Nov 1 2017
The Iraqi Kurdish leader’s big mistake was to bank on US and Israeli support for his ill-judged independence bid By Abdel Bari Atwan Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, did not step down voluntarily. He was forced to resign by a democratically-elected parliament once he realised he could […]
By mahaburbar1 • Iraq •
Oct 26 2017
Monitor the American-Israeli scenario and its expected applications in Lebanon. This is war, Trump is more eager to throw himself in the lap of the Israeli plots that his former counterpart, George W. Bush. Abdel Bari Atwan As the city of Reqqa, the official capital of the Islamic State, fell into the hands of […]
By mahaburbar1 • Lebanon, Syria, United States of America •
Oct 24 2017
After the failed U.S. and Kuwaiti attempts to mediate in the Gulf/Qatar crisis, the four boycotting countries may be preparing for another significant move against Doha By Abdel Bari Atwan After the Kuwaiti and American attempts at mediation between Qatar and the four states boycotting it have failed, there are strong indications that the December […]
By mahaburbar1 • Saudi Arabia, The Gulf •
Oct 19 2017
The Gulf crisis is open to all kinds of possibilities, the least dangerous of which is delaying the upcoming Gulf summit, which, ironically, will be hosted by Doha this season By Abdel Bari Atwan The rapid visit that Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad, the Kuwaiti Prince, is paying to Al-Riyadh on Monday where he will be […]
By mahaburbar1 • Saudi Arabia, The Gulf •
Oct 8 2017
If Trump is truly intent on war, he can be expected go for the ‘easier’ option first By Abdel Bari Atwan Everyone in the Middle East is busy buying weapons. Barely a week goes by without some big new arms deal being announced. Last week, Saudi Arabia agreed to buy ultra-sophisticated S-400 air defence missiles […]
By mahaburbar1 • Iran •
Oct 7 2017
The crisis into which Barzani has plunged his people was both predictable and avoidable By Abdel Bari Atwan The president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani, may have saved his leadership from collapse by insisting on proceeding with the referendum on independence, which has greatly increased his popularity. But he has also placed the Kurds in […]
By mahaburbar1 • Iraq •
Oct 7 2017
Are Saudis turning to Moscow to find them a way out in Yemen and mediate with Iran? By Abdel Bari Atwan Perhaps it was a coincidence that this week’s high profile visit to Moscow by King Salman of Saudi Arabia fell on the second anniversary of the deployment of Russian forces to Syria — overturning […]
By mahaburbar1 • Saudi Arabia •
Sep 27 2017
The US and Russia are getting closer than ever to coming to blows in Syria By Abdel Bari Atwan For the first time since the Syrian crisis began some seven years ago, there is a growing prospect of a military collision taking place between Russia and the United States over the oil and gas fields […]
By mahaburbar1 • Syria •
Sep 27 2017
The Israelis and their backers shouldn’t be so surprised that the Palestinians remain determined to resist By Abdel Bari Atwan The shock and astonishment being voiced by Israeli government leaders and settlers at the attack staged by 37-year-old Palestinian Nimr al-Jamal against Israeli security forces at a settlement north of Jerusalem – killing three and […]
By mahaburbar1 • Palestine •
Sep 25 2017
All peoples have the right to self-determination, but now is not the time to seek Kurdish independence By Abdel Bari Atwan I only met Masoud Barzani once in my life. It was at an event organized by Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in September 2012 marking the conclusion of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s […]
By mahaburbar1 • Iraq •
Sep 24 2017
Trump and Israel want war against Iran, but it won’t be one-sided By Abdel Bari Atwan This week’s headlines have been dominated by reaction to US President Donald Trump’s bluster against North Korea during his address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. This has overshadowed the equally threatening and ominous references he made in […]
By mahaburbar1 • Iran •
Sep 18 2017
Is the latest ‘reconciliation’ between the feuding Palestinian factions any different to all the previous ones? By Abdel Bari Atwan I’m sure I’m not alone in being highly sceptical about the latest meetings held and agreements concluded by Fateh and Hamas – the two heavyweights of the Palestinian political scene – under Egyptian auspices […]
By mahaburbar1 • Syria •
Sep 18 2017
The SDF should stop playing the role of US proxy in eastern Syria: it will eventually be abandoned anyway By Abdel Bari Atwan The Pentagon announced at the weekend that Russian warplanes bombed a site held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) east of the Euphrates River, and the Syrian army shelled another of […]
By mahaburbar1 • Syria •
Sep 14 2017
The authorities’ ruthless determination to throttle all dissent and disloyalty is likely to backfire By Abdel Bari Atwan The detention last week of the well-known reformist Saudi preachers Salman al-Odeh and Awadh al-Qarni did not come as a surprise. It was only to be expected given the current state of political and tribal polarization […]
By mahaburbar1 • Saudi Arabia •
Sep 11 2017
Has Saudi-led military intervention against Qatar been prevented, or merely postponed until conditions allow? By Abdel Bari Atwan With the almost instant collapse of Qatar’s surprise ‘initiative’ to seek dialogue with Saudi Arabia last week, hostile media exchanges between the two principal parties to the crisis in the Gulf have resumed with ever-increasing venom, and […]
By mahaburbar1 • Saudi Arabia, The Gulf •
Sep 8 2017
Israel’s latest attack on Syria was a response to Putin’s snub to Netanyahu. Will Moscow let it go unpunished? By Abdel Bari Atwan Thursday’s Israeli air raid on a military research facility near Masyaf in Syria’s Hama province, in which seven people were killed, was not so much an embarrassment to the Syrian government as […]
By mahaburbar1 • Syria •
Aug 30 2017
Are the Israeli premier’s domestic difficulties tempting him to go to war against Syria and Lebanon? By Abdel Bari Atwan To understand the state of panic currently afflicting the ruling elite in Israel, which has gone to the extent of openly threatening to bomb the presidential palace in Damascus and Iranian military formations in Syria, […]
By mahaburbar1 • Israel •
Aug 30 2017
The movement’s new leadership has reached out to Hezbollah and Iran, and hopes to reconcile with Syria too By Abdel Bari Atwan Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya as-Sinwar, held a candid two-hour meeting with a group of journalists on Monday in which he revealed the outlines of a new strategy for the movement. Its two […]
By mahaburbar1 • Palestine •
Aug 25 2017
Ankara is coming to the conclusion that it urgently needs to mend fences with Iran, Iraq and Syria By Abdel Bari Atwan It was no surprise that this week’s Syrian opposition conference, called for at Saudi Arabia’s behest by the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) and including representatives of the so-called Cairo and Moscow platforms, […]
By mahaburbar1 • Turkey •
Nov 1 2017
Putin and the Middle East
With his new initiative to end the Syrian crisis, the Russian president is emerging as the region’s principal decision-maker By Abdel Bari Atwan Russian President Vladimir Putin regularly surprises us with political, diplomatic, and military achievements in the Middle East which affirm his leadership qualities and demonstrate that he has a clear strategy for addressing […]
By mahaburbar1 • Syria •