author - oman observer

President Joe Biden invited me for lunch at the White House last Monday. But it was all off the record — so I can’t tell you anything he said.I can, though, tell you two things — what I ate and...

It has long been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. By that definition, we’re the ones detached from reality if we...

If you just followed news reports on Ukraine, you might think that the war has settled into a long, grinding and somewhat boring slog. You would be wrong.Things are actually getting more dangerous by...

I am thinking about three people today whose behaviour could have a significant impact on the world in the coming months and possibly years: a soldier with no name, a politician with no shame and a...

As Vladimir Putin embarks on his plan B — a massive military operation to try to grab at least a small bite of eastern Ukraine to justify his misbegotten war — I thought: Who could give him the...

Almost six weeks into the war between Russia and Ukraine, I’m beginning to wonder if this conflict isn’t our first true ‘world war’ — much more than World War I or World War II ever were.In...

After a confusing month, it is now clear what strategies are playing out in Ukraine: We’re watching Vladimir Putin’s Plan B versus Joe Biden's Plan A and Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Plan A. Let us...

Every war brings surprises, but what is most striking about Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine — and indirectly against the whole democratic West — is how many of the bad surprises, so far,...

The battle for Ukraine unfolding before our eyes has the potential to be the most transformational event in Europe since World War II and the most dangerous confrontation for the world since the Cuban...

The seven most dangerous words in journalism are: “The world will never be the same.” In over four decades of reporting, I have rarely dared use that phrase. But I’m going there now in the wake...

Pretty much every crucial line in President Joe Biden’s recent marathon news conference has been dissected by now — except one, the one that may turn out to be the most prescient. You had to be...

Why is Vladimir Putin threatening to take another bite out of Ukraine, after devouring Crimea in 2014? That is not an easy question to answer because Putin is a one-man psychodrama, with a giant...

As I’ve noted before, one reason I pay very close attention to the Israeli-Palestinian arena is that a lot of trends get perfected there first and then go global — airline hijacking, suicide...

On Christmas morning, I woke up early and flipped on CNN, where I found the newscaster toggling among three news stories — two really depressing ones and an amazingly uplifting one.The first...