The fallout from the September attack on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil facilities is continuing to reverberate throughout the Middle East, sidelining old enmities—sometimes for new ones—and re-drawing traditional alliances. While Turkey’s recent invasion of northern Syria is grabbing the headlines, the bigger story may be that major regional players are contemplating some historic re-alignments. After…
Oh, oh, here we are again! In 1967, it was then the ‘threat’ of the standing Arab Armies (and the ensuing six-day war on Egypt and Syria); in 1980, it was Iran (and the ensuing Iraqi war on Iran); in 1996, it was David Wurmser with his Coping with Crumbling States (flowing on from the…
When US Defence Secretary Mark Esper was asked this week to confirm President Donald Trump’s assertion that Islamic State group (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died “whimpering and crying” as he ran into a tunnel, he said he couldn’t: “I don’t have those details.” As someone who has never seen action in his life, and watched this…
There have been protests (mostly pointing up economic stress) across the region for some months: from Egypt to Iraq. But the Lebanese demonstrations have caught the global attention. And there is no doubting that the Lebanese protests represent a major phenomenon. We may ask whether they are essentially a local manifestation, reflecting only the well-attested…
Donald Trump’s Sunday morning speech announcing the targeted assassination of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Baker al-Baghdadi was another degraded spectacle expressing the criminalization of the US government and the terminal crisis of American democracy. Trump reveled in what he described as the “ruthless,” “vicious” and “violent” killing of the ISIS…
In days gone by, I used to compare the Trump presidency with the Arab dictatorships. He took preposterous pleasure in the company of Egypt’s Sisi (60,000 political prisoners) and his inane ramblings had much in common with those of Muammar Gaddafi, who also “authored” a book he never wrote but whom Trump never met (albeit…
