Doubts about Saudi Arabia’s internal stability could not come at a worse moment.
If OPEC’s history is anything to go by, everyone suffers from an oil price war.
On March 1, the Iran-backed Houthis took control of the city of al-Hazm, the capital of al-Jawf Province, after weeks of fierce clashes with local tribes and Yemeni government forces. Incompetence, lack of unified leadership, and the absence of a military strategy by the Yemeni government and the Saudi-led coalition have played into the hands of the Houthis.
The country’s political parties now move to a new stage of repeating the crisis of the last few months, to nominate a new PM-designate.
On Feb. 9, 2020, after five years of involvement in Yemen’s civil war as part of the Saudi-led coalition, the UAE’s leadership celebrated the completion of its phased military withdrawal from the country in a ceremony at Zayed Military City. Although the UAE’s withdrawal has provided an exit strategy from the stalemate in Yemen, it neither suspends Abu Dhabi’s role in the coalition nor curtails Emirati influence on the ground.
Now that all of the implementation deadlines have come and gone, where do things stand with the Riyadh Agreement, signed in late 2019 by Yemen’s Hadi government and the Southern Transitional Council?
Lebanese and Iraqi protesters have faced an uphill battle drawing global media attention since Arab Spring-like uprisings erupted in both countries last October. Coverage of the protests has been dwarfed by other major international news stories running concurrently with the uprisings, such as Brexit and the Hong Kong protests. The main implication of low coverage has been a lack of sustained international pressure on Lebanese or Iraqi political leaders to accommodate protester demands for wholesale systematic changes.
The main takeaway from the Saudi Aramco IPO in December 2019 is that the Saudi leadership is willing to fully support private investors.
The history of Erbil’s citadel reads like a cinematic epic worthy of Cecil B. DeMille
Possibly one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited human settlements, the citadel is built on a series of archaeological layers crowned by Ottoman-era houses. It may have been the site of a temple to Ishtar, was an important center of Nestorian Christianity, and survived both the 13th-century Mongol invasion and an 18th-century siege by Nader Shah. It was home to the Medians and the Assyrians (who called it Arbela), Muslims and Jews, and has housed Sufi shrines and displaced squatters. Its mound-like form has been shaped by successive generations of inhabitants and invaders who simply built on top of the rubble of their predecessors.
Over the past 14 months, there have been moments when it seemed like progress was being made toward de-escalation in Yemen, but there have also been significant setbacks as well. Peace efforts thus far have been largely fragmented and frail, and two primary lessons from the past failures have become clear.
Since the death of its founder Ali Abdullah Saleh on Dec. 4, 2017, the General People’s Congress (GPC) — Yemen’s dominant political party for the past four decades — has faced a test in attempting to reunify its divided wings in Riyadh, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, and Sanaa amid a shifting strategic landscape. The GPC’s factions have competed over the party leadership, failed to elect a transitional leader, and exchanged accusations following the Saudi-brokered meeting in Jeddah in July 2019. Nevertheless, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh’s attempts to revive Saleh’s damaged old political vehicle continue, both politically and militarily.
Allawi’s promises notwithstanding, there will be tough jostling among the parties over ministries, and more street protests and violence in the weeks ahead.
The protest movement in Iraq is now entering its fourth month. The protests raging across most of the south of the country have remained non-sectarian in their tone and message, and the movement is steadfast in its rejection of the political order, and all members of the political elite.
Absent international pressure, the Iran-backed Houthis have no reason to stop expanding
By any objective standard, the Lebanese protest movement has failed. This is not necessarily an indictment against it. Rather, it’s a reality one cannot and should not ignore. The responsible thing to do now is to try to understand why it has fallen flat, despite more than 100 days of demonstrations in various regions of the country including the capital, Beirut.
First, a word of solace. In the annals of history, the Lebanese are in good company as most uprisings and revolutions failed to attain their goals. And even when they did, success either didn’t last long or was completely reversed due to counterrevolutions and other spoilers, both foreign and domestic.