English

The countries that colluded in the destruction of Libya are now pretending to be trying to save the country

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Nobody is saying it, but it has to be said. The countries currently trying to bring peace to Libya are the same countries that destroyed it ten years ago. Most of the twelve states that attended Sunday’s Berlin Conference – with the notable exception of Algeria – were and continue to be complicit in that process. They either contributed directly to Libya’s destruction or indirectly through their silence (and implicit approval) or their collusion via local or regional clients.

By scuppering the cease-fire talks, Erdogan’s enemies are luring him into a war he needs to avoid

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Hopes that Russia and Turkey could broker a permanent cease-fire in Libya at talks in Moscow were scuppered when Gen. Khalifa Haftar refused to sign the agreement they negotiated and promptly decamped from the Russian capital.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was enraged, and vowed to teach the “putschist” warlord “the lesson he deserves” if he continues attacking the internationally-recognised government of Fayez Sarraj.

If the US refuses to withdraw its troops they will eventually be forced out as they were in 2011

By Abdel Bari Atwan

President Donald Trump has no legal or moral right to reject the Iraqi government’s officially submitted request for the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq. His refusal to pull them out defies both the Iraqi parliament’s vote and the agreement signed by the two sides that provided legal cover for the deployment of 5,300 American personnel in the country to train Iraqi forces and help them fight the Islamic State group (Daesh).

Soleimani’s funeral shows the Iranian leadership is preparing for a fight

By Abdel Bari Atwan

The US has placed all its forces in the Middle East on maximum alert, sent nine giant B-52 bombers to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and tightened security at its bases and embassies worldwide, while all the mediators it has sent to Tehran to appeal for restraint have failed. This is a climate of war, not of bracing for one-off strikes whose impact can be contained, enabling things to revert to how they were before the assassination of Qods Force commander Gen.

Israel has finally succeeded in luring Trump into a showdown with Iran

By Abdel Bari Atwan

US President Donald Trump has taken the Middle East to war. Friday’s assassination of Iran’s Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) leader Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandis was the official declaration. With this clearly illegal killing of ten people in a supposedly friendly state, the ‘leader of the free world’ has sunk to the level of a mafia boss, taking yet another leaf out of the book of his mentor Benjamin Netanyahu.

Will 2020 see the US being finally forced to pull out its remaining troops?

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Seventeen years after ‘liberating’ Iraq and deposing the regime of President Saddam Hussein – with the loss of 4,000 troops and the injury of 33,000, and at a cost of $6 trillion — the US is back at square one. Its costly investment has come to nothing, and it is not even capable of safeguarding its embassy in Baghdad, the largest and most expensive in the world.

On Monday, thousands of Iraqi demonstrators, supporters of the Hashd ash-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces) and others, converged on the embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone and broke through the gates into the compound.

Renewed Houthi threat to strike vital Saudi and UAE installations should be taken seriously

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Have the secret negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi Ansarallah movement reached a dead end, heralding a fresh escalation of tensions between the two sides?

That would seem to be the conclusion to draw from the Houthis’ renewed threat to attack “vital and sensitive” sites in the “aggressor states” that have been waging war on Yemen for the past five years.

Gulf states are beginning to admit they got it wrong in Syria. But they continue committing the same ‘mistakes’ elsewhere.

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Once upon a time, according to an old Arab fable, a powerful prince, while dining with his court, mentioned that he did not like aubergines. His chief minister, seated beside him, wholeheartedly agreed with his opinion: “You are right, your highness! Aubergine is disgusting. It looks revolting, tastes bitter and is bad for the health.” In due course, the prince employed a new cook, who made tasty aubergine dishes that were much to his master’s liking.

The Saudi court verdict was timed to keep the fallout to a minimum, but it won’t convince anyone

By Abdel Bari Atwan

UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard was right to describe as a ‘travesty’

Monday’s Saudi court ruling that sentenced five people to death and three to jail for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — especially its finding that the killing was not premeditated but a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Callamard is familiar with the details of the case. She was given access to the audio recordings made by the Turkish authorities of the crime as it unfolded in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as was CIA director Gina Haspel, who briefed US legislators that it was most likely ordered by Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman.

Kuala Lumpur summit signals launch of an alternative to Organization of Islamic Cooperation

By Abdel Bari Atwan

The Islamic summit which opens in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, attended by leaders from some 20 Muslim-majority countries, is a significant development in two main respects. It sets the stage for the establishment of an alternative to the 57-member Islamic Conference Organization (IC0) as the collective voice of the world’s Muslims and challenges Saudi Arabia’s long-assumed status as leader of the Islamic world.