This week’s inauguration of a new Red Sea Egyptian military base was pregnant with the symbolism of the rivalries shaping the future of the Middle East as well as north and east Africa. The inauguration took on added significance as rebel Libyan Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar, backed by United Arab Emirates crown prince Mohammed bin…
America’s hegemonic military agenda in the Middle East has reached a dangerous threshold. The assassination of IRGC General Soleimani ordered by the President of the United States on January 3, 2020 is tantamount to an Act of War against Iran. President Donald Trump accused Soleimani of “plotting imminent and sinister attacks”: “We took action last night…
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s dreams of leadership in the Muslim world may be fading, but they are still kept alive by Turkey’s ties with Qatar, which Ankara has shielded in the inter-Arab crisis in the Gulf since 2017. During Erdogan’s visit to Doha last week, the two sides signed seven cooperation accords — a welcome…
Two years ago, bloodcurdling threats were made by Saudi and Emirati state-controlled goons about what they would do to Qatar if it did not roll over like Bahrain and become a satellite of their bigger, stronger and wiser neighbours. They were going to dig a canal along Qatar’s land border and dump nuclear waste in…
The announcement that the football teams of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain will take part in the Gulf Cup (Khaliji 24) in Qatar at the end of the month has come as a surprise to many. All three countries had severed their ties with Doha in the summer of 2017 and imposed a blockade…
Surrounded by unyielding enemies of its own making, and cheered on by opportunist allies determined to suck its blood to the last drop, Saudi Arabia seems to have landed itself in an unprecedented predicament. There has probably been no other day on which its enormous wealth seemed so utterly useless. Now, US President Donald Trump, publicly…
