Middle East

From the Black Sea to Krasnodar and Kyiv, Ukraine and Russia are trading long‑range blows. Inside the U.S., an Afghan evacuee now charged over an alleged TikTok bomb plot in Texas.

Back home I kept checking my watch as if Iraq still owned my hours, wrestling to set down anger and pride so I could ask the only question that matters: what moral ground must we stand on before we spend blood again.

Trump rattled the saber then slid it back in the scabbard, as a disputed breach strains Gaza’s shaky ceasefire and one careless trigger pull could light the whole map.

Amid a fragile ceasefire and aid stacked at the gates, Mansour spoke at length yet never said whether Hamas will disarm, the only answer that could turn a pause into peace.

Sayeret Matkal is Israel’s most elite special operations unit. It has been setting special operations standards since its creation.

Thousands of miles from home like sand in the wind, I moved through Iraq’s villages learning the hearts of its people as Majnun once wandered, yet the constant guiding me through rain and dust was my Leila, the radiant beacon calling me home.

Phase One feels like slapping a tourniquet on a two year hemorrhage, buying enough breath to get the hostages out, pull the troops back, and see if anyone is ready to run Gaza without the gunsmoke.

Two years after 7 October, the Middle East feels like riding around in the desert in a Humvee with a grenade with the pin half-pulled, grinding from Gaza to the Red Sea while diplomats in Cairo try to keep the spoon down and stop hostages, rockets, and headlines from detonating at once.

After the winter rains, the Shia south unfurled like a green flag—desert lakes flashing in the morning sun, children in new clothes racing our convoys, vendors offering kabobs, and every smile saying the same thing: Saddam is gone.

The war of terror is not fought with bombs or bullets, but in the human heart, where fear seeks to claim ground that only we can choose to surrender.

Years of envy and humiliation had hardened into a poverty of consciousness, where cruelty was mistaken for devotion and crime disguised itself as holy war.

In the desert’s crucible, where ego burned away, I discovered that truth itself could be the strongest shield a man might carry.