Qatar

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Colorful career criminal Willie Sutton once may (or may not) have been asked why he robbed banks. “Because that is where the money is,” he supposedly replied. A similar principle may explain the first foreign trip of President Donald J. Trump’s second term, which was not to a traditional U.S. ally […]

Donald Trump

For all Trump’s new Mideast Contracts, Two Big Deals Elude Him

Shahram Akbarzadeh

By Shahram Akbarzadeh, Deakin University (The Conversation) – US President Donald Trump’s visit to Arab states in the Middle East this week generated plenty of multibillion-dollar deals. He said more than US$1 trillion (A$1.5 trillion) worth of deals had been signed with Saudi Arabia alone, though the real total is likely much lower than that. […]

Iran

Qatar, Upset with failed Israeli-Palestinian Talks and Haniyeh Assassination, may Turn to Mediating between Iran and West

The Conversation

By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University | – (The Conversation) – When the longtime political chief of Hamas was assassinated in late July 2024, it didn’t just leave the entire Middle East on edge. It also created a political headache in Qatar. That’s because the death of Ismail Haniyeh, the result of an apparent Israeli […]

Arab World

Expansion of BRICS, the anti-G7, in the Mideast: Is the Oil Gulf no Longer Pax Americana?

Hamdullah Baycar

Exeter (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – BRICS, a group of five developing countries that include China, Russia, and India, has invited another six countries to join the bloc, making the group 11 if all accept the invitation. Among 40 interested states in membership, of which 22 had already officially asked for admission, BRICS leaders […]

Bahrain

Are China’s increasing Economic ties with the Gulf states reducing the West’s Sway in the Middle East?

The Conversation

By Emilie Rutledge, The Open University | – At the end of November 2022, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak announced that the “golden era” between Great Britain and China was over. China may not have been too bothered by this news however, and has been busy making influential friends elsewhere. In early December, Chinese president […]

Arab World

Soccer Champion Lionel Messi’s Black Cloak: a brief History of the Honorary Bisht

The Conversation

By Pardis Mahdavi, The University of Montana | – Shortly before Lionel Messi took to the stage to lift up the World Cup trophy, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani put a black cloak, called a “bisht,” over the Argentinian soccer star’s shoulders. Images of Messi wrapped in black fabric, which might have […]

Immigration

Is the Controversy over Qatar’s World Cup just More Orientalism and Islamophobia?

Mohammed Samaana

Belfast (Informed Comment) – The entire Arab world is excited as one of the world biggest sports events, the FIFA World Cup is held in an Arab Muslim country for the first time. This excitement is because of decades of collective feeling of frustration with being portrayed by Western media as backward, uncivilized and savage. […]

Featured

How the Ukraine Crisis is Changing Biden’s Mideast Policy: The Rise and Rise of Qatar

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Russia’s massing of over 100,000 troops around Ukraine has provoked a diplomatic and military crisis, but also a potential energy crisis. That is because Europe gets about one third of its natural gas from the Russian Federation, and Germany gets about half of its from that source. Natural gas prices […]

journalism

‘Rightly’ as a New Soft Power Tool: The Motivation behind Al Jazeera’s American Right-Wing Platform

Hamdullah Baycar

Exeter (Special to Informed Comment) – Al Jazeera announcement to launch a right-wing media platform, Rightly, in the US surprised many people, including its employees. Over 100 hundred employees from Al Jazeera penned an open letter to the Al Jazeera administration asking the halt of the platform based on not fitting their ‘values.’ Michael Weaver, […]