An esteemed Arab League ‘grandee’ recently thundered that it was impossible for the Arab world to accept anything – ‘other’- than 21st century modern secularism: Islamism was forbidden. Egypt’s ‘coup’ (“if you wish to call it such”, against the elected Muslim Brotherhood government) was absolutely appropriate, he insisted. An Islamist government would have been intolerable,…
Notwithstanding the increase in power of the “Axis of the Resistance”, with its precision missiles and unrivalled accumulated warfare experience, the possibility of war is still on the table. The “Axis of the Resistance” is increasing its readiness based on the possibility that Israel may not tolerate the presence of such a serious threat on…
Many Iranians question the benefits of arming and financing Iran’s many allies in the Middle East while Iran is suffering the harshest ever US “maximum pressure”. Iran’s allies are spread over Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Is Iranian support for these allies the main cause of the US’s aggressive attitude towards the Iranian…
Take Jordan (or Lebanon) as an example: Both have a broken economic model. One, (Lebanon), has had its huge deficits financed by expatriate remittances; and the other (Jordan), has had its budget deficits (6% of GDP), until now covered by annual stipends provided by Gulf States and the US (the EU provides relatively little financial…
As smoke rises over Lebanon’s capital Beirut, scenes of utter chaos stand in sharp contrast to protesters’ once-peaceful calls for reforms. With the Lebanese all but out of patience, the country now sits on the edge of civil war. Hundreds were injured this weekend during violent clashes which pitted protesters against security forces in Beirut…
Iraq and Lebanon have been rocked once again by mass protests and violent repression under conditions in which discredited caretaker governments in both countries have failed to meet any of the social and political demands made by hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets. The resurgence of the street demonstrations, which broke out…
