7 The Saudi-Abu Dhabi Rivalry The end of the UAE’s Gulf era In 2016, Saudi Arabia’s then-deputy crown prince (now ruler of the kingdom), MBS and Abu Dhabi’s MBZ shared a desert excursion – widely seen as the start of a political alignment between the Persian Gulf’s two most ambitious leaders. In the years that followed, […]
6 Iran “Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an “anti- hegemonic” coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the […]
After the Gaza ceasefire, Israel still did not satisfy its blood lust, and its greed to steal more land. Let’s take a look at its short-term plans for the region and the potential for opposition to Israel’s expansionist agenda. 1 West Bank Since 5 December 2024, the security apparatuses of the Palestinian Authority (PA) have launched […]
Take a look at the map below. It explains everything. This is roughly the situation on the ground today. The majority of Syria’s landmass is controlled by 5 groups: Al Qaida (HTS), the Kurds (SDF), the IDF (Israel), the Turks, and remnants of the Syrian Army (SAA). Of course, the situation is extremely fluid so […]
1 Turkey 2 Russia 3 Iran 4 Hezbollah 5 The US role 6 Israel 7 What happens next (where are these in part 2) 8 Partition (where are these in part 2) Syria is an absolutely key connectivity crossroads – harking back to the Ancient Silk Roads. The 2 families achieved their perennial dream of […]
Since the start of the war in 2011, Damascus has never met such a devastating defeat like the fall of Aleppo. Iraq lived something tragically similar with the fall of Mosul in 2014. It’s fair to argue that the absolute majority of Syrians are against the 2020 Russia-Turkey-Iran deal which in fact prevented the liberation […]
The election of Donald Trump as the next American president has added a major new element of uncertainty to a Middle Eastern picture that had already achieved its highest state of confusion, violence, and uncertainty in its modern history. The factors that will determine the policies Trump will pursue there are many, and they are all […]
The fall of the Berlin wall in November 1989 and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 did not mark the end of more than four decades of Cold War with the West. It merely marked the beginning of a highly dangerous new phase of aggression against a severely weakened Russia desperate to […]
Over the past 18 months the world has been gripped by the phenomenon of ISIS. Who and what is ISIS. Let’s go back to the beginning. Since the early 1950’s, when the CIA station chief in Munich became aware of the effective use of radical Jihadist Muslims from the Soviet Union, US intelligence has […]
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