Arab World

By Tutku Ayhan and Güneş Murat Tezcür | – It’s been five years since the Islamic State killed 3,100 Yazidi people in Iraq – mostly men and the elderly – forced 6,800 women and children into sexual slavery, marriage or religious conversion and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing. The Islamic State saw the Yazidis as […]

Lebanon

Lebanon’s October Revolution: Resistance and Popular Culture

Middle East Monitor

By Amal Ghazal | – I am following Lebanon’s October Revolution from Vancouver. Between me and the revolution stand two continents, an ocean, a sea and a 10-hour time difference. However, the connections between me and what I watch on my screen render time and space irrelevant. In fact, the distance draws me closer to […]

Donald Trump

It Isn’t only Syrian Kurds who Feel abandoned by Trump: Ask the Iraqis

The Conversation

By Mieczysław P. Boduszyński | – In all the hand-wringing that critics and commentators have done since President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria, one of the common refrains emphasizes the breach of trust between Washington and its Kurdish militia partners. Some scholars of international relations put little stock in […]

Lebanon

Lebanon’s Peaceful Protesters have One Demand: The Whole Rotten Elite Must Go

Waging Nonviolence

By Jenny Gustafsson | – (Via Waging Nonviolence) – Unlike previous movements, demonstrations in Lebanon have spread to all parts of the country and are targeting the entire political establishment. Holding a megaphone, a women chants to the crowds gathered at Martyrs’ Square in the middle of central Beirut, “We are the revolution of the […]

censorship

Beacon on a Hill: Iraq Hitting Protesters so Hard even Medics are Attacked

Human Rights Watch

Fire Teargas, Live Ammunition; Destroy Medical Tents

Iran

How Saudi-Iranian oil rivalry has been shaped by American power

The Conversation

By Sukru Cildir | – The relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran, both oil-rich states in the Middle East, has oscillated from co-operation to conflict throughout history. Alongside a range of factors that shape their rivalry including sectarianism and nationalism has been the politics of oil. Oil is a strategic international commodity, and its use […]

Archaeology

Did Ancient Iraq’s Huge Assyrian Empire Rise and Fall on Climate Change?

The Conversation

By Ashish Sinha and Gayatri Kathayat | – Ancient Mesopotamia, the fabled land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, was the command and control center of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This ancient superpower was the largest empire of its time, lasting from 912 BC to 609 BC in what is now modern Iraq and Syria. […]

Iran

Iraq Protests Heat Up Long-Standing Rivalry Between Iraqi And Iranian Shiite Religious Leaders

Niqash

By Elias Thomas | – ( Niqash.org) – Behind the scenes of Iraq’s demonstrations, a decades-old rivalry between two centres of religious learning and authority, one local and the other in Iran, is playing out. 3.11.2019 Politics Protests in Baghdad. In early October, snipers shot at unarmed protesters on the streets of Iraq, who were […]

Lebanon

The Map: Beirut’s Demonstrations as Live City-Making

Global Voices

By Filip Noubel | – (GlobalVoices.org) – The protests that have swept Lebanon since October 17, 2019 started as a reaction to the announcement by the government of new taxes. They have since evolved into a rejection of the political and economic model that has allowed local elites to maintain control over the country since […]