’s Al Ahli Arab Hospital in which hundreds of innocent civilians were killed or the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church in […]

The post Israel May Win Gaza War, But It Has Already Lost The Battle For Public Opinion first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Human beings’ most destructive instincts – survival, anger, fear, despair, and vengeance – dictate Israeli and Palestinian war strategy and policy in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 brutal attack on Israel. The dominance of emotions produces an environment in which one atrocity justifies another and reinforces Israeli and Palestinian demonization […]

The post Emotions Fuel Gaza War, Burying All Hopes Of Resolving Israeli-Palestine Conflict first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Islamic Law is at the centre of debates about what constitutes moderate Islam and what it would take to reform Islam. Essentially, two schools of thought dominate the discussion. Islam’s traditional approach simply picks and chooses which elements of Sharia it opts to ignore. That is the approach adopted by autocratic […]

The post A Tunisian Party Evolves From Islamism To Muslim Democracy first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey A Saudi-Israeli agreement to establish diplomatic relations involving enhanced US commitments to Gulf security could be a game-changer for great power rivalry in the Middle East. To be sure, US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu face formidable obstacles in paying the price tag Saudi Arabia puts on […]

The post Saudi-Israeli Deal Would Be A Gamechanger, But Not For Discussed Reasons first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey It’s a no-brainer to suggest that we live in an increasingly polarised world. Geopolitics are polarised, so are societies. Polarisation marks the transition from a unipolar world dominated by the United States to a bipolar world with China, or more likely a tripolar world that includes India, in which middle powers […]

The post The ‘Global Enduring Disorder’ In An Increasingly Polarised World first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Debates about the US commitment to Gulf security are skewed by confusion, miscommunication, and contradictory policies. The skewing has fuelled uncertainty about US policy as well as Gulf attitudes in an evolving multi-polar world and fuelled misconceptions and misunderstandings. The confusion is all the more disconcerting given that the fundamentals of […]

The post Confusion And Uncertainty Shape Debate About United States’ Gulf Policy first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey An unexpected twist in the run-up to next year’s Indonesian presidential election puts Centrist Democratic International (CDI), the world’s largest alliance of conservative political parties, and Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest and most moderate Muslim civil society movement, in a bind. In a surprise move, Muhaimin Iskander, leader of the National […]

The post Indonesian Presidential Election Produces An Unexpected Twist first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Saudi Arabia’s stunning sports acquisition blitz, alongside Qatari and Emirati European club purchases, may reshape the beautiful game, just not in ways Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Gulf rulers like Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani envisioned. The Gulf’s impact on European and world soccer could be determined […]

The post A Global Challenge Emerging To Shifting Of Global Sports Capital To Arabian Sands first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey An Indonesian push for a Southeast Asian return to values rooted in an ancient Indo civilisation amounts to an innovative attempt to manage polarisation. Exploiting its rotating chairmanship of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia this week inaugurated the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue. The dialogue opened by […]

The post Indonesia Pushes A Civilizational Approach To Countering Polarisation first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.

  BY James M Dorsey   For Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, religious reform has long been a question of when rather than if. Bin Salman’s potential embrace of religious, not just social and economic reform, could have far-reaching consequences for the role of religion in Saudi Arabia and religious soft power rivalry in […]

The post Saudi Arabia’s Bin Salman Toys With Religious Reforms Adding To Soft Power Rivalry first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey A recent 27-year, four million-tonne liquefied natural gas (LNG) Qatari export agreement with China, the longest in gas export history, highlights different Gulf state approaches to navigating big power rivalry between the People’s Republic and the United States. Widely seen as giving China a grip on Qatari gas, the deal is […]

The post Qatar, America’s Best Friend In The Gulf, Is Simultaneously Wooing China first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey The sigh of relief in a swath of land stretching from China to Africa’s Atlantic coast was audible when Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch who heads the Wagner Group, a state-funded private military company, called off his mutiny against President Vladimir Putin’s military and security establishment. So were the concerns and […]

The post China, Others Grappling With Understanding Meaning Of Wagner Group Revolt first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s four-day red carpet visit to the United States constitutes a microcosm of what a 21st-world order century will likely look like. The visit spotlights the adjustments the United States faces in transitioning from a US-dominated unipolar world to a multipolar world populated by three major powers – […]

The post Modi’s U.S. Visit Spotlights America’s Policy Choices first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Since arriving in Saudi Arabia five months ago, soccer superstar Ronaldo has scored 14 goals in 16 games for his new club, Al Nassr. Yet, more was needed for Al Nassr to win the Saudi championship or advance in the Saudi Cup. Even so, Ronaldo’s presence has helped improve the competitive […]

The post Saudi Crown Prince’s Bid To Piggyride Ronaldo Popularity first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Religious conservatives and nationalists in the Muslim world and beyond have the wind in their sails. So do Arab autocrats, even if they increasingly cloak themselves in nationalism rather than religious conservatism. Last week’s first election round in Turkey saw conservatives and ultra-nationalists win control of parliament. At the same time, […]

The post Culture Wars Bubble Below The Surface Across Arab Region first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey With Saudi-hosted talks to end Sudan fighting producing minimal results and Arab states supporting rival forces, de-escalation in the Middle East faces a major test. So does Gulf states’ ability to employ dollar diplomacy to persuade poorer Arab brethren to align with the policies of countries like Saudi Arabia and the […]

The post Sudan Tests The Limits Of Middle Eastern De-Escalation, Dollar Diplomacy first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey America to the rescue. In a twist of irony, that may be Central Asia’s only alternative, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine upsetting the region’s security apple cart. The question is whether the United States, already rejiggering its commitment to security in the Middle East, has the will and wherewithal to […]

The post Central Asia And Caucasus May Turn Out To Be Indo-Pacific’s Next Stop first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey A schism that could tear the Anglican church apart is about more than LGBTQ rights. It’s about fundamental cultural and religious differences with potentially profound consequences for the geopolitical battle to shape a 21st-century world order. The rift also raises questions about the Church of England’s priorities at a time when […]

The post Anglican Schism Over Gay Rights Is Not Just About Theology, But Geopolitics first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey Think that the modern nation-state originated with the emergence of the 17th-century beginnings of the era of science and reason? Think again. In a recently published book, political scientist Anna Gryzmala-Busse traces the origins of the modern state to medieval Europe when religion and the church played a powerful role rather […]

The post Nation-State Inspired By Religion, But Politics Making A Difference first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey America is in decline. Eclipsed by China’s rise, it is shifting attention from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. That is one refrain in the analysis of three seemingly paradigm-challenging developments in the past month: a Chinese-mediated restoration of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the kingdom’s association with the […]

The post The Fallacy Of US Policy To Effect A Withdrawal From Middle East first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By James M Dorsey A Gulf investor with an analytical and artistic bent, Ali al-Salim pinpointed the long-term challenges Saudi Arabia faces as it re-establishes relations with Iran. While most analysts focused on the immediate reduction of regional tensions and the possible opening for an end to the eight-year-long Saudi military intervention in Yemen as […]

The post Unleashing Of An Iranian Tiger: Politics Over Tourist Attractions first appeared on IPA Newspack.