Thanks, Trump: Canada May Join EU as ‘Associate Member
Can a country change continents? Canada seems set to try. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced an intention to seek some novel form of associate membership in the European Union. It’s no mere flight of fancy, either, as Ursula von der Leyen, president of...
The Flood Didn’t Begin with the Rain
When the floodwaters began to recede from Upper Assam in July 2026, the immediate policy response understandably focused on rainfall, flooding, relief and damaged infrastructure. But the scale of the disaster raises a broader governance question: Did environmental and...
Democracy for Sale?
The Question Democracy Cannot Escape What if the greatest threat to democracy is not the voter who has lost faith in it, but the billionaire who has learned how to buy it? Democracy rests on a straightforward promise: one citizen, one vote, an equal political voice....
The Odyssey: The Wounds of Violating Deepest Values
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” a new adaptation of Homer’s epic tale of Odysseus’ perilous journey home after the Trojan War, is already being described as a case study in post-traumatic stress disorder. But even more so, actor Matt Damon’s tortured and broken...
More Unlimited Money in American Politics?
A decades-old law limiting how much money political parties can spend in coordination with candidates was struck down by the Supreme Court on June 30, 2026. Citing First Amendment principles, the court held in NRSC v. FEC that the limit unduly prevented political...
Poison Beneath Our Feet
How Assam's Fluoride Crisis Is Stealing Childhoods—and What It Can Teach India and the World In policy discussions on environmental risk, attention often gravitates toward air pollution, industrial waste, climate change, and plastic contamination. Yet one of the most...
Why Washington Still Misunderstands Iran
Understanding the Internal Struggle Behind the Islamic Republic Women protest on March 8, 1979, against the compulsory headscarf (Hijab) In the spring of 1983, I witnessed an event that shaped my understanding of Iran. In central Mashhad, a young...
Rethinking U.S. Security Guarantees in the Gulf
Iran’s strategic strikes have exploded the myth that America’s military presence can shield the Gulf’s vulnerable economies. Wars in the Middle East are often decided less by what is destroyed than by what continues functioning afterward — and how quickly those...
Why Trump’s Push to Expand the Abraham Accords Is Destined to Fail?
As negotiations to end the Iran war continued on May 25, Donald Trump made a series of phone calls in which he pressed key leaders from the Middle East to join the Abraham Accords. Announced in 2020, these accords established diplomatic relations between Israel and...
Iran: Why Does Leadership Decapitation Fail?
The coordinated U.S.-Israeli strikes at the outset of the war in Iran killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, along with other key regime figures. In doing so, the United States and Israel crossed what The New York Times and others described as “a new Rubicon”: the...