Punching above its weight, the United Arab Emirates is wielding a combination of religious soft power, commercial and economic sway, and hard power in its bid to counter political Islam in ways that potentially could threaten pillars of Western democracy as well as US and European strategic interests. The UAE’s footprint is visible across the…
Ethiopia, an African darling of the international community, is sliding towards civil war as the coronavirus pandemic hardens ethnic fault lines. The consequences of prolonged hostilities could echo across East Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Fighting between the government of Nobel Peace Prize winning Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Tigrayan nationalists in the…
An agreement to establish diplomatic relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel and a Saudi-Pakistani spat over Kashmir coupled with feuds among Gulf states and between Turkey, the kingdom, and the Emirates drive nails into the notion that the Arab and Islamic world by definition share common geopolitical interests on the basis of ethnicity…
In recent years, reports on political and economic landscape in African countries have increasingly more often mentioned Turkey. In fact, this is true not only for Libya and other African nations located on the Mediterranean coastline but also for countries in the center of this continent and south of the equator. Focusing on Africa has…
Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. The controversial peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has two fathers already – US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser on the Middle East, Jared Kushner, slyly claims to be a third father. Trump and…
A Palestinian move to secure Palestine’s energy needs by tying them to high-stakes Turkish regional gambits constitutes an effort to reduce Palestinian dependence on Israel at a time when the Jewish state is looking at annexing parts of the occupied West Bank. When Faed Mustafa, Palestine’s ambassador in Ankara, expressed interest in June in negotiating with…
