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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
I think that it is time for those of us who have been tracking events in this region for the past three years to get out of the news sluice for a moment and assess what we have learned, if anything. As I was making up my own checklist, one thing that amazed me […]
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 […]
I never thought that the day would come when I would call the wealthiest country in the world, and the country with the most powerful army in the world, “pitiful.” I also never thought that I would call the citizens of that country, the nation state with the best university system in the world, “clueless” […]
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 […]
A year ago, mass demonstrations had spread throughout Syria, but the situation had not yet degenerated into the widespread violence we see today. At the time, pundits and analysts were predicting President Bashar Assad’s imminent fall—just as they are doing today. However, despite all the events that have taken place the past year, […]
Note: This lecture was first delivered in August 2011, but has certainly stood the test of time One of the most frustrating things for me as I read through the press reports about the revolts in the Arab world is the failure of journalists and commentators to put the events into some sort of historical […]