Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

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Richard Thaler, left, won the Nobel Prize in economics on Monday in part because he realized people act irrationally. Credit Scott Olson/Getty Images

The Art of Thinking Well

by David Brooks | Oct 20, 2017 | Opinion

Richard Thaler has just won an extremely well deserved Nobel Prize in economics. Thaler took an obvious point, that people don’t always behave rationally, and showed the ways we are systematically irrational. Thanks to his work and others’, we know a lot more about...

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People walk past damaged buildings in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria February 9, 2016. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

Syria: The Myth of a Regime Victorious

by Gareth Bayley | Oct 20, 2017 | Opinion

These are my last days as the UK Special Representative for Syria. As I look back at three short years in this role, much has changed in Syria, and yet much has remained the same. For sure, this conflict has seen far worse times and atrocities, the vast majority of...

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US President Barack Obama delivers remarks on a nuclear deal with Iran at American University in Washington August 5, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The Iran Deal: the Dog’s Dinner Obama Dished Out

by Amir Taheri | Oct 20, 2017 | Opinion

“Trump violates international treaty!” “Trump tears up pact signed by world powers!” These were some of the headlines that pretended to report US President Donald Trump’s move on the “Iran nuclear deal” last week. Some in the Western media even claimed that the move...

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei (Photo: AFP)

The Dangers of Refusing to Link JCPOA to Tehran’s Behavior

by Eyad Abu Shakra | Oct 19, 2017 | Opinion

“What is negotiation but the accumulation of small lies leading to advantage?” (Felix Dennis) It was a nail-biting moment for many as they waited for President Donald Trump to announce his position on “certifying” the nuclear agreement between major Western powers...

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French President Emmanuel Macron (C) speaks to the media as German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R), European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (L) and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (2nd from L) look on following a meeting of European Union leaders at the Chancellery on June 29, 2017 in Berlin | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

What Congress Should Do Now About Iran

by Jennifer Rubin | Oct 19, 2017 | Opinion

You’re a member of Congress who opposed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the grounds that the plan had critical flaws and the Obama administration had in essence given away too much without permanently cutting off Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. However, you...

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Iraqi forces advance towards the city of Kirkuk. (Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP)

The Kurdistan Quagmire Proves Newton’s Third Law

by David Ignatius | Oct 19, 2017 | Opinion

In this week’s crisis over Kirkuk, Iraqi Kurds are experiencing a painful version of Newton’s Third Law: In Middle East politics, as in physics, every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. The initial action was Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani’s decision...