Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Media ID: 55380443
Caption:

President Donald Trump holds a rally with supporters at an arena in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 21, 2017. Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

In Dealing with North Korea, Trump Needs Allies

by David Ignatius | Aug 16, 2017 | Opinion

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has defiance in his blood. It’s said his grandfather once asked what would happen if the United States defeated North Korea in war, to which his father answered: “If we lose, I will be sure to destroy the Earth. What good is the Earth...

Media ID: 55380393
Caption:

People watch a television news showing file footage of a North Korean missile launch, at a railway station in Seoul on April 5, 2017. (AFP)

Trump is Right about North Korea

by David Ignatius | Aug 5, 2017 | Opinion

As President Trump nears the threshold of a military crisis with North Korea, he needs to sustain this early intuition — and not be driven into actions that may look tough but would leave every player worse off. The template hasn’t really changed from the Korean War...

Media ID: 55379996
Caption:

CIA Director Mike Pompeo. (Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press)

The CIA is Entering a Danger Zone

by David Ignatius | Jul 31, 2017 | Opinion

If the ghosts who inhabit the walls of the CIA could talk, they would tell Director Mike Pompeo to be careful. The agency is entering a danger zone where a White House in turmoil wants the CIA to take aggressive action overseas but hasn’t developed the clear strategy...

Media ID: 55379718
Caption:

Members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, drive on the western front in Raqqa, Syria, during an offensive by the SDF to retake the city from ISIS militants. (Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images

CIA and the ‘Anti-Assad’ Program

by David Ignatius | Jul 27, 2017 | Opinion

What did the CIA’s covert assistance program for Syrian rebels accomplish? Bizarrely, the biggest consequence may be that it helped trigger the Russian military intervention in 2015 that rescued President Bashar al-Assad — achieving the opposite of what the program...

Media ID: 55378796
Caption:

An artillerymen from the 82nd Airborne Division is photographed on a base north of Mosul.(Loveday Morris/The Washington Post)

America Can Succeed Militarily in the Mideast

by David Ignatius | Jul 15, 2017 | Opinion

What lessons can we take from ISIS’ defeat in Mosul and its coming eviction from Raqqa? The collapse of the so-called “caliphate” tells us that the United States can succeed militarily in the Middle East if — and probably only if — it works with local forces who are...