Arab World

( Tomdispatch) With Donald Trump’s decision to shred the Iran nuclear agreement, announced last Tuesday, it’s time for the rest of us to start thinking about what a Third Gulf War would mean. The answer, based on the last 16 years of American experience in the Greater Middle East, is that it won’t be pretty. […]

Yemen

UN: Saudi-led Coalition inflicts 60% of Yemen Deaths, Injuries

Middle East Monitor

Some 236 civilians were killed in Yemen in April making it the deadliest month for the war-torn state this year, a United Nations briefing note revealed today. “The month of April was the deadliest month for civilians in Yemen so far this year, with a sharp increase in casualties. At least 236 civilians were killed […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi-financed Belgian mosques teach hatred of Jews, gays: report

AFP

Brussels (AFP) – Teaching manuals in Gulf Arab-financed mosques in Belgium promote anti-semitic stereotypes of Jews and call for the persecution of homosexuals, according to a leaked Belgian intelligence report. The texts used in mosques including the Brussels Grand Mosque call for gays to be stoned to death or thrown off buildings and describe Jews […]

Saudi Arabia

Arms and Manipulation: How the Saudis and UAE took Trump for a Ride

Tomdispatch

By William Hartung and Ben Freeman It’s another Trump affair — this time without the allegations of sexual harassment (and worse), the charges and counter-charges, the lawsuits, and all the rest. So it hasn’t gotten the sort of headlines that Stormy Daniels has garnered, but when it comes to influence, American foreign policy, and issues […]

Iran

Largest Israeli raids on Syria in Years hit ‘Iranian’ Targets after Rocket Fire

AFP

by Laurent Lozano | – – Jerusalem (AFP) – Israel’s army said Thursday it had carried out widespread raids against Iranian targets in Syria overnight after rocket fire towards its forces which it blamed on Iran, marking a sharp escalation between the two enemies. The incident came after weeks of rising tensions and followed US […]

Featured

No, Iran and Hizbullah haven’t taken over Lebanon: it is a multiparty Election

Juan Cole

Lebanon held the first parliamentary elections since 2009 (they are supposed to be every 4 years but the Syrian civil war and political gridlock made it difficult to meet that schedule until now).* Given all the talk of Trump pulling out of the Iran deal in part because of Tehran’s supposed regional dominance, the results […]

Iraq

Now Iraq is regularly bombing Syria . . . to Blast ISIL Remnants

AFP

Baghdad (AFP) – Iraqi warplanes carried out a raid Sunday targeting Islamic State group commanders in eastern Syria, in the second such strike on the jihadists since mid-April, the premier’s office said. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the “painful strike” which targeted “a meeting of IS commanders south of Al-Dushashiya in Syrian territory”, a statement […]

Featured

Syria: Did E. Ghouta Gas Reports cause Rebels to surrender en masse in Homs, Hama?

Juan Cole

The Syrian regime and its Russian backers have managed to expel opposition guerrilla groups from the areas just north of the central cities of Homs and Hama. The groups agreed to hand over their heavy and medium weapons and to board buses for either Idlib province or Jarabulus in Aleppo province in the north. The […]

Syria

Syria: Why tales of a western ‘regime change plot’ don’t make sense

Brian Whitaker

There’s a claim circulated endlessly on the internet that the conflict in Syria is a “regime change war” orchestrated by western powers. As far as many of the Assad regime’s defenders are concerned, this is established fact. To quote one of them – Piers Robinson, writing for the Open Democracy website – the existence of […]