AboutArticles by Michael Jansen

American airstrikes on Syria sheer overkill

28 Feb 2021

“America is back. America is back!” proclaims US President Joe Biden. Indeed, America is back, back bombing eastern Syria. Bombing pro-Iranian militias which Biden accuses of mounting strikes on Iraqi...

Reform expected

25 Feb 2021

On Feb. 15 the World Trade Organisation (WTO) elected Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the body’s seventh director general. She is the first woman and the first African to hold this post....

Biden faces hurdles on return to Iran deal

21 Feb 2021

US President Joe Biden’s acceptance of an invitation from the European Union to attend talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal amounts to capitulation to pressure from the other six...

Rising to the challenge

18 Feb 2021

British human rights lawyer Karim Khan has been elected chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to succeed Gambia’s politically controversial Fatou Bensouda. Although previous prosecutors have been...

The stakes for Mahmoud Abbas in Palestinian polls

14 Feb 2021

By scheduling elections for this year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas seeks to recover democratic legitimacy with disaffected Palestinians and impress the Biden administration in the hope Washington will seriously pursue...

Covid takes another hero

11 Feb 2021

Covid-19 is no respecter of persons. It infects rich and poor alike and kills persons who have both harmed and benefitted countries where they dwell. Last week the virus...

Trump may not be convicted of impeachment

07 Feb 2021

Donald Trump's impeachment trial formally opens in the divided US Senate tomorrow with little expectation he will be convicted. He faces the sole charge of "incitement of insurrection" which...

Protesting for revolution

05 Feb 2021

Tunisia, the only democracy to emerge from the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, and Lebanon, a quasi-democracy where a political revolt was launched in October 2019, now face economic protests...

A good choice for the Iran deal negotiations

02 Feb 2021

Peacemakers have won the first skirmish in the Biden administration’s battle to re-enter the six-party 2015 deal with Iran for sanctions relief in exchange for limitations on its nuclear programme....

A good start

29 Jan 2021

During his first days in office, US President Joe Biden has signed dozens of executive orders cancelling his predecessor’s most damaging decrees, including the ban on the entry of Muslims...

Michael Jansen

The author, a well-respected observer of Middle East affairs, has three books on the Arab-Israeli conflict.