The Persian Gulf: implications of the Saudi-Qatari dispute
The Saudi strategy of offering military support to the US while exporting Muslim militancy and portraying itself as the protector of the two holiest sites in the Islamic world has backfired for both...
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How Qatar's hand casts Syrian shadows
As Qatar assumes an increasing role in the political diplomacy of the Middle East, its subtler interventions in Syria's civil war continue unquestioned.A 2012 demonstration at the front of the Qatar...
View ArticleIn conversation: Syria in perspective
Fawaz Gerges and Rosemary Hollis with Robin Yassin-Kassab at the openDemocracy conference Syria's peace: what, how, when?, discussing the regional proxy war, class dynamics in Syria, intervention and...
View ArticleQatar moving closer to Algeria?
The intensification of economic cooperation - which is very advantageous to both – might be a way to achieve a deepening of political relations, in the context of a possible evolution of regional...
View ArticleSaudi Arabia and Qatar ratchet up sectarian and ethnic tensions in Iraq
Iraq, a decade after the US-led invasion and one year after the end of the US occupation, is grappling not merely with an escalating sectarian crisis between the Shia-led government and an increasingly...
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Does Qatar have a stake in the nuclear debate?
Qatar refuses to allow its American airbase to be used as a launching pad for a strike against Iran should Israel or the US decide to go in. This certainly adds to the restrain factor that is so badly...
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Qatar’s top diplomat tackles the rumours
A plethora of rumours, some of which originated from very reputable media sources, are circling around Qatari mega-purchases of the Pyramids and the Suez Canal. Last week’s Arab Summit in Doha was a...
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The Qatari reaction to the Egyptian crisis
From this side of the political divide the Egyptians appear ungrateful, rude and disrespectful.Recently I was quoted in the Daily Beast making a rather inflammatory comment about how Qataris view the...
View ArticleArab awakening: Qatar’s controversial alliance with Arab Islamists
Tension with its Gulf neighbours began to rise from 2006 when Qatar and Al Jazeera stood with Lebanese Shi’ite group Hizbullah during its war with Israel, while western allied states clearly hoped to...
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Qatar and the US have a working relationship
The differences concerning Israel, the occasionally troublesome Al Jazeera network, and Qatar’s hosting and funding of hard-line Islamists have been papered over in favour of larger strategic visions...
View ArticleSyrian crisis now a global affair
The outcome of the Syrian crisis, no matter what that might be, will delimit the new Middle East in a way that will affect the entire world—not just Syria and the regionWestern leaders’ conflicting...
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Is Qatar guilty of sectarianism in Syria?
Let’s be clear here, Qatar lost in Qusair. It is embarrassing and undermines two years and $3bn of financial support to the rebel movement. And it is time that Qatar began to take some responsibility...
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Obama’s strategy beyond an abnormal war
To defeat IS you have not only to beat it militarily, but to undercut the financial and ideological underpinnings upon which it rests, and replace it with something that ensures that it cannot manifest...
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Tripoli airstrikes
These airstrikes demonstrate new fault lines in the Arab world: between Arab conservative regimes, their Islamist foes, and the democratic secular forces who find themselves in an impossible situation....
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This week's window on the Middle East - September 24, 2014
Arab Awakening's columnists offer their weekly perspective on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Leading the week, Anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon.Anti-Syrian sentiment in LebanonOn...
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Qatar: diplomats return but differences remain
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have ambassadors returning to Qatar after a nearly year-long absence, a boost for a Gulf state that could do with positive media coverage.West Bay...
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After the Doha Summit: is GCC reconciliation real?
The 35th Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Doha, Qatar appears as a rare and positive momentum in the history of the GCC. However, Qatar's position remains convoluted and reconciliation remains...
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Will Middle East ground troops be rallied against IS ?
Try as we might, the question of Mr. Assad’s fate will not go away: all roads stubbornly lead back to Damascus. Vigil held for the Jordanian pilot in South San Francisco, February, 2015. Steve...
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'Something wicked this way comes': the Arab transitions (part 1)
An excerpt from a NOREF report on the background to the current situation in the Middle East, focusing on the aftermath of the 'Arab Spring'. Part one: North Africa, Egypt and the Gulf.It is currently...
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If ISIS uses chemical weapons, the west will be partly responsible
How can the international community respond effectively and promptly to this growing threat, not just to the Middle East region, but to the world?Security forces simulate chemical attack outside...
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