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Mid East Matters Online

53 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 4 years ago -

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New Leadership in Arabia

January 12, 2020 18:50 - 4 minutes - 1.44 MB

The departure of Sultan Qaboos of Oman in the early days of 2020, marks the end of an era in the Arab world. Many founders of republics, kingdoms and sheikdoms have departed before him, to the great loss of their nations. To name but a few one would remember Presidents Qudsi, Khoury and Chehab in Syria and Lebanon, as well as, King Faisal in Saudi Arabia and the late Sheik Zayed in the UAE. But nations do not die with the passing away of their leaders, they either forge ahead with their natio...

2019 Gone By…and Worst to Come

December 31, 2019 19:18 - 4 minutes - 1.45 MB

2019 will be remembered for key political events including, the start of the partisan proceedings in the US Congress to impeach Donald J. Trump, the resounding election victory of the Tories in the UK, and the unprecedented democratic protests in HK. Closer to the Middle East, the milestones of 2019 will be split between the financial landmark of the quasi-successful Aramco IPO, the civilian protests in the streets of Iraq and Lebanon, and the saga of repeat-elections in Israel, which are sta...

Combating Corruption without its Protector is Failed Strategy

November 23, 2019 15:17 - 4 minutes - 1.62 MB

The revolts in the many towns and cities of Lebanon are unprecedented. They are true expressions of a young (and not so young) multi-confessional generation that is fed up with the incompetence and decay of State-institutions and, with the unhinged kleptocracy of the ruling class. People have had enough with false excuses hurled at them over decades to justify the lack of public services, the absence of accountability in public office, and the severe social woes that plague the country. Somet...

Lebanon’s Crisis Resolution : Plans vs. Implementation

November 08, 2019 23:38 - 7 minutes - 2.53 MB

The Bloomberg article of November 7, 2019, on the need for the Rich to get a Haircut (in Lebanon), is pertinent in both its take and approach. But one needs to imagine a more probable (not unique) scenario for a drastic plan to overcome the daunting crisis facing the country. At the outset, one must state that any economic solution without the eradication of the phenomenon of a State (Hezbollah-led Lebanon) within a State (official Lebanon) is doomed to fail. No regional or foreign investor, ...

Hela Ho vs. Hezbollah

October 28, 2019 15:21 - 4 minutes - 1.48 MB

In his last public speech, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, a misnomer to start with ‘cause it gives the feel of a U.N. like organization, was nervous. His face did not reveal the full extent of his anxiety nor did his voice divulge his true anger. To blur the issues, his office was arranged such as only the Lebanese flag stood behind him. He raised his finger twice or thrice and made fun of it as to decrease the tension with his viewers. His, was an address to almost 2 million Lebanese wh...

Maduro on the Mediterranean

October 19, 2019 15:03 - 4 minutes - 1.62 MB

Lebanon is rapidly sliding into a Venezuelan scenario. The eruption of spontaneous protests that have been prompted by a simmering public anger were looming on the horizon since the middle of 2018, if not much earlier. The reason is simple: a kleptomaniac ruling class protected by an Iranian militia are hardly a good recipe for investments and prosperity. Current legitimate anger at the deteriorating economic conditions has been at the genesis of the latest street outrage. A ballooning c.$100...

Saudi’s Missed Opportunity

October 16, 2019 08:08 - 4 minutes - 1.49 MB

This article is few weeks late. Maybe it took that much time to realize the facts, to intelligently react to them and to think about a different outcome to the circumstances that prevailed and that are still unfolding ever since. A question has been haunting our analysis: what if, in the aftermath of the attack on Aramco’s facilities by Iran, Saudi stated its firm intention to get the oil flowing back but also said, that it did not have a definitive timeline for restoring such capacity? A rat...

Trump’s Lost Gamble in the Gulf?

September 17, 2019 09:38 - 4 minutes - 1.38 MB

Pres. Trump has blinked first and, not on one occasion, with the cunning Mullahs of Tehran. Not that the US cannot wipe out the Iranian Navy, Army and Air Force in one afternoon while still making it on time to watch the Sunday football game. However, Trump is not a calculating tactician, or a Master of chessboard strategy but rather an ‘off-the-cuff’ personality. He has no political experience, and no military background. He seems naturally averse to using military force in foreign lands.  W...

War is not Around the Corner, Yet….

September 01, 2019 23:18 - 4 minutes - 1.63 MB

The Southern Border of Lebanon remained quiet for 13 years till today. The last conflagration broke out in 2006 and disaster befell the land of the Cedars despite claims to the contrary. The infrastructure was wrecked, villages bombed for days on end, hundreds of thousands of people displaced, and the economy suffered badly. In terms of victory, neither Israel nor Lebanon gained an inch from each other’s territory. How victory was claimed, remains an insult to one’s intelligence. This time, H...

The Bazaar vs. The Tower

June 16, 2019 13:44 - 4 minutes - 1.46 MB

The confrontations that Iran is seeking in the Gulf and which include repeated attacks on civilian targets such as commercial oil tankers, Abha airport and, the ARAMCO oil installations in Saudi, are all diplomatic missives addressed to the Trump administration. Strongly-worded missives notwithstanding, but still diplomatic in their codes and frequencies. They are short of a full military escalation and yet aggressive enough to almost attain the status of an act of war. Carl Von Clausewitz, t...

The Gulf War Part III?

May 13, 2019 20:59 - 3 minutes - 1.27 MB

The tension in the Persian Gulf is building up, as one can almost sense and smell in the air. The dark clouds are gathering and so are the US naval fleets and long-range strike bombers. Sabre rattling by Iran has started to rise as well as the defiant tirades of its top brass. We shall, we will, we could…. This piece is not about facts, or hard analysis, but about a mountain of unanswered questions. Maybe from posing them one could decipher the possible outcome of this neo-classical tragedy ...

The Fatal Choice of Lebanon’s Christians

May 06, 2019 08:42 - 4 minutes - 1.39 MB

Since time immemorial the Christians of Lebanon had to choose between the Mamluks and the Ottomans, the Crusaders and the Muslims armies, and between the West and the East. Should they be allied with a distant Christian West or with a nearby Muslim East? On the one hand, the Western powers have been unfocused at best, or uncommitted at worst. On the other hand, the East -a chaotic amalgam of Tribes with Flags- was and remains a region in turmoil, unsure of its role and message, in a modern wo...

The Arab Spring is Back .., Maybe smarter this time around?

April 13, 2019 08:54 - 4 minutes - 1.5 MB

Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Zein Al Abidine Bin Ali, Hosni Mubarak, Ali Abdallah Saleh, Omar Al Bachir, and Boutaflika, constitute an A team where ‘A’ stands for a mix of Assassins, Authoritarians, and Autocrats. The Arab Spring, in its first version, has been much mocked, belittled and disdained. True, the street protestors did not have a replacement plan in most cases, but protestors don’t usually have one. From the Brexiteers to the Gilets Jaunes, they have demands, anger, and claims,...

Smokes and Mirrors and, the Upcoming Visit of Sec. Pompeo to Lebanon….

March 20, 2019 07:46 - 4 minutes - 1.6 MB

US Secretary of State, the Honorable Mike Pompeo will be visiting Lebanon this week. He will be meeting with State officials and members of government. The Secretary knows full-well that the parents who conceived this government, the mid-wife that gave birth to its composition, and the nurse that cares for its every need is a very possessive party, namely Hezbollah, the most powerful military-political militia in the country. Such party’s caring abilities are more akin to Dr. Mengele’ than th...

Ineffective: surely; Inept: sometimes; Infuriating: always …. US Diplomacy in the Middle East

February 12, 2019 11:18 - 5 minutes - 1.79 MB

The title is long and lays out the case before the readers as it prematurely reveals the verdict of the writer. Let us not beat around the bushes and call a spade a spade. US diplomacy in the Middle East has historically been wobbly and fretted with more defeats and disappointments than successes, at the exception of the peace treaties between Egypt, Jordan and, Israel. Before and after such milestones, US diplomacy has been hovering between standoffs, tensions and the occasional wars at grea...

Capital Fall

January 19, 2019 06:31 - 4 minutes - 1.68 MB

Barbarians are often single handedly and wrongly so, credited with the fall of Rome. That has many benefits, for the Roman that is. As a starter it washes away their guilt and complicity in the decline, demise and ultimately the fall of their own Empire. It also offers a wonderful way out by blaming the ‘other’, the ‘foreigner’, the ‘Barbarian’. The gravest consequence of such thinking is -apart from the actual crumbling of the city walls before the hordes of invaders- the lack of any introsp...

End of the World or End of the Month?

December 11, 2018 08:55 - 4 minutes - 1.71 MB

All politicians are engaged in this pernicious game and are equally caught into its vicious web. President Erdogan talks about Turkey’s growing hemisphere of influence in the Middle East, North Africa the Western Balkans, and lest we forget in the EU over parts of Cyprus and the immigrant population in Germany. His grandiose plans saw Turkey on the cusp of reviving its Sultanate and becoming the leading light for people lost in the darkness of their local labyrinths. Such people, according ...

Killing me Softly…

December 07, 2018 05:08 - 4 minutes - 1.63 MB

The killing of any human being is and should be labeled, an abject, horrible, despicable crime. Since Cain and Abel, at the dawn of time, there has not been any other way to describe the taking of someone’s life in a deliberate and premeditated act. The killing of thousands is an atrocity and the killing of millions is a genocide. Our language has evolved with volumes, but the atrocity remains unchanged. There is another twist to this rather obvious and fault-free thinking about killing, and...

The Wise Man from Salalah

November 19, 2018 06:47 - 6 minutes - 2.29 MB

The country is not really desert whilst being part of the Arabian Peninsula, with a terrain that offers some of the most astonishing beaches and coves that eyes could see. Less than few miles in-land and you can delight at the sight of proudly erected mountains and rugged terrains that stretch for miles on end. The country is not populated by a strictly Bedouin-like society but still camels are herded for labor as well as for commerce (especially for racing since the country produces the best...

Lebanese Truisms

August 28, 2018 06:52 - 10 minutes - 3.62 MB

The land known as Mount Lebanon and which constituted under the Maan and Chehab dynasties the political entity governed by a local ‘Prince’ after securing the sine qua non approval of the Ottoman suzerain, had few truisms inherent to it and embedded in its collective consciousness.  The truisms comprised the selection of a somewhat just ‘Prince’ assisted by a group of mostly loyal, but often perfidious notables. Within such mountainous elite the degrees of perfidy and corruption varied from o...

Virtual World Countries…welcome to our World

July 12, 2018 13:04 - 5 minutes - 1.96 MB

The moment you set foot outside the airplane doors, you hear shouting: “Mr. Hassan, Mrs. Khoury, Dr. Khalid ”! These are not the names of lucky bingo players on a Sunday afternoon, nor are they Oscar Award nominees or Nobel Prize Laureates. They are even better. They are the fortunate ones who can wield influence or “Wasta” as better known in the Middle East. The goal is to leave the airplane before the rest of the passengers, take a short cut through the side stairs, and end up at the carrou...

What If…

May 23, 2018 13:40 - 3 minutes - 1.23 MB

What if Iran agrees to the demands of the current US administration? What if Iran calls off its nuclear program, dismantles its ballistic missiles’ arsenal, and stops interfering in neighboring countries by discontinuing the military, logistic and economic support for its proxy militias in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen? What if Iran tones down its rhetoric against Saudi and the UAE, and treats Iraq and Lebanon as independent states and not as vassals? What if Iran engages in a détente with the We...

Capital markets don’t bow to strongmen

May 19, 2018 18:04 - 4 minutes - 1.66 MB

That’s what every dictator, autocrat, plutocrat or theocrat has missed. They can round up the opposition, deport dissidents, muzzle up the media, imprison rebels, suppress liberties and occupy every square and street in town for days on end, almost on a whim. But such show of force does not impress capital markets one bit. To the contrary, capital markets do not kowtow to authoritarian regimes, only to strong institutions such as a legislature that enacts well-studied and fair laws, a judicia...

The Order of Things

March 30, 2018 18:16 - 6 minutes - 2.12 MB

Lately, loud moaning and desperate voices from liberals and conservatives alike at think tanks, universities, the media outlets and even government officials have surpassed all bounds. All declamations are warning -with frantic antics- of the imminent collapse of the world order that was set up by the victorious Western democracies in the aftermath of World War II. Institutions such as NATO, the U.N., WTO, and the European Union are increasingly under attack, or so claims this mixed bag of co...

#MeToo and the Middle East

March 10, 2018 14:49 - 4 minutes - 1.67 MB

The phenomenon of sexual harassment predates the Weinstein scandal by thousands of years. Men have acted with boldness and primal manners for almost all of their existence in the presence of women as well as in their absence. The new wave of anti-patriarchy that is sweeping through the US, supported by fierce advocates in Hollywood, the media, and the political class has brought the issue firmly to the forefront of the social debate. The question is explored with passion and zeal mostly in We...

Iran’s Anschluss is Complete

February 13, 2018 09:41 - 4 minutes - 1.63 MB

Iran has won, for now. One can use different terms to assuage the affliction, apply various expressions to disguise the truth, or employ softer words to fabricate an alternative reality. The fact remains that since 9/11 2001, Iran has been feeding off the colossal foreign policy mistakes of successive US administrations, including the present one. From the invasion of Afghanistan to that of Iraq, and from the Iran Nuclear Agreement to the hands-off approach in the Syrian civil war, right down...

Trump’s Reported Flaws Translate into Middle East Pandemonium

January 10, 2018 13:36 - 3 minutes - 1.22 MB

If Trump, according to Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury” had to be coaxed by his daughter Ivanka and former NSC staffer Dina Powell, by showing him gruesome photos of dying kids, in order to retaliate against Assad’s chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017, then we’re in serious trouble. Moreover, if the only voice in the Trump administration that was convinced of the nefarious role of Iran throughout the region, was that of Retired (and now fired) Gen. Michael Flynn, then ...

The “Arab Street’ is the Shortest Corridor to the Precipice

December 31, 2017 07:53 - 7 minutes - 2.52 MB

Ever since Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have thwarted the takeover of Egypt by the Islamists (a civilian, but no less lethal version of ISIS), the liberal press has been at their throats. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and on occasions, the Boston Globe, are out to get them no matter what. Why? Because the Obama-Hillary-Kerry axis had depicted the Muslim Brotherhood as the modern way to democratize Islamic countries, a sort of Christian Democrats of Europe. The plot wen...

Barbarians at the Gate: the Middle East Revisited

November 28, 2017 05:15 - 4 minutes - 1.61 MB

Palestine is no more the central issue of the Middle East, it remains an important one though. For the GCC, Iran is the real threat, whilst Israel takes second place. For Turkey, under the heavy-handed rule of President Erdogan, secularism and the Kurds are the main challenges. For Iran, its dominant role in the region and its aching need to be perceived by all powers, chief among them the US, as the only regional power capable of delivering stability is the main mission, and the one to ensur...

The General in His Labyrinth

November 17, 2017 10:46 - 6 minutes - 2.39 MB

The General in His Labyrinth (original Spanish title: El general en su laberinto) is a novel by the Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is a fictionalized account of the last days of Simon Bolivar , liberator and leader of Gran Colombia. Our actual story, has a different trail than Columbia’s and leads to present day Lebanon, where the country has a former General taking it, once more, into a narrow, dangerous path. This story started with the obsessive ambition of...

A Country United by Default

October 16, 2017 14:45 - 5 minutes - 1.96 MB

When the civil war broke out in 1975, Lebanon was extremely polarized between Western-leaning ultra-nationalist Christians, and pro-Arab States (read: Sunni) pan-nationalist Muslims. This has changed not because of any introspection on the part of the Lebanese themselves, but because the world and Middle East have since changed for good, but not necessarily for the better. The regional map, established mainly after World War I, is caught in a severe vortex, and the results are unpleasant. Su...

The Quiet Power of Centrism

October 04, 2017 19:14 - 5 minutes - 1.93 MB

Najib Mikati, former PM of Lebanon championed the cause of centrism in the fractured country of Lebanon and in the fragmented region of the Middle East. This policy –which he promoted whilst being PM in his second mandate from 2011 to 2013- was viewed with skepticism, as expected, by all factions of the political class. Centrism, what a neutral idea?! The basic principle of centrism is that extreme views lead to violent clashes from which retreat is very difficult. The idea is neither novel, ...

Lifting the Ban is the Continuum of a Reformist Drive

September 29, 2017 16:41 - 4 minutes - 1.71 MB

Women in Saudi Arabia will be allowed to drive as of June 2018. What was regarded with disdain, irony and, almost derision by the world’s press, was hailed as a much-awaited reckoning in Saudi, as it should be. The issue is less the need for women to start practicing their ‘fast & fury’ routine on the roads and highways of Saudi, but one of individual freedom. The freedom of movement and of choice which, has started more than 50 years ago by a succession of reformist Saudi monarchs. What kep...

Why are the Kurds Denied Self-Determination ?

September 21, 2017 08:31 - 4 minutes - 1.7 MB

Kurdistan is about to conduct a referendum for independence on the 25th of September 2017. The Kurds who have aspired for a national home and got one for less than a year: the Republic of Mahabad between January 22 to December 15, 1946, are willing to try again. However, the world seems up in arms, conjuring every pretense and political trick to either delay, abort or annul the effects of such referendum. Many justifications have been put forward but none are morally solid or practically con...

A Play with Many Scenarios but no Happy Ending

September 08, 2017 21:32 - 5 minutes - 1.85 MB

ISIS is on the run in Iraq and in Syria. Libya’s ISIS cohorts are somewhat contained, for the time being. However, the morning after is coming, and very soon. What happens after ISIS is defeated? For the several players in the military theater of the Middle East the roles will shift in a dramatic way, but the horror play will not end anytime soon. The freak show will continue with more bloodshed and a greater risk of war. From ISIS’ standpoint, the end of the geographical caliphate, that swa...

A Fish Stinks from the Head

July 29, 2017 07:30 - 5 minutes - 1.75 MB

The Middle East region, and the Arab world in particular, is way behind on the economic curve of progress and is settling nicely into the backseat of globalization. On the world stage (and at WEF gatherings) the region’s grandees talk a big talk but walk in midget steps. To put things into perspective, the total market capitalization of Alphabet Inc. (formerly Google) is circa $659.2bln whereas the total market cap of the Saudi stock market stands at circa $431bln. The erstwhile oil-rich Mid...

How to Handle a Mosul Victory?

July 11, 2017 21:21 - 4 minutes - 1.58 MB

After Mosul, Raqqa will fall surely and with it many other pockets of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. This is a blessed piece of good news for the Middle East region that has been under a black cloud of terror and horror since the city of Mosul was first invaded almost 3 years ago day-for-day, by the hordes of Islamic radicals brandishing their black flags and black beards and destroying all signs of civility and civilization in a war-torn Iraq. We will hear countless tails of heroism by the Shia mi...

A NATO-Styled Arab Alliance is Timely

July 08, 2017 07:31 - 6 minutes - 2.08 MB

NATO was established in 1949, in the aftermath of WWII and has regrouped the post-war exhausted Western nations of Europe with the mighty U.S. The prospects of further communist expansion on the continent prompted these nations to form the alliance. Despite the ‘obsolescence’ jibe of Pres. Trump, NATO has played a pivotal role in deterring further Russian expansion, comforting allies, and strengthening ties between European nations who were previously at war (UK-France-Germany). Fast forward...

Re-arranging the Arab Tent

June 03, 2017 07:23 - 5 minutes - 2 MB

The Ottoman Arab provinces were carefully divided by the Western Allies (read France and Great Britain) in 1916 according to the secret Asia Minor Agreement, more known as the “Sykes-Picot Accord”. Much has been written about this infamous deal which allocated areas of influence to Great Britain and France over dominions of the failing Ottoman Empire. However, post-world war II brought another refinement to this settlement by segregating these dominions into Arab and non-Arab groups. Iran, Tu...

One God, One City, One Jurisdiction

May 21, 2017 08:06 - 5 minutes - 1.99 MB

One God: for all the Abrahamic religions, One City: Jerusalem, and One Jurisdiction: Israel. What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing. All the Catholics of the world visit the eternal city of Rome where –apart from the symbolic Swiss guards- it is the Italian government, its armed forces and its laws that prevail at the doorsteps of this tiny walled square mile. All the Muslims of the world (Sunni, Shia, Sufi, and other branches) visit Mecca where Saudi authorities provide security, transport,...

A Ticking Bomb Amidst Loud Music…

April 19, 2017 12:55 - 4 minutes - 1.49 MB

No one can hear a ticking bomb when the music is deafening. Even if the bomb is visible in plain sight, the wires connected, the detonator displayed, and the arms of the clock racing in the direction of the hour ‘H’. The surrounding cacophony can mask the inevitable danger. Then, there is more than the loud music! Look out for the ‘trompe l’oeil’ artists who are disguising the bomb to look like a weird robot, or an old pressure-cooker ware, or even some sort of a futuristic decoration that on...

Trump and Sarin and Syria

April 06, 2017 20:17 - 3 minutes - 1.23 MB

Reportedly prior to the first Gulf war, April Glaspie the US Ambassador to Iraq told Saddam Hussein that the US had no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, like his border dispute with Kuwait. A short while after their meeting, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait causing a regional conflict with international proportions. Glaspie’s words, rightly or wrongly, have been interpreted as a ‘green light’ to Saddam to invade its Arab Gulf neighbor. Same happened with President Obama with his infamous ‘red-lin...

Trump Can’t Wing it on Syria

March 06, 2017 07:51 - 4 minutes - 1.58 MB

Out of the many challenges that the new US administration faces in its formative days, the ongoing war in Syria is the thorniest. Ironically, this topic is muted from on all the Sunday talk shows. Neither President Trump, nor Secretaries Tillerson or Mattis nor anyone else has offered any clues on this front. Notwithstanding, Syria will be the one crisis that tests the mettle of the new President in asserting America’s peace stand from a position of strength. For Syria includes all the ingred...

Lebanon’s Silence of the Lambs

February 21, 2017 10:40 - 4 minutes - 1.53 MB

Lebanon’s newly elected President has made, when speaking to an Egyptian TV channel last week, the most explicit statements in support of Hezbollah as a surrogate army of Lebanon. The President, being the supreme commander of the armed forces, said that Lebanon’s army was weak and not ready to confront the threats posed (ISIS and Israel). Thus, Hezbollah has been officially anointed as the parallel army of the country as is already the case with the Revolutionary Guards in Iran and the Popula...

Defeating Radical Islamic Terrorism, of all sorts

January 27, 2017 07:51 - 4 minutes - 1.37 MB

The US cannot defeat ISIS with weapons only. Russia has attempted to do just that, but after literally turning Aleppo into rubbles, it realized that ISIS, with pockets of resistance, was still alive and well. While a physical ISIS sanctuary is easily destroyed by drones, its ideology that can command the hearts and minds of “lone wolfs” in cities from Miami to Madrid, needs more than just gunships and smart bombs. Therefore, and in addition to the US and Russia, the direct and explicit involv...

Russia’s New Gas Cartel

January 03, 2017 09:25 - 3 minutes - 1.29 MB

Russia’s fierce re-engagement in the Middle East has more than one strategic goal in sight. Apart from filling-in the vacuum left by the Obama administration’s disastrous policies towards Syria, Yemen, Iran and Libya, Vladimir Putin has more gains in mind. The prize goes beyond resetting the balance of power in Europe over Ukraine or halting NATO’s expansion, or even re-gaining a seat at the superpowers’ table, which has been occupied by China. Rather Putin is stitching together an organizati...

For Arab Leaders, where to go from Here?

December 15, 2016 11:50 - 4 minutes - 1.51 MB

Aleppo is in rubbles, so was Homs before, and Mosul soon after. Beirut has been taken over through a staged presidential election. Yemen is at war with battles raging in the air, sea and on land. Bahrain is in a state of siege. Libya is fast racing down the Inferno staircase. Did we forget something? Iran’s victory lap must be complete this time of the year. All of its threats have been neatly destroyed or eliminated either by the US (the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam in Iraq, ISIS, in Fallu...

Arabs-Israelis closer to peace under Trump’s aegis?

November 29, 2016 12:35 - 7 minutes - 2.55 MB

Let us walk through the streets of the Arab world -from glitzy downtown Dubai to the slums of Cairo- to conduct an insightful, albeit theoretical, poll. The results might be astonishing. If the drill question is: “who is the traditional enemy of the Arab world?”, a loose term meaning the majority Sunni States, the predictable reply would be: Israel. But if the question is: “who would you consider an immediate threat to your country?”. The unequivocal answer would be: Iran, not Israel. The co...

The World of Today (or that of Trump)

November 11, 2016 11:44 - 6 minutes - 2.09 MB

The 9th of November will be remembered by liberals in Western democracies as the Bastille Day that crushed the dungeons of limitless migration, political correctness, the educated classes' snobbery over working classes, CNN’s supremacy over the airwaves, and the pollsters’ exactitude in predicting the outcome of mass events. On Ivy League campuses all around the country, in DC think tanks and in news rooms across all major US cities, people where literally chattered as their dream of liberal ...

Iran’s Ballot Not Bullet Victory in Lebanon

October 27, 2016 08:20 - 4 minutes - 1.52 MB

The Iranian revolution that started in 1978, has claimed its first democratic victory in 2016. The upcoming presidency in Lebanon. Iran has engaged in a destructive war with Saddam’s Iraq, and waged numerous paramilitary operations in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and few covert missions in Kuwait, Saudi, Bahrain and as far away as Eastern Europe and Latin America. But never did it claim a territory except through bullets. Lebanon fell without one being fired, and the country will be consecrated an I...