AboutArticles by Michael Jansen

Iraq’s broken state a legacy of George Bush

06 Oct 2019

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi is honest enough to state the obvious. In response to mass protests in Baghdad and the south, he said there is “no magic solution”...

Heart of a lion

04 Oct 2019

The names of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame have returned to the headlines again. Wilson has been remembered in laudatory obituaries after his death this week at the age of...

Ukraine affair could see the end of Donald Trump

29 Sep 2019

The launch by US Democrats of a long-overdue impeachment investigation into the current occupant of the White House has also resulted in a scandal which could force their leading presidential...

Shamsie paying the price for backing Palestinians

26 Sep 2019

Anglo-Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie staunchly supports the “Boycott, Divest and Sanction” (BDS) movement designed to put pressure on Israel over its brutal treatment of the Palestinians, although her stand has...

Netanyahu on shaky ground in bid for second term

22 Sep 2019

Israel’s second parliamentary election this year has taken the country back to square one: to political deadlock between sitting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and challenger Benny Gantz. Netanyahu, who has...

The spy who tried to stop a war

19 Sep 2019

In early 2003, Katherine Gun, an unknown Mandarin Chinese translator with British intelligence, tried to foil the US-UK conspiracy to wage their disastrous war on Iraq. Last week, a film, entitled Official...

Sacked Bolton wanted war, not peace, in Afghanistan

15 Sep 2019

Donald Trump’s summary firing of National Security adviser John Bolton was hardly surprising. Bolton’s dismissal followed Trump’s cancellation of his meeting with the Taliban at the US presidential retreat at...

Trump's empty promises

12 Sep 2019

Donald Trump’s decision to call off negotiations and a covert face-to-face meeting with the Taliban demonstrated, once again, that he is a loose cannon on the international scene. Trump had...

Trump’s sanctions on Iran are connected with Israel

08 Sep 2019

Washington has missed multiple opportunities to improve relations or reconcile with Iran since the 1979 Iranian “revolution”that toppled the Shah, a longstanding US ally. The latest occupant of the White...

Preserving dignity

05 Sep 2019

Trump-administration driven Western sanctions are blocking the massive reconstruction aid and investment Syria needs to rebuild. Syrians refer to the present phase of the conflict gripping their country as “economic...

Michael Jansen

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