Articles by: Amin Saikal

The turbulent state of the Middle East The Middle East is on the boil more than could have been expected a decade ago. It has been transformed into a zone of conflicts within conflicts, which have bedevilled the region from Afghanistan to Syria to Palestine to Yemen to Libya. It has gained the notorious reputation of being the most unstable, turbulent and insecure region of the world. Authoritarianism, violent extremism, human rights violations, social and…

The oil-rich but volatile Muslim Middle East, including North Africa, is falling apart. It is in the grip of multiple humanitarian and geopolitical crises and balance-of-power shifts, of a scale perhaps not seen since the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the British- French colonial remapping of the region nearly a century ago. The old correlation of forces in support of maintaining the status quo, especially following the 1978-79 Iranian revolution, is altering. A set…