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Arab regimes harm their own interests by kow-towing to Trump

By Abdel Bari Atwan

It was baffling to hear that Egypt, Jordan and Morocco – according to a US official quoted by Reuters– have accepted the Trump US administration’s invitation to attend this month’s ‘Peace to Prosperity’ conference in Bahrain. Baffling, but not necessarily surprising. Some Arab rulers are incapable of seeing the changes taking place in the region, or of understanding them if they do see them.

The Military Council’s bloody crackdown won’t crush the revolution

By Abdel Bari Atwan

From the day it took power in a military coup, it was clear that Sudan’s Military Council led by Gen. Abdelfattah Burhan and his deputy Muhammad Hamdan Dagolo (Hamidati) never had any sympathy for the popular protest movement. Since then, it has been trying to create opportunities to put an end to the mass demonstrations and, in one way or another, repeat the example of Egypt’s military rulers. So it came as no surprise when forces loyal to the Council launched Monday’ brutal assault on peaceful protestors in Khartoum, killing (at this writing) at least 30 and injuring scores.

The Palestinians and the Arab public will never buy into the ‘Deal of the Century’

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Only one conclusion can be drawn from Tuesday’s announcement in Washington that Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and architect of his Middle East ‘Deal of the Century’, will visit Morocco, Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territories this week. Coming just days before the successive Gulf, Arab and Islamic summits that are due to be held in Mecca, it means the Deal has faced a wall of Arab and Islamic rejection, and that next month’s conference in the Bahraini capital Manama on enacting its economic provisions is in trouble.

Who will flinch first in Trump’s phoney war on Iran?

By Abdel Bari Atwan

I take no issue with the proposition that ‘war is deception’. But President Donald Trump’s current war preparations against Iran smack more of confusion. His despatch of additional ground, naval and air forces to the Gulf reflects this. It betrays a lack of any strategic vision, and has singularly failed to impress or intimidate the enemy.

Take for example his recent announcement that 1,500 extra troops are being sent to the region to protect the forces already there from purported threats from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC).

No-one in the Middle East takes Trump seriously any longer

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Nobody in the Middle East and the wider world still takes Donald Trump and his tweeted threats seriously. This applies to his latest warning to Iran that if it “wants to fight” that will bring about the “official end” of the country. Actual wars are fought in real life and not by grandstanding on social media.

Whoever said that Iran ‘wants to fight’? The country wants to export its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, which it continues doing with ease.

As the US and Iran face off, their proxy wars are escalating

By Abdel Bari Atwan

All-out war between Iran and US Iran may not have broken out yet. But a parallel proxy war between allies of the two sides has been escalating. It could flare up further in the days to come – unless the secret indirect negotiations being conducted by a number of mediators succeed, which we doubt.

Iran has clearly taken a strategic decision to avoid any direct military confrontation with the US warships currently crowding the waters of the Gulf.  

Is the US really intent on starting another war it can never win?

By Abdel Bari Atwan

It is hard to keep pace with developments on all the relevant fronts as the US military build-up against Iran continues.  After the despatch of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincolnto the Gulf, the sabotage of four oil tankers in Fujairah, and the Houthi drone attacks on Saudi pumping stations near Riyadh, Iraq has become the focus. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of the Washington hawks who are beating the drums of war against Tehran most avidly, flew to Baghdad bearing CDs showing that Iranian-backed Popular Mobilisation forces had been positioning missiles around American bases on the Syrian border as a prelude to attacking them.

Israel supplied the pretext for the looming war on Iran. Next, it could light the actual fuse.

By Abdel Bari Atwan

It is still unclear what the information was that the Israelis gave the US about an imminent Iranian threat to its interests in Iraq, prompting it to rush the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, a fleet of missile ships and a posse of giant B-52 bombers to the Gulf region. But all the signs indicate that the Trump administration has taken this supposed intelligence fully on board regardless of whether it is true or false, and is heading for war.

This time, the Palestinian resistance is firing back.

By Abdel Bari Atwan

The Gaza Strip amounts to only two per cent of the historic territory of Palestine. But this tiny enclave’s inhabitants are showing 400 million Arabs and half a billion Muslims what it means to stand up courageously to Israeli and American arrogance in defence of their rights, land and holy places — and they are not awaiting any gratitude or praise form anyone.

The barrage of missiles fired from the blockaded enclave is not only a reaction to Israel’s suffocating and deadly siege.

The reappearance of the Islamic State leader signals the start of a new and bloody phase

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi has only appeared on audio-visual recordings twice. The first time was in July 2014 when he proclaimed the establishment of his ‘Caliphate’ state from the pulpit of the Grand Nouri Mosque in Mosul. The second, and perhaps not last, time was this week when he resurfaced in a high-quality 18-minute video to declare that he was alive and well, and that the caliphate state has ceased to exist in its previous form.