Middle East & North Africa

The COVID-19 crisis has no silver lining, and the virus is unresponsive to the instruments of power that the Islamic Republic has amassed.

Since last October, Iraqis have staged peaceful anti-government protests throughout Baghdad and the southern provinces. These mass protest movements have drawn attention for their unifying nationalistic rhetoric, their irreverence for traditional societal and political figures, and for their strict adherence to peaceful means in the face of increasing brutality by the government’s forces and paramilitary groups.

BEIRUT — Since President Donald Trump revealed his plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace last Tuesday, Arab states individually and collectively, in their actions and statements, have offered a dizzying array of reactions. These range from approval and mild acquiescence to soft support and absolute rejection. 

The combinations of contradictory actions and statements have been more striking than usual, due to the convoluted political positions most Arab leaders found themselves in. Three Arab ambassadors attended the Washington, D.C. unveiling event that seemed like a post-victory locker room celebration by right-wing Israelis and their fanatic American supporters. A few Arab states issued statements appreciating Trump’s efforts and urging a peace agreement to be forged through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (rather than through this plan’s narrow extremist American-Israeli lineage). And on Saturday night the Arab League summit of foreign ministers issued a collective and “complete” rejection of the plan, noting it would not lead to a just peace because “it does not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people.”

Rami Khouri's on Euronews TV discussing the Trump-Netanyahu Middle East initiative.

The American betrayal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) bears an uncanny resemblance to what happened in Kirkuk two years ago. The geopolitical dynamics are strikingly similar: Turkish hostility to Kurdish aspirations, American intransigence and unwillingness to support the Kurdish allies they relied on to defeat the Islamic State, resulting in a win for Iran.

For years, Turkey’s government allowed Islamic State fighters to cross its territory into Syria. But, before Monday, there were no Islamic State fighter elements along Turkey’s border with Syria because Kurds, Arabs and Christians expelled them with help from the U.S. military. Today, these U.S. allies are running for their lives.

Four successive Israeli aerial attacks in recent days against Arab targets in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon suggest that we have entered an unprecedented new phase of the century-old conflict between Arabism and Zionism that now engulfs half a dozen actors, including non-Arab Iran.This new phase comprises both short-term possibilities and more complex longer-term questions. 

Decades after invading Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, the US now is negotiating with them.

The United States announced earlier this week that it seeks to build a coalition of countries to guarantee freedom of navigation in strategic Gulf waters.

The U.S. has launched part of its plan to bring peace to the Middle East. Officials from the U.S., Israel, and Arab States are meeting in Bahrain. Rami Khouri speaks on the implications of this workshop.