Arab World

Tunisia’s President just made the kind of Coup Trump and US Republicans plotted (and are plotting) Against President Biden

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al Jazeera reports that Tunisian President Kais Saied dismissed the prime minister, prorogued parliament for 30 days, stripped parliamentarians of their immunity and appointed himself the country’s attorney general in what the opposition branded a coup. Opposition leaders pointed out that the Tunisian constitution does not grant the president the […]

Government surveillance

Calls to hold Israel and its NSO Group Accountable for Global hacking scandal, as UAE Role bulks Large

Middle East Monitor

By Nasim Ahmed | – The global hacking scandal involving Israel’s notorious NSO Group has sparked fury around the world as the full extent of the industrial scale spying operation targeting politicians, academics and activists begin to emerge. As many as 50,000 phone numbers were said to have been targeted for surveillance by NSO Group’s […]

Corruption

Trump Associate Indicted for being Agent for Emirates, Covertly Shaping US Mideast Policy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Donald Trump as president dumped the Paris Climate Accord, withdrew from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, endorsed the 2017 blockade of Qatar by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and pushed for declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood had been part of the 2011 uprisings against […]

Afghanistan

Who Authorized America’s Wars? And Why They Never End

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Sometimes, as I consider America’s never-ending wars of this century, I can’t help thinking of those lyrics from the Edwin Starr song, “(War, huh) Yeah! (What is it good for?) Absolutely nothing!” I mean, remind me, what good have those disastrous, failed, still largely ongoing conflicts done […]

Iran

America’s Afghan War Is Over, So What About Iraq – and Iran?

Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold

( Code Pink) – At Bagram air-base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of U.S. military equipment that was until recently the headquarters of America’s 20-year occupation of their country. Afghan officials say the last U.S. forces slipped away from Bagram in the dead of night, without notice or coordination. The Taliban […]

Human Rights

Saudi Arabia: New Details of Alleged Torture Leaked

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch ) – (Beirut) – New accounts have emerged of alleged torture of high-profile political detainees in Saudi prisons, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities failed to independently and credibly investigate allegations that Saudi authorities tortured Saudi women’s rights activists and others detained in early 2018, including with electric shocks, beatings, […]

Iraq

Waiting for US withdrawal, is Russia eyeing Iraq’s oil?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – When the George W. Bush administration launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003, many believed the campaign’s main goal was to gain control of the country’s oil. Almost two decades later, most U.S. oil corporations have exited Iraq and the last major, ExxonMobil, appears to be on the way […]

Petroleum

Does the end of Bromance between Saudi’s Bin Salman and UAE’s Bin Zayed mean Breakup of OPEC?

Omar Ahmed

( Middle East Monitor ) – The disagreement between the UAE and Saudi Arabia over a proposed deal by OPEC+ to increase oil production is the latest sign that the close relations between the two Gulf states, and in particular those of their respective de facto rulers, are turning into a bitter rivalry. The Saudi-led […]