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Syria and Iran can cope with another round of US sanctions. The Lebanese are the most vulnerable targets of the ‘Caeser Act’.

By Abdel Bari Atwan

The Trump administration is promising Syria and its allies in Iran and Lebanon a fresh package of ‘suffocating’ sanctions in two weeks’ time with the coming into force of the so-called ‘Caesar Act’, whose provisions were passed by both houses of Congress last December.

The aim of this legislation is not only to suffocate Syria but also to inflict as much economic pain as possible on its backers, especially in Lebanon, Iran, and Russia.

The backlash against the killing of George Floyd could cost the president the second term he craves

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Protests and riots have continued in Minneapolis and other US cities since the killing of an unarmed African-American who was suffocated to death by white police officers after they pinned him down by the neck and ignored his pleas to stop and spare his life.

This horrific crime, filmed on a mobile phone camera, has once again brought explosively to the fore the perennial issue of the racism faced by Black Americans at the hands of the police and other state agencies.

Tehran will retaliate in the Gulf if Trump uses force to stop its fuel deliveries to Venezuela

By Abdel Bari Atwan

A new front could open up at any time in the conflict between Iran and the US, not in the scorching waters of the Gulf but in the faraway Caribbean Sea. We are all bracing for the fuse to be lit or the trigger pulled.

It began when the Iranian authorities decided to send five tanker-loads of fuel to Venezuela to help their ally, President Nicolas Maduro. His country is suffering a severe gasoline shortage due to US sanctions, which have blocked its access to fuel imports and prevented it from obtaining the parts needed to maintain its oil refineries.

Everything possible must be done to resist Netanyahu’s scheme, even if that leads to military confrontation

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to extend Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank effectively means annulling the Palestinian Authority (PA) and abandoning the Oslo Accords and the two-state solution. It sets the stage overtime for the expulsion of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Palestinians from the major population centres to Jordan, which the Israeli right deems to be their ‘alternative homeland’.

The reaction of Haftar’s external backers to his latest defeat could determine the country’s future

By Abdel Bari Atwan

The capture on Monday of the al-Watiya airbase 140 km southwest of Tripoli by forces loyal to Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) dealt a powerful blow to Gen. Khalifa Haftar and his foreign backers. This setback could put paid to his ambitions to take control of the western Libyan coastline and especially the capital, which he has been besieging for the past year, unless his backers — principally Egypt, the UAE, France, Russia and Saudi Arabia  — throw their full weight behind him, as Turkey has done with the GNA.

A showdown over Nile waters is looming as the world looks the other way

By Abdel Bari Atwan

While the world is diverted by the coronavirus crisis, Ethiopia is just weeks away from starting to fill the reservoir of its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile, to the great dismay of Egypt whose vital supply of water stands to be severely reduced.

Last week, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri sent a letter to all members of the UN Security Council setting out the country’s perspective on developments in the long-running dispute over the dam, detailing its efforts to reach an equitable solution, and warning of the dangers if the deadlock persists.

Further austerity measures expected as revenues plummet and the deficit grows

By Abdel Bari Atwan

The Saudi government’s decision to raise the VAT rate from 5% to 15% and scrap the monthly 1,000 riyals ($225) cost of the living allowance paid to public sector employees is only a start. Further painful austerity measures are likely to follow in order to plug the kingdom’s budget deficit that currently stands at $112 billion and is set to grow. Finance Minister Muhammad al-Jadaan alluded to this last week in an unusually candid interview with the al-Arabiya TV channel.

Netanyahu is trying to achieve several objectives while the world looks elsewhere

By Abdel Bari Atwan

There has been a steady upping of the pace of unprovoked Israeli military attacks on Syria recently. As presumably intended, this escalation has gone largely unreported in the international media and unnoticed by an outside world preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic.

On Friday, Israeli warplanes launched a missile strike on a military base near the city of Hama, causing extensive casualties.

Repressive regimes have been relatively successful at containing the pandemic. Their real problems begin once it’s over.

By Abdel Bari Atwan

There is no disputing that the majority of Arab states are governed by dictatorial regimes, varying only in degree. But its must be admitted, as even some Western observers concede, that these dictatorships have proven effective at confronting the coronavirus outbreak and containing its spread. They have done so by imposing drastic measures such as states of emergency and curfews in addition to closing down shops, businesses and places of worship.

Rich Arab states, and others, should step in to make up for the US cut-off of WHO funding

By Abdel Bari Atwan

We all know that US President Donald Trump resents China and is desperate to blame its mishandling of the early stages of the coronavirus crisis for the subsequent global pandemic. That was only to be expected. But when he turns his fire on the World Health Organization (WHO), which everyone agrees has provided invaluable services to humanity, that attitude is put into context: Trump’s hatred, contempt and racism extends to any country or institution in the world that is successful and effective independently of the US.