The Middle East. Could there be a more perilous place on Earth, including North Korea? Not likely. The planet’s two leading nuclear armed powers backing battling proxies amply supplied with conventional weapons; terror groups splitting and spreading; religious-sectarian wars threatening amid a plethora of ongoing armed hostilities stretching from Syria to Iraq to Yemen. And…
Could the Saudis pressure Washington to axe Qatar’s access to SWIFT? There is nothing worse than a called bluff. One of these days Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will learn this. But, so far he hasn’t. Today was the initial deadline for Qatar to comply with his insane list of demands. A list no…
Late last week, Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that are involved in attempting to isolate Qatar sent the tiny Gulf nation a list of 13 demands. They are insisting that Qatar meet these demands within ten days or face unspecified further action. The list of demands includes Qatar shutting…
The draconian deadline by the Saudi axis on Qatar failed to force surrender. Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have now extended the deadline till later this week. In a battle of nerves, the Saudi rulers blinked first. This is partly because the Saudi-led coalition of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have over-reached in their…
In the event you have noticed the hullabaloo about Qatar and wonder what it is about, it is about Al Jazeera, a news organization, established by the Emir who rules the oil and gas sheikdom on the Persian Gulf. Al Jezeera is far more professional than any news organization in the West. Al Jazeera’s problem…
As widely anticipated, tensions between members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are slowly corroding the unity of Washington’s allies in the Middle East In a series of almost unprecedented events among Washington’s regional allies, the crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar seems to worsen by the day. The long-awaited list of demands presented to Doha by Riyadh seem…
