Archive for the ‘Iraq’ Category

Space in the Middle East

Last time, I noted with great sympathy that most people have become totally confused about the events taking place in the Middle East. Since then, that confusion has risen to unprecedented levels…not least because US jets bombed the Iraqi city of Tikrit in order to aid the Iranian-supported Shiite militias doing battle there while, at […]

The New Diplomacy in the New Middle East

I have long preached that major economic, social, political and military events do not just happen. They are invariably the product of processes that have been underway for a very long time.   That presumption is certainly true for all the events we have been witnessing in the Middle East during the past few years. […]

ISIS—Some Stuff Obama Didn’t Mention

The Saudis, the Gulf States, the rest of the Arab world, and anyone with even a moderate acquaintance with Arab history and culture should have known better. Nonetheless, all claim to have been caught by surprise by the appearance of ISIS, al Qaeda and the myriad of other violent Islamic political groups that have grabbed […]

Arab Spring? An Assessment Three Years later

The revolts in the Arab states have now been underway for three years and more. The first, in Tunisia, began on December 18, 2010, the one in Egypt on January 25, 2011, and the one in Syria on March 15, 2011. One would have thought that after all that has happened in the interim, the […]

Middle East Water Crisis–Lecture at Waterloo University

  There is no more precious a commodity in the Middle East than water. Historically, when the Saudi peninsula had plenty of water, about 40,000 years ago, it acted as the land bridge to Europe during the second great exodus of early man from Africa. The fertile river valleys further north, in what is today […]