Middle East
Middle East
Fair Observer provides inclusive, insightful and contextual analysis of the Middle East with its manifold cultures and civilizations.
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Political upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa has forced the United States to re-evaluate its interests and foreign policy in the region. Background After World War I, access to natural resources became one of America’s top priorities, as oil was becoming increasingly important in modern industrial society. The United States pursued an "open door policy" to provide American oil companies with equal access to foreign oil, predominantly from the Gulf countries. Washington averted a collision with British oil interests in the Middle East by backing a stream of cooperative arrangements between the two countries from 1928-1934, which enabled the pair to dominate the...
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360° Analysis / Bahrain / Jordan / Politics / Saudi Arabia / Middle EastBy James M. Dorsey The ever sharper sectarian divide between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims in the Middle East constitutes the Achilles heel of Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. They have been resisting political reforms and seeking to insulate themselves from the wave of popular protests that have swept the region for the past two years. Arab monarchs pride themselves on having so far largely managed widespread discontent in their countries with a combination of financial handouts, artificial job creation, social investment and in the cases of Jordan and Morocco, some constitutional reform. Yet, in the shadow of the escalating civil war in Syria, it is monarchies like Saudi...
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360° Analysis / Iraq / Politics / Shia / Sunni / Syria / Middle EastRecent reports of Iraqi Shi’a militias operating in the Damascus suburbs indicate the inflammation of yet another firing line in the Syrian Civil War. This article combines current events, analysis, and the field experience of Nicholas A. Heras in Sayyida Zainab. A recent and important article, entitled “Iraqi Shi’ite Militias Fight Syria’s Assad,” published by the Reuters news agency, indicates that Iraqi Shi’a militias are beginning to operate openly in Syria. Their mission is described in part as protecting the large Iraqi refugee community that is still resident in the country, particularly in the southern suburbs of Damascus. According to the article...
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360° Analysis / Humanitarian / Iraq / Lebanon / Politics / Syria / United States / Middle EastThe recent assassination of Wissam al-Hassan in Beirut, brings us one step closer to more war and chaos in the Middle East. Given the history of widespread violence and the implications for the US, why are the largest of the American charities — many of which have provided billions of dollars worth of US government relief assistance in the region for over 60 years — so silent? I first succumbed to the notion of working in a humanitarian effort overseas in 1981. Before that I had been a soldier and a manager of a small business. Of course, the reasons for this transition were mixed but among them was the ambition to right some wrongs. As a newcomer, I was sent to war —...
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360° Analysis / Beirut / Lebanon / Politics / Syria / Middle EastThe memory of mass violence is never simply a memory in Lebanon, a country which has long endured sectarian strife and is now also feeling the effects of the civil war in Syria. It is surreal to wake up to news of a car bomb back home in Lebanon, now thousands of miles away. Immediately, the war-shaped body is both numb and preoccupied with images of death and destruction. The mind wanders and sutures the past, present, and future seamlessly. Phone calls, emails, and texts begin. The space between a call and its response seems immense, and the time it takes to hear from blood and choice family — particularly when they live or work or frequent the targeted neighborhood — is...
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360° Analysis / Israel / Lebanon / Palestine / Politics / Middle EastAs the Syrian Civil War disrupts Lebanon's perpetually precarious military and political balance, we are urged to listen carefully to the rumours and prophecies of a Lebanese population that have so often been tragically implicated in regional conflicts. Here, we look back to June 1982 in trepidation of the “Past as Prologue”. Lebanon is not a force in its own right. Notwithstanding the endowments redounding to it from its location in the Eastern Mediterranean and its vast and influential Diaspora; since Sykes-Picot it has been a cobbler's nightmare. The country's significance for many of us who have lived and worked there over the past few decades, has been as the...
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360° Analysis / Arab World / Israel / Palestine / Politics / United States / Middle East / AfricaBy Katie Gonzalez Scholars and experts say his foreign policy would be a "catastrophe" for the Middle East, but also hint that Romney the candidate and Romney the president may not be one and the same. As the United States presidential election nears, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has made headlines seeking to differentiate his political platform from that of President Barack Obama. Romney cited cultural differences as a reason for the economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians, and more recently, in the unearthed Mother Jones viral video, admitted a futility in Middle East peace efforts, which has led Middle East academics and policy experts to question the...
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360° Analysis / Football / Israel / Palestine / Politics / Soccer / Europe / Arts & Culture / Middle EastHamas’ call to boycott the Barcelona soccer match, offers Palestinians an opportunity to vote with their feet against continued feuding Palestinian groups that have proven unable to further national aspirations or improve economic conditions. When Spanish giants Real Madrid and FC Barcelona clashed this weekend, two matches separated by thousands of kilometers were played; one on and one off the pitch. The Spanish clash ended in a draw in Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium; a rare show of public defiance to Gaza’s Hamas rulers ended with a victory for what amounted to Palestinians rejecting the Islamists’ call for a boycott of the popular Catalan champion. The Spanish...
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360° Analysis / Egypt / Gaza / Israel / Politics / Sinai / Middle East / Africa / Global SecurityOn the Egyptian-Israeli border, an increase in jihadist activity is causing both sides to question longstanding certainties of their respective national security paradigms. The recent escalation of jihadi activity in the Sinai Peninsula has added a new dimension to the geostrategic uncertainties of the post-Mubarak era. Like the fallen regime, the Sinai served as a buffer in the cold peace between the Egyptian and Israeli populations. With the Egyptian military in the Sinai recently suffering its greatest personnel losses since the 1970s, public anger has been channeled into loud calls to renegotiate the 1978 Camp David Accords to restore full Egyptian sovereignty over the peninsula....