Gulf Arab countries have nowhere to look for a bailout of their own private sector, like in the UAE, once the envy of the Arab world, as the banks just can’t pull it off. New friendships can flourish as underdogs like Morocco come out winners. But what about Iran? It’s often said that the Achilles’…
Across the Middle East, the coronavirus is stirring up both upheavals and more subtle changes from Tel Aviv to Riyadh, little reported and when covered little understood in the Western media. In Israel, the virus has enabled that master political magician Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pull off yet another spectacular escape as improbable as…
The New Cold War between the US and China abruptly took a new form following the global outbreak of COVID-19, but Beijing still has a solid chance of coming out on top in this struggle for global leadership if it accurately assesses the changed geostrategic situation in the Eastern Hemisphere and accordingly crafts the right…
On 24 March 1947, a US C-47 military transport plane that was en route from Jeddah to Addis Ababa via Asmara crashed into mountains north of the Ethiopian capital, killing six Americans on board, including the US petroleum attache, and the Beirut-based cultural attache, Daniel Dennett. Seventy years later, Daniel Dennett’s daughter Charlotte is still trying to…
While the Coronavirus continues to ravage almost every nation on earth, Arab countries remain unable, or unwilling, to formulate a collective strategy to help the poorest and most vulnerable Arabs survive the deadly virus and its economic fallout. Worse, amid growing international solidarity, we are yet to see a pan-Arab initiative that aims to provide…
It is quite clear that the Coronavirus has resulted not only in a significant impact on people and their health, and in a negative effect on economics and politics but also in the break-up of fragile alliances that were the pride of many nations at some point in the past. For example, the Cooperation Council…
