Arab World

Opening of shipping Routes from Ukraine will not Lessen Commodity and Food pressure on the Middle East and North Africa

By Roman Shemakov | – Russia and Ukraine are two of the most essential pillars of the global food trade, producing 25 percent of the global wheat supply. More than 160 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, food, commodity, and energy shortages have plunged many economies across the world into recessions, particularly in the Middle East, […]

Climate Crisis

19 Years ago America Really Wanted Iraq’s Basra for its Oil, which is now Making it Uninhabitable

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Poet Robert Frost asked if the world would end by fire or ice. It turns out that it is both, the fire of global heating and the melting of earth’s surface ice and resultant biblical floods. Nowhere is this more clear than in Iraq. Not everyone will suffer equally from […]

Authoritarianism

How Trump helped Sportswash Saudi Arabia

Tomdispatch

By Robert Lipsyte | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Here’s the big question in Jock Culture these days: Is the Kingdom of Golf being used to sportswash the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Or is it the other way around? After all, what other major sport could use a sandstorm of Middle Eastern murder and human-rights […]

Afghanistan

Pact Act is Vindication for Vets after US Denied for Years that Burn Pits in Afghanistan and Iraq made them Ill

The Conversation

By Jason A. Higgins, Virginia Tech | – During a 13-month stint in Iraq that began in 2006, Heath Robinson served as a medic with the Ohio National Guard. Like thousands of others soldiers stationed there, he was routinely exposed to toxic smoke emanating from what are known as burn pits. Located near military bases, […]

Bashar al-Assad

Biden Calls on Syria to Return Journalist ‘Disappeared’ a Decade Ago

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch ) – Last week, US President Joe Biden declared that the US knows “with certainty” that Tice has been held by the Syrian government. “I am calling on Syria to end this and help us bring him home,” Biden said in a statement. Tice, who was covering the conflict in Syria […]

Displaced and Refugees

How displaced Syrians effectively navigated ‘border frictions’ in Lebanon and Turkey

The Conversation

By Suzan Ilcan, University of Waterloo and Secil Dagtas, University of Waterloo | – The Syrian conflict began in early March 2011 on the heels of the Arab Spring as pro-democracy uprisings in Syria demanded regime change and political reform. The conflict transformed into a war. More than 13 million people have either escaped the […]

Arab World

Russian Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East: New Trends, Old Traditions: A Review

Marc Martorell Junyent

Bonn (Special to Informed Comment) – Review of Nikolay Kozhanov (ed.), Russian Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East: New Trends, Old Traditions (London: Hurst and Co., 2022). “Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. […]

Arab World

‘Cascading’ climate risks in the Middle East and North Africa

China Dialogue

By Glada Lahn | – ( China Dialogue) – The next two United Nations climate negotiations will take place in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). COP27 will be in Egypt this November, followed by COP28 in the United Arab Emirates next year. Climate change has only recently gained mainstream attention in MENA, […]

Featured

Taken for a Ride: Saudi-led OPEC+ snubs Biden with tiny Oil Increase, Despite Arms Sales, Fist Bump

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – At its meeting in Vienna yesterday, the enlarged “+” version of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States (OPEC+) decided to increase output by only 100,000 barrels per day, a vanishingly small amount that will have no impact on lowering gasoline prices and which does US President Joe Biden virtually no […]