The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, despite a series of setbacks and defeats on the battlefield, has “moved aggressively to prevent regime collapse” with backing from foreign troops and Iranian financial support, according to an analysis written by Phillip Smyth yesterday in Foreign Policy. Smyth noted that many Iraqi Shiite fighters...

There is a third option beyond a bad nuclear deal or war with Iran, Yishai Schwartz argued in a post Tuesday for the Brookings Institution’s Lawfare blog. Schwartz acknowledged the weaknesses in the emerging deal—the sunset provision allowing Iran an unconstrained nuclear program in ten years, the unlikelihood of being able to...

Pushing back against recent statements insisting that Iran be required to make its military sites available to nuclear inspectors, Iranian foreign minister and lead nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif said that a nuclear deal between the West and Iran was possible in a “reasonable period of time,” if the West doesn’t...

During last summer’s Operation Protective Edge, Hamas summarily executed 23 men and used Shifa hospital to interrogate and torture prisoners according to Amnesty International, The Washington Post reported yesterday. The Amnesty report describes Hamas forces targeting Palestinians suspected of assisting Israel and executing at least 23 people extrajudicially. … Six...

Have you ever noticed that when you are visiting your bank’s website or checking out at an ecommerce site, the cursor inexplicably vanishes and you have to move your mouse to get it back? This “trick” is part of how an award-winning Israeli fraud-busting startup is keeping users safe online....

Speaking at a conference on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon argued that Iran has no interest in securing a stable Iraq, The Times of Israel reported. “He who did not allow stability in Iraq since 2003 is Iran,” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said at the Fisher Institute for Air...

A team of researchers from Israel’s Technion and the University of North Texas won a $125,000 first prize in a competition sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for their innovative method of desalinating water, The Times of Israel reported Wednesday. Aided by the prize money, the winners plan...

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that any nuclear deal with Iran must allow for inspections of all sites, “including military sites,” that inspectors suspect may be used or have been used for nuclear purposes, The Hill reported today. “France will not accept (a deal) if it is not clear that...

The treatment of Nepalese migrant workers building the World Cup 2022 venues in Qatar has come into focus in the wake of last month’s devastating earthquake, the Daily Beast reported today. The Nepalese workers were forbidden to return home for funerals of relatives. As reported by The Guardian, Tek Bahadur...

Yukiya Amano, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said that inspection of military sites would be an essential part of any nuclear with Iran to ensure that the Islamic Republic cannot develop nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported today. In an interview with AFP and...