A number of days have passed since tensions have boiled over in the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, which came under the Israeli rule following the 1967 Six-Day War. And the conflict is threatening the stability of the Middle East. There have been violent clashes, particularly around the Al-Aqsa Mosque on top of Temple Mount, the third holiest site in Islam. According to recent reports, a third intifada is a possibility. 

Tensions rose as a result of protests by Arab Israelis in the Sheikh Jarrah district of East Jerusalem in response to the planned eviction of several Palestinian families, approved by lower courts. Demonstrators were angered by the decision handed down by the court to evict four Palestinian families from their homes to be replaced by Jewish settlers who claim that the houses the former live in had been built on land “owned by Jewish religious associations before the establishment of Israel in 1948”. However, the Palestinians claim that they were able to return to the area in 1967 after “a UN Security Council resolution demanded Israeli forces withdraw from territories captured during the Six Day War”. 

Tensions between the Palestinian disagreeing with the courts, and the police started in April, with the latest clashes breaking out on May 10 after the Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Temple Mount leaving more than 180 Palestinian worshippers wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. 

In turn, Hamas (an organization based in the Gaza Strip, Palestine) got actively involved in the conflict and issued an ultimatum demanding Israeli police forces withdraw from the compound and free the detained Arabs. To show how serious their intentions were, Gaza militants fired rockets and balloons with incendiary devices attached to them in support of the protesters. In response to the launch of Operation Al-Quds Sword by Palestinian resistance factions, the Israel Defense Forces began counter strikes against Hamas dubbed Guardian of the Walls. It is unclear yet, how long these counter-strikes will last and what other territories, if any, they will affect. There have been rocket attacks, originating in the Gaza Strip, against regions around Ashkelon, Bet Shemesh, Jerusalem, etc. In Tel Aviv, municipal shelters are being opened in response to the ongoing bombardment from the Gaza strip. Municipalities of Ramat Gan, Bnei Brak and other Israeli towns and cities also announced they would open bomb shelters. There are public as well as private bomb shelters in Israel. 

Rockets fired from the Gaza Strip have resulted in deaths and injuries among Israelis, which indicates the country’s missile defense system cannot fully protect its citizens from such attacks. And although Iron Dome, a part of Israel’s future multi-tiered missile defense system, is viewed as quite effective, it has not fully shielded the country from rockets launched from the Gaza Strip. 

On account of escalating tensions in the region, on May 11, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that 5,000 reservists had been “called up to bolster the forces on the Gaza border” in the nation’s Southern District. An IDF spokesman said that one aim of “Operation Guardian of the Walls” was to erase the rocket-launching capabilities of Hamas forces in the northern Gaza Strip.  

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community to condemn Hamas and support the nation’s right of self-defense. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that “terrorist groups in Gaza crossed a red line on the eve of Jerusalem Day” by attacking the nation “with rockets on the outskirts of Jerusalem”. He also said that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would pay “a very heavy price for their belligerence”. 

On May 11, Ismail Haniyeh, a senior political leader of Hamas, warned that rocket attacks would “continue until Israel” stopped “all scenes of terrorism and aggression in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa mosque”. Saleh al-Arouri, Deputy Chairman of Hamas Political Bureau, urged Arab nations to tear up their normalization agreements with Israel. TV channel Al Mayadeen reported about a discussion between Head of Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, and the Emir of Kuwait. The former said that the Israeli occupation forces were trying to “displace Palestinians from the city of Jerusalem and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, as part of the attempts to Judaize the city, change its demographic character, and close the Bab al-Amud area leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque”. Ismail Haniyeh also stressed that it was important to “work in all directions and forums to stop the occupation plans in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa”, and Israeli “crimes against Palestinian people in Gaza”. He also added that Hamas would continue to retaliate against Israel unless the occupation as well as aggression and terror in Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque stopped. 

Mediators for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Russia, the United States, EU and UN) expressed their concern about the latest developments in East Jerusalem. On May 11, the UN Security Council met virtually behind closed doors to discuss the “ongoing clashes between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem”, but no joint statement was issued as a result.  

There are a number of reasons for this. According to the Al Arabiya news channel, the initial draft statement issued a harsh condemnation against Israel, calling on it to halt settlement activities, demolitions and evictions, while Israeli forces were called on to exercise utmost restraint against peaceful protesters. 

The Times of Israel has reported that the statement proposed by Norwegians and Tunisians “underwent a number of amendments per requests from the US and UK, whose representative made sure it included a condemnation of the firing of incendiary devices and rockets from Gaza”. However, the updated draft was not issued because the US mission asked for more time to deliberate the matter.  

According to Elaph, an online newspaper, the United States made it clear to its partners during the closed-door meeting that it was working behind the scenes to calm the situation and was not sure that making an announcement at the current stage would help. 

On May 11, there appeared a glimmer of hope in the city where three religions collide. Worshippers returned to the Al-Aqsa Mosque for morning prayers without any incidents as there were most likely fewer Israeli police officers in the area.  

The involvement of mediators from the international community in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process gives us all hope that it will be possible to avoid a further escalation of tensions in the Middle East. 

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. 

The United States is known for demonstrating complete disregard to the interests of the population of those countries that it has plunged into chaos by its destructive actions in recent decades. Among such countries one can name Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, but the problem is not that Washington is just facing a steady increase in anti-American sentiments due to this disregard, it faces retaliatory military actions mounted by the people of these countries.

In principle, one can hardly describe this development as surprising, since similar attacks were committed during the Second World War against occupation forces in various countries of the world, where partisan movements would obtain overwhelming support among the people that felt that they were oppressed by a foreign hostile power.

And there’s hardly any other way to describe what the Pentagon is doing to those states without using the term occupation. Thus, in addition to using a convoy of 300 fuel trucks to transport stolen Syrian oil to Iraq, the US troops assembled a smaller convoy of 41 fuel trucks on April 11, that they would then use to traffick stolen Syrian oil from the Al-Hasakah Governorate to Iraq, the Syrian state agency SANA reports.

In addition to continuous accusations of oil theft, Syrian authorities and public organizations are also accusing the United States of systematic looting of ancients relics from local museums and the destruction of UNESCO cultural heritage sites in Palmyra that were built during the days of the Sumerian-Akkadian civilization. Typically, the US would launch air strikes in a specific area that would then be occupied by pro-Western militants ransacking ancient buildings only to run with their loot to the nearest American base, from where ancient manuscripts would be flown by military planes to the United States. According to media sources, some 2.8 trillion dollars worth of historic artifacts has already been stolen from Syria in this way. Others claim that the entire heritage of the Syrian people has already been stolen from them and sold by Washington.

In addition to the repeated pleas issued by Damascus to the UN Security Council demanding that the United States should stop plundering the national wealth of Syria, the Syrian foreign ministry has recently demanded compensations from Washington for the damage and destruction inflicted upon to the Syrian state as a result of US foreign policy.

In early April, the Syrian and Russia authorities drew Washington’s attention to the absence of any formal pretext for the ongoing US military presence in the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, and urged the latter to provide an explanation of this fact to the international community. The joint statement of the coordination headquarters of Russia and Syria noted that the presence of the US military in Syrian territory without a relevant decision of the UN Security Council and without an official invitation from Damascus constitutes an occupation that aggravates the situation in the country and region as a whole. At the same time, it was added that the US military presence in Syria had already led to the resumption of terrorist operations throughout the Middle East. Moreover, the statement emphasized that it is clear that the US benefits from maintaining chaos and instability Syria in order to “continue looting the natural resources and other treasures of the Syrian Arab Republic”.

In the absence of any visible reaction from the United States and a number of international institutions, which allow the US military to plunder Syria with complete impunity, the people of Syria have resorted to guerrilla tactics. Thus, on April 15 one of the US military bases located to the north of Deir ez-Zor became the target of a missile strike of “unknown origin”, which means that no one claimed responsibility for the attack. According to the Iraqi Al Etejah TV channel, that would cite sources on the ground, a number of US servicemen got wounded as a result of the attack, as they were quickly taken to a nearby hospital.

According to the Mehr news agency and other regional media sources, the missile strike would target “the headquarters responsible for the illegal export of oil from Syria.” The perpetrators behind this attack remain unknown. It is assumed that it could have been committed by pro-Iranian militias fighting on the side of Bashar al-Assad, or by other militant groups that disagree with the US course of actions that Washington adopted in Syria. At the same time, over the past few months, there were similar attacks carried out against a number of American facilities in the east and north-east of Syria. So far, Washington has established nine military installations: four in the Deir ez-Zor governorate and five more in the neighboring governorate of Al-Hasaka. Being fully aware that the local population is going to take further actions against what they perceive as the occupation force, the United States has been trying to strengthen its facilities in Syria since last September.

In addition to the violent actions of the local population against the US military in Syria, similar facts are increasingly being noted in neighboring Iraq. So, according to Iraqi media reports, in mid-April the Al Asad Airbase came under attack by three drones. The Iraqi Telegram channel Sabereen News, which is close to the “resistance forces” in the Middle Eastern region, reported that this is the second such attack committed in a week against US facilities, following an attack in the Erbil area. A couple of days later, yet another air base in Iraq came under attack, the Balad Air Base as locals were aware that US servicemen were living around that military installation. In total, there’s been over 40 such missile attacks were carried out in Iraq, targeting US military and diplomatic personnel, since Joe Biden took office. As a rule, no one claims responsibility for such attacks, or sometimes it is claimed by groups that no one knows, which, according to some experts, may serve as a “smoke screen” for Iranian-backed organizations that have long been present in Iraq. Qais Khazali, a high-ranking pro-Iranian figure in the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary group that was created in 2014 with the support of Tehran to fight off Daesh (a terrorist group, banned in RF) recently said that “the forces of resistance to the American occupation “have carried out a number of attacks against the US and they are bound to intensify in the future, if the United States does not withdraw all its combat forces from all parts of Iraq.”

Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.

A number of Arab media outlets were quick to write that a “highly sophisticated conspiracy” aimed at destabilizing the rule of Jordanian King Abdullah II was most likely thwarted. International and regional concerns about developments in Jordan appeared to have ended after the royal reconciliation ended with the former crown prince swearing allegiance to the king and the Constitution. This was mediated by the elder of the Hashemite family, Prince Hassan, the uncle of King Abdullah II and Prince Hamzah.

The attorney general in the Jordanian capital Amman has banned the publication of any information about the alleged conspiracy, which allegedly involved the king’s half-brother Prince Hamzah.   In order to keep the investigation of the special services against Prince Hamzah and others secret, it was decided to prohibit the publication of everything related to this investigation at this stage, prosecutor Hassan al-Abdallat said in a statement.  The publication ban applies to all audiovisual media and social networks, as well as the publication of all images or video clips related to the topic on pain of legal action, Amman TV said in a statement.

The order came after Prince Hamzah, who had been harshly critical of the government, swore allegiance to King Abdullah II two days after being placed under house arrest. At first, the prince adopted a defiant tone, insisting that he would not obey orders restricting his movements.  But later, the 41-year-old prince pledged his support to King Abdullah II. “I will remain … true to the legacy of my ancestors, following their path, true to their path, their message and His Majesty,” he said in a signed letter quoted by the palace.

Hamzah, who was stripped of his crown prince title in 2004 by Abdullah, has recently become a fierce critic of the king, accusing the Jordanian leadership of corruption, nepotism and authoritarian rule.  In a video he posted recently to the BBC, Hamzah lashed out at the “incompetence” that has been prevalent in Jordan’s governing body for the past 15-20 years and has gotten worse.  No one can speak or express their opinion about anything without being intimidated, arrested, harassed and threatened, he said.

However, it is unclear what will now happen to the more than a dozen others arrested in connection with this conspiracy. The Washington Post reported that Riyadh is pushing for Amman to release the main figure among them, Bassem Awadallah, who is said to be close to the Saudi leadership and owns Tomoh in Dubai. The swift action and control of the media has led many Jordanians to question the official story of a “foreign-backed conspiracy” to destabilize the Kingdom.

So far, there has been very little information about what happened in Jordan. Rumors spread and international media increased coverage of the events. Moreover, there was a videotaped statement from Prince Hamzah, in which he sharply criticized the king and his government, did not deny that he shared this criticism with the country’s opposition. The video recorded in English and broadcasted by BBC and other media outlets, said that talk of a conspiracy backed by foreign players was a lie and argued that the official line did not always reflect what was really happening in Jordan.

The next day, Prince Hamzah’s mother, Queen Noor, indirectly accused the royal government of setting up her son. It is known that Queen Noor, nee American Lisa Halabi, the fourth wife of the former King Hussein, wanted her son to become King of Jordan and occupy the Hashemite throne. But when Hussein had to make an emergency visit to Amman in the United States shortly before his death in 1999 to remove his brother, Prince Hassan bin Talal, from the post of crown prince, he could not appoint Hamzah to this position, as he was still being in school.  Instead, King Hussein made his older brother, the current King Abdullah, the crown prince and placed Hamzah second in line to the throne. Four years after Abdullah became king, he removed his half-brother from office and made his eldest son Hussein ibn Abdullah crown prince.

Meanwhile, it became clear that the special services had thwarted a serious operation that had been hatched for some time against the current tsarist rule.  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordanian Armed Forces, Yousef Huneiti, issued a statement denying that the prince was under house arrest. The statement said that Prince Hamzah was not detained, but instead was “asked to cease movements and activities that were directed against the security and stability of Jordan,” adding that this was done as part of “comprehensive joint investigations by the security services.” Prince Hamzah attended various Jordanian tribal gatherings to criticize the government. This brought him popularity in some circles of society, but it is unclear whether this has found followers in government structures.  The head of the Prince’s Chancellery, Yasser Al-Majali, was among those arrested by the authorities. He belonged to a Jordanian tribe, which, according to rumors, was among those whose support the prince sought in the fight against his half-brother, the king.

Jordanian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Safadi presented the first official version of what happened so far, although his story was sparse in details, since this issue is very sensitive to national security.  “The country’s intelligence services have intercepted a conspiracy that was supposed to be carried out,” Safadi said, adding that Prince Hamzah was in contact with a foreign government to destabilize the kingdom. A man with connections in the foreign intelligence service contacted Prince Hamzah’s wife to advise her to leave the country by plane, but all communications were tapped, he said.  Although Safadi did not name the foreign country or the person who allegedly contacted Hamzah’s wife, the person’s identity quickly became the subject of speculation. Israeli journalist Barak Rav wrote that an Israeli businessman with ties to the US government was in contact with the former Crown Prince of Jordan, Hamzah bin Hussein, when he was placed under house arrest, and offered to send a private jet to take his wife and children to Europe.

Barak Rav informed that the unknown was Roy Shaposhnik, a politician of the Kadima Center Party in Israel and an adviser to the former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert. Roy Shaposhnik said he had never been a Mossad officer, but confirmed that he offered to help Prince Hamzah and his family as part of their friendship. This friendship began even when Shaposhnik’s company provided assistance in the logistics of the prince’s company, which trained Iraqi soldiers in Jordan.

These remarks brought some clarity to the story and contradicted previous rumors linking the conspiracy to the Gulf states. One Jordanian source told the weekly Al-Ahram that the Gulf states, Egypt and other states, including the United States, quickly issued statements in support of Jordan and expressed their full confidence in the leadership, promising to help keep Jordan stable and secure. Only the Netanyahu government did not.  The only thing that many Jordanians agree on is the arrest of Bassem Awadallah. Whether it was his role in an attempted “foreign-backed” coup, or because of very “sensitive business relationships” that run counter to Jordan’s national interests, many Jordanians are glad he is now facing the law and will be held accountable.

A possible end to the latest events was afforded by Abdullah II, who, in the face of an unprecedented social division in the royal family, portrayed him as an attempted rebellion with the participation of his half-brother, which was “nipped in the bud”, but caused him anger, pain and shock.  The monarch appeared to be doubling down on the charges against Prince Hamzah, the former crown prince, while trying to convince the Jordanians that the nation is returning to its business as usual.  But even if the current crisis is ultimately defused completely, the monarchy allied with the West will face serious problems as it faces growing internal dissent.

Recently, Jordan has indeed been experiencing various economic difficulties, exacerbated by the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Emigrant workers are returning from the Gulf countries to increase unemployment in the Kingdom, and the country’s scarce resources make it difficult to meet its needs. Financial and other support, especially from the rich countries of the Persian Gulf and Israel, has declined for many reasons, including because of Jordan’s position on regional issues. And apparently, any use of popular discontent and growing anger against the government can further cause certain unrest in the country. And in this situation, everything will depend on the position of the army and special services, which so far have traditionally been loyal to King Abdullah II.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Last month, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi convened a conference that he said would give people hope in the “turbulent” political system that emerged following the 2003 US invasion and overthrow of former President Saddam Hussein. “We call on all political forces and parties to defend the interests of the country, avoid discussions of violence, and stop political defamation in order to pave the way for early and successful elections,” he said. Mustafa Al-Kadhimi expressed hope that the conference would bring together both representatives of existing political parties and members of the opposition. He did not divulge any specific agenda for the conference, apparently because he did not know what it was himself, but said he expects it to put an end to the confrontation with Kurdistan and “preserve the territorial unity of Iraq.”

A similar proposal was made at a time when Iraq is still plagued by many different crises, ranging from political and religious unrest to popular protests to deteriorating security and the coronavirus pandemic. Mustafa Al-Kadhimi came to power himself after demonstrations that swept across many parts of the country in early October 2019, forcing his predecessor, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, to resign. He has pledged to reform the dysfunctional Iraqi government and restructure the security forces, reining in not only his opponents, but above all those who take up weapons to disrupt the foundations of society. The prime minister also called for early elections with free and fair voting, a key demand by anti-establishment protesters who accuse ruling political factions of rigging Iraq’s last elections in 2018 to secure a majority of parliamentary seats.

The Baghdad-based Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, Jeanine Antoinette Hennis-Plasschaert, who believes the country is at a crossroads and needs to address its problems, also supported a national dialogue to bring Iraqis together to draft a roadmap towards a more inclusive, stable, and prosperous Iraq. “Full access to all information, facts and figures will be key. Window dressing and demagoguery only fuels anger and outrage,” she told the UN Security Council.

Representatives for M. Al-Kadhimi, who launched a media campaign to test his proposal, said the team in his office was developing a plan to call the meeting together, and draw up an agenda and a list of participants. One of the main ideas promoted by officials and functionaries is a “new sociopolitical agreement”, which must be adopted by the participants and lead the country out of its political deadlock. In this regard, it is doubtful that officials are the ones who will determine the makeup of the participants, and the agenda of the future Iraqi-wide meeting. But in this situation it is naturally necessary for someone to take the initiative and begin a dialogue.

Many of Iraq’s main factions have expressed initial support for M. Al-Kadhimi’s proposal, and some have suggested holding negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations. Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia populist cleric whose political bloc holds the majority of Shia parliamentary seats, believes that engaging in dialogue should mean excluding former members of Saddam’s Ba’ath Party. For their part, pro-Iranian paramilitary groups, which have political factions in parliament where they often oppose the government, have so far remained silent about plans for a national dialogue. Critics, however, believe that there is something “unrealistic” in Al-Kadhimi’s desire to bring together competing actors with such disparate interests, and many intricate sources of discontent, at the negotiating table.

It is true that for now the Prime Minister’s statements lack details and clear goals that could lead to meaningful changes. They expressed serious doubts that entrenched ruling factions would be willing to make concessions to promote national concord.

It is worth remembering that since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, there have been several attempts at conciliation between rival political groups that represent the different sectarian and ethnic communities in Iraq, but none have succeeded in achieving any lasting peace or stability. Over the years, some international NGOs that have acted as coordinating organizations, but lacking accurate local information they have tried to achieve reconciliation in Iraq for their own purposes, proposing broadening the scope of dialogue at the grass-roots and national levels. These groups also provided experience and training in conflict management, resolving local problem challenges, promoting public debate, and religious peacebuilding. However, the entire national conciliation effort, including two meetings hosted by the League of Arab States, quickly turned into disarray, exposing not only deep political divisions but also the conflicting views on Iraq held by these “foreign teachers”.

From the beginning, national reconciliation in Iraq meant different things for different groups. For Shiites, this meant an end to the killings and other forms of violence practiced by disaffected Sunni groups, while for Sunnis it meant a fair deal to divide up national power and wealth. Kurds and other ethnic minorities have sought to balance their desire for greater autonomy with the benefits inherent in living in a unified Iraq. Most Iraqis have gravitated toward a democratic government in which political power would not be something that is absolute.

The unsuccessful endings for all previous dialogues have underscored the complexity of this objective given the mutual distrust, and the high level of criteria set by competing parties to enter into a deal geared toward national conciliation. The failure of a sustained effort to reach a lasting political agreement among Iraqis on the future for their country has contributed to the continued state of chaos and stalemate. In this atmosphere of confusion and anxiety, the picture formed by the many conflicts occurring in Iraq is more complex, and there is good cause to believe that the sources of mistrust between communities run even deeper than ten years ago.

Apparently, for national dialogue to be capped off with success, the participants involved must resolve the main issues that underpin public discontent, and the new challenges that have been cropping up over the years. Today, any intra-Iraqi dialogue needs to touch upon such key issues as sectarianism, corruption, the role of non-state actors, relations between the central government and Kurdistan, Iran’s influence on domestic political life, and relations with Arab countries on the Persian Gulf. Sectarianism in Iraq’s political system after the 2003 US invasion has become the dominant social force, surpassing power and wealth as an aspect of identity politics and becoming a source of disunity and violence. Epidemic corruption, according to the Iraqis themselves, has hit the country hard, and successive governments have failed to end this manifestation, which has negatively affected how the government functions, and exacerbated problems with the economy and security. Billions of dollars in public money have been withdrawn from circulation by various political leaders due to a drastic degradation of the living conditions for Iraqis and deteriorating deliveries of public services.

Until now, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi has not kept his promise for the state to take control of all the militia forces and their members. Understandably, no dialogue will be effective until the militias are disarmed and neutralized. Despite the repression, including assassinations and kidnappings, Sunni protesters that object to the government’s lack of effectiveness, the role played by Shiite militias, and Iran’s growing influence remain vigorous, crystallizing into various political parties and seeking to reinforce the role they have in the country’s future.

Through dialogue, the Iraqi political system should send a clear signal of hope to these protesters, demonstrating that there is a place for them in the nation’s life. The government has to act now to convince young, anti-establishment activists that they can strike a fair deal in Iraq by using the political process. While the participants in this dialogue must tackle all of these problems, they must also revise the Iraqi constitution, which has demonstrated enormous flaws. Many provisions in the document, which was developed primarily by Shiite and Kurdish leaders, and approved and ratified in 2005, were either rejected or contravened. Previous intra-Iraqi dialogues have been largely monologues, and for a new dialogue to succeed participants must immerse themselves in a new spirit of openness, and try to overcome the struggles and divisions of the past 18 years, whose main cause has been unprovoked aggression on the part of the United States.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The US government, with the UK hot on its heels, has long viewed the Middle East as a region where the presence of its army is indispensable not only because there are energy resources there, but due to the opportunity to control vast territories under the guise of “spreading democracy”. Therefore, American and British private military companies (PMCs) have been very actively involved in armed conflicts in the Middle East over recent decades, occupying an equal footing with the conventional armies deployed by their respective countries. The activity of PMCs particularly increased after the start of the “war on terror” declared by the West in 2001, when countries began to offer billions of dollars in contracts for PMCs around the world. The large Western PMCs founded during these years began to play a key role in fulfilling the tasks traditionally assigned to national armed forces. Moreover, according to findings from American experts, these military corporations will play an increasingly important role in local armed conflicts and wars in the future.

Great Britain was one of the first to join the business linked to the activities done by PMCs. According to a report given by the organization Open Democracy in 2018, the United Kingdom has spent approximately £50 million annually on private military and security service companies since 2004, and along with that the global private military and security industry is worth between £69 and £275 billion per year. This means that in essence Great Britain has stood at the forefront of privatizing military operations in “hot spots” like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen, establishing an iron “democratic” order in countries destroyed by Western intervention or armed conflicts. In addition, British PMCs have treated the civilian population of countries with contempt, resulting in a number of scandalous incidents. And the number of British PMCs in the region has become many times greater than the headcount for the official presence of British military personnel – something which London deliberately hides from the public.

Many of the companies among these PMCs are buzz words. One of the most famous PMCs is the American security firm Blackwater, which was renamed as Academi in 2010.

The second largest PMC in the world is Group 4 Securicor (or G4S for short), which employs more than 650,000 people and exceeds the armed forces of countries like France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. This is a multinational company that even has its own intelligence service, and is headquartered in the UK in the city of Crawley. The company has representative offices in 125 countries around the world. G4S was founded in 2004 following the merger of the Danish company Group 4 Falck and British Securicor PLC.

Since 2006, the company has been repeatedly criticized for failing to comply with human rights and safety standards. For example, in 2009 a prisoner from western Australia died who was being transported by company employees in a car without any air conditioning, and without access to water; however, a criminal case was not opened back then. In general, over the years that the company has existed, there have been so many incidents discrediting the activities performed by G4S that a separate page was even created on Wikipedia dedicated to this – although that definitely does not fully cover all the scandals that have to do with G4S. The poor quality of the company’s safety training was highlighted in a 2015 case in Mali’s capital, Bamako. Back then, militants from the Al-Mourabitoun, which is associated with Al-Qaeda (both formations are banned in the Russian Federation), attacked the Radisson Blu hotel, shooting everyone who was in the lobby, including six crew members of the Russian airline Volga-Dnepr.

On June 12, 2016, Omar Matin, a nine-year employee at G4S Secure Solutions who had worked for the US Department of Homeland Security, committed a massacre at the Pulse gay club in Orlando, Florida.

In addition, the company is accused of indirect complicity in the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, General Qassem Soleimani, by providing the Americans with information on the general’s whereabouts, after which his car was hit by a missile from an unmanned aerial vehicle.

Another very active British PMC in the Middle East is Aegis Defense Services, founded in 2002 by former British Army officer Tim Spicer. The company has offices in Kenya, Iraq, Nepal, Bahrain, Afghanistan, and the United States, and is headquartered in Basel (Switzerland). More than 20,000 mercenaries work in the company, and its main client is the US government. In particular, the firm has multi-million dollar contracts with the US government to work in Iraq and Kabul. The company operates in Iraq, Greece, the Congo, Kosovo, Nigeria, Sudan, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Nepal, Kenya, Bahrain, and a slew of other countries. The company’s headcount reaches up to 5,000 people.

In 2005, Aegis Defense Services became involved in a scandal after a video appeared on the Internet in which company employees shot at Iraqi civilians. The company’s management did not acknowledge its guilt, and the Pentagon refused to cooperate with law enforcement agencies any further.

In 2015, Aegis Defense Services was acquired by the Canadian company GardaWorld, which announced the reason was to “enlarge its strategic expansion into Africa and the Middle East”. However, despite this, the company still performs contracts for the US and British governments in Africa and the Middle East, and is actively involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it is known specifically as Aegis, and not as part of GardaWorld. Nevertheless, the trail of smoke from scandals continues to drag along behind this company to this very day – and the latest major, high-profile event surrounding it was the reports of how it recruited former “child soldiers” from African countries. Aegis has hired a significant number of militants from Sierra Leone and Uganda to work in Iraq to cut costs, especially after the budget cuts for the US military mission in Iraq, according to investigative journalism reports. In November 2016, media outlets reported that two Sierra Leoneans had threatened to take legal action against Aegis for “psychological harm” they said it had inflicted on them.

Another British PMC, Erinys International, was founded by two former officers of the British Armed Forces, Jonathan Garrath and Fraser Brown in 2002, and registered in the British Virgin Islands. In 2003, British intelligence officer Alastair Morrison joined the company’s management, but a year later he moved to Kroll, Inc., which is the world’s largest financial intelligence firm. Erinys International has subsidiaries in the UK, the Republic of the Congo, Cyprus, and South Africa, and its employees are mainly from the British intelligence services and special forces. In addition to participating in hostilities, the company trains foreign military personnel, intelligence officers, and police, in particular in the Middle East and Central Africa. It actively operates in Iraq, where about 6,500 employees were sent to guard its oil pipelines. Erinys operated in northern, central, and southern Iraq, with offices in Mosul, the southern outskirts of Baghdad, and Basra.  Iraqi officials proclaimed that Erinys International paid Iraqi tribes $1,100 for every mile of the oil pipeline they protected.  In 2004, the company signed a contract to provide assistance to the US Army Corps of Engineers. By 2008, the number of the company’s employees in Iraq alone had already exceeded the number of British forces in that country. From 2007-2009, the company performed a contract in the interests of the oil giant Shell. Currently, the company’s head office is located in Dubai, and in 2011 Erinys International was transformed into a holding company that includes divisions and representative offices in various countries.

Even with its very first contract in Iraq, Erinys International found itself at the epicenter of a scandal after several journalistic investigations into corruption that claimed its contracts were obtained with the assistance of Ahmed Chalabi, who received a reward of two million dollars for his assistance. And the first recruits for the oil field protection forces prepared by the company were members of the Kurdish militia group Free Iraqi Forces, which was created by the US Department of Defense and commanded by Ahmed Chalabi.

In 2004, the company found itself at the center of another scandal after information about the ill-treatment of prisoners emerged: reports from journalists showed that Erinys International employees violated the human rights convention by using brutal torture during a military investigation against a 16-year-old Iraqi.

Also in 2004, that same company wound up in another scandal associated with the work done by former members of units that supported the apartheid regime in South Africa for Erinys International. One of them was Francois Strydom, who was reported by the media as a former member of Koevoet, a South African paramilitary police unit infamous for acts of violence, torture, and murder, and who was on a genuine hunt for Namibian rebels.

The joint American-British PMC Northbridge Services Group is headquartered in the Dominican Republic, with branches in the UK and Ukraine. According to some estimates, it employs about three thousand former British military personnel, as well as several thousand former military personnel from France, South Africa, and the United States. The company rose to prominence in the civil conflict in Liberia in 2003, where it sided with the rebels, resulting in the overthrow of the country’s official government. It even put together a special operation to kidnap the disgraced President of Liberia C. Taylor for an additional fee (about $4 million), but this initiative was rejected as incendiary and outlandish.

The British PMC Olive Group, which actively operates in Syria, is well known for its participation in setting up provocative actions in this Arab country, including those that involved the participation of the already well-known “White Helmets”. The company was founded in 2001 by members of the United Kingdom Special Forces – Prince William’s friend Captain Harry Legge Bourke of the Welsh Guards and Chris St. George of the Parachute Regiment. It is registered in the UK (its acting beneficiaries are in the United States and Abu Dhabi), its founders are associated with the elite in the military and intelligence services, and its owners are with the US Republican Party and sheikhs in the Middle East. Until the mid-2010s, the main scope of activities for Olive Group employees were Iraq and Syria, but then its employees also began to work in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Mali, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Nigeria. In 2015, Olive Group was taken over by the American company Constellis (the deal was worth about $300 million), which brought together a number of other PMCs under its wing: ACADEMI, Triple Canopy, Centerra, AMK9, Edinburgh International, Strategic Social. In 2016, the PMC group changed owners again – and it turned out to be businessmen who are part of the social circles around former US President Donald Trump, and who are billionaires in the Republican Party.

Former British intelligence officer James Le Mesurier worked for Olive Group for three years (2005-2008), serving as vice president of social affairs. In 2014, he created Mayday Rescue, the so-called Syrian Civil Defense organization, more commonly known as the “White Helmets”. He then became the ideal contender for the role of a liaison between Olive Group, militant provocateurs, and the volunteers with White Helmets that Britain used to “help victims of the chemical attack” in its subversive actions against the authorities in Damascus.

In Syria the British, using their PMCs, have even set up their own zone of influence – this is the province of Idlib, where London has been operating since the end of 2016 after the liberation of Aleppo. Idlib was just where a British brigadier general, with the assistance of British PMCs, put together an armed group made up of locals, recruiting them into the ranks of the so-called “moderate opposition”; and these were the regions where £69 million just melted away that the British foundation Adam Smith International had allegedly transferred to the accounts held by the Free Syrian Police. Later on, it turned out that these funds were seized by militants from the Al-Nusra Front (a terrorist group prohibited in the Russian Federation), and the abovementioned fund was at the center of a scandal related to providing financing to Al-Qaida (banned in the Russian Federation).

Taking into account what has been stated above, and the numerous facts involving scandals related to the activities performed by British PMCs in the Middle East, their activities are by no means perceived in positive terms, as is the overall policy adopted by Great Britain in this region. And the number of British PMCs, which has grown to an unimaginable size here, makes the issue of the need to withdraw these forces, which are effectively NATO armed forces, from the region an especially pressing one today.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The change of the ruling elite in the White House has prompted many countries in the East, including Egypt and Turkey, to revise their foreign policies to better adapt to this new reality.

After seven years of tensions, Ankara and Egypt are now sending signals that they are prepared to seek rapprochement. This is largely the result of a growing consensus that has been attained in those countries in recent months that the United States has become as much an ally for both Turkey and Egypt as a dangerous enemy.

Turkey does not hide its concern about the possibility of Washington providing tacit support to the forces opposing the centralized power of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At the same time, both countries are well aware of the sympathies that members of the Democratic party share towards the so-called “Muslim Brotherhood” (banned in Russia), which became the bone of contention between Cairo and Ankara seven years ago because of Turkey’s active support of the former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Morsi came to power in 2012 due to support that the “Muslim Brotherhood” provided to him and was ousted a year later after mass protests and a military coup that resulted in Abdel Fattah al-Sisi becoming Egypt’s president in 2014. Ankara still believes that the military coup of 2013 was an illegal undertaking, while Erdogan himself considers the untimely demise of Morsi to be a crime, for which Cairo, in his opinion, should be held accountable.

However, the results of the recent summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, where Egypt’s supposed allies – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – announced they would put an end to their boycott of Qatar, pushed Cairo in a corner. Qatar is an ally of Turkey these days, and when Abu Dhabi and Riyadh announced their decision without taking into consideration Cairo’s interests and without coordinating their actions with it, they forced Egypt into rethinking its approach towards Turkey. As a matter of fact, this step has automatically shattered the anti-Turkish Arab bloc that Egypt was a part of. Now, after the summit, Egypt, which had no intention of resolving its disputes with Ankara, has found itself isolated in both political and economic terms. Riyadh used to pay a lion’s share of the costs associated with attempts at deterring Turkey, but it has lost all appetite of carrying on this burden any longer because of both the financial difficulties that its faces, ongoing war in Yemen and the stance that Joe Biden took.

Turkey’s reconciliation with the Gulf states allows it to strengthen its relations with Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, while de-escalating tensions with Riyadh. Those tensions reached a record high after the murder of the Saudi-born journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. Turkey is also pleased that the UAE has also expressed its desire to normalize its relations with Ankara just as well.

A major driver for rapprochement between Egypt and Turkey are the developments of the situation in and around Libya, as Ankara has recently managed to eliminate the threat to Tripoli that was posed by the Egyptian-Emirati coalition. This resulted in Egypt realizing the futility of further military steps and abandoning its support of the head of the LNA, Khalifa Haftar. Moreover the confrontation in the Eastern Mediterranean is coming to naught with France playing a role in this process, and this confrontation stood in the way of further geological exploration of the region, with Egypt and Turkey being equally interested in such an endeavor.

Under these conditions, everyone agrees that it’s easier to strike some sort of a deal than declaring an all-out war.

Erdogan is certainly interested in getting Egypt on his side in the ongoing dispute with Greece over the demarcation of maritime borders in the Eastern Mediterranean, including his quest for obtaining sovereign rights over the valuable gas reserves. Despite the fact that Egypt signed a treaty with Athens for purely political reasons, Cairo still left a back door open for avenues of cooperation with Ankara in the region, taking into account Turkey’s reservations about sea borders. At the same time, the parties are well aware that the agreements between Egypt, Greece and Cyprus partially contradict similar agreements that Turkey signed with Libya, which doesn’t leave much room for a potential deal between Egypt and Turkey.

In spite of the fact that the two countries send each other positive diplomatic signals, Turkey and Egypt have a long way to go before fully mending their ties, especially in a situation where certain regional players would prefer to derail this rapprochement. There are other obstacles, including the ongoing conflict in Libya, where militants linked to the “Muslim Brotherhood” are still active, while Egypt regards those as terrorists. However, the Egyptians are clearly willing to look the other way this time around, since the “Muslim Brotherhood” doesn’t have the same reach it enjoyed a decade ago, and Turkey’s ongoing support wouldn’t put it in a position to become a threat to the authorities in Cairo. As a general rule, there’s no use making your policies a hostage of the old grudges.

In recent weeks, diplomats and negotiators have been particularly active, and not just Turkish and Egyptian ones. The new prime minister of Libya, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, who is considered a protege of Erdogan, visited Cairo last February to discuss issues of concern with the Egyptians. And in mid-March, Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced a round of Egyptian-Turkish diplomatic talks and intelligence consultations.

Head of Hamas’ political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh has recently visited the Anadolu editorial office in Istanbul, to publicly welcome the Turkish-Egyptian rapprochement and express his confidence that any cooperation between Ankara and Cairo will be in the interests of the Palestinian people and their national cause.

Turkey and Egypt are, of course, two major players of the Middle East and the Islamic world. There are still unresolved differences between the two, but the parties have stopped resorting to harsh statements and are now looking for avenues for cooperation. At present, those signals they send each other allow us to be cautiously optimistic, even though it’s clear that there’s no way of solving all of the problems instantly, and that the process of sorting things out will take time. We are not talking about Egypt and Turkey becoming partners overnight, they will still be rivals, but their rivalry will unravel in a more or less civilized manner, with visible red lines put in place that will prevent their bilateral ties from degenerating.

Erdogan understands that the stronger Ankara is in geopolitical and economic terms, the more difficult it will be for Joseph Biden to undermine Turkish interests. The rapprochement between Turkey and Egypt is closely watched by Greece, as Cairo’s withdrawal from the anti-Turkish axis deprives Athens of its most important ally in the battle for the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean, and may force it into seeking compromise with Turkey.

Therefore, the rapprochement between Turkey and Egypt can have serious consequences for the entire region, where renewed Turkish-Egyptian political, diplomatic and economic ties can create a new balance of power in the Mediterranean.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

On April 3, a number of members of King Abdullah II inner circle and high-ranking officers of the Jordanian army and tribal leaders were detained in the Jordanian capital, Amman, “for security reasons.” Among the detainees is former Crown Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, the eldest son of the late King Hussein by his American-born fourth wife, Queen Noor. Prince Hamzah was Crown Prince of Jordan for four years, but the title was eventually passed on in 2004 to Abdullah II’s eldest son, Hussein, who is now 26.

In addition to Prince Hamzah, a member of the royal family — former head of the royal court Sharif Hassan Bin Zaid and former adviser to King Abdullah II and Minister of Finance Bassem Awadallah were also detained.

The pan-Arab TV channel Al-Mayadeen, publicizing these facts, reported “the discovery of a plot in Amman to remove Abdullah II from power” and the arrest of about 20 people as part of an investigation into “the threat to the stability of the country.”

The Washington Post also reported, citing a senior Jordanian intelligence official, that authorities in the kingdom are allegedly investigating a supposed plot to overthrow King Abdullah II, and believe that at least one other member of the royal family, as well as tribal leaders and members of the country’s security forces, were involved. Law enforcers speculate that the Crown Prince was one of the authors of the plan to overthrow King Abdullah II. Additional detentions are expected. An intelligence spokesman described the plan as “well-organized” and said that the conspirators apparently had “foreign connections,” but would not go into detail.

However, the Jordanian news agency Petra denies the arrest of Prince Hamzah, and a statement released by the agency by Major General Yousef Ahmad al-Huneyti, head of Jordan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, states that Prince Hamzah was asked to stop “actions that are used to attack Jordan’s security.”

The Secretary General of the Jordanian opposition coalition, Mudar Zahran, claims that the Jordanian military intelligence has already questioned Hamzah and presented him with evidence that he was funding a radical Palestinian terrorist group whose aim was a violent coup d’etat. Several members of the group are noted to be in Europe and their activities are monitored by the Jordanian intelligence services.

Prince Hamzah himself stated in a video message that he was not allowed to communicate with people or use the Internet because he criticized the actions of the government or the king. The army commander ordered him to stay at home and his bodyguards were arrested. The prince denied the conspiracy charges, stating:

“I am not the person responsible for the breakdown in governance, the corruption and for the incompetence that has been prevalent in our governing structure for the last 15 to 20 years and has been getting worse.”

As for the main actors in the current scandal in Jordan, it is reasonable to recall that Prince Hamzah was heir to the throne for four years, but Abdullah II overtook him and sat on the royal throne himself, invoking the last will of his late father. So pushing or using Prince Hamzah to employ “outside forces” in organizing the palace conspiracy was not that difficult.

As for the other two “notable figures,” Hassan Bin Zaid and Bassem Ibrahim Awadallah, they are both also rather troublesome people. The first is from the royal family, also has a Saudi passport, has ties to oil and Palestinian Hamas, has repeatedly acted as an intermediary, both in sensitive deals and in contacts of the Arabian monarchies with the Americans, Iranians, Pakistanis, has transferred donations to Armenian social organizations in France.

Bassem Ibrahim Awadallah is a clear “grey cardinal,” having headed the Royal Court at various years, been head of the Royal Office, Minister of Finance, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, and at the time of his arrest was CEO of Tomoh Advisory in the UAE and Vice President at Arab Bank-Jordan, through which payments went to China and Israel.

So these three Jordanians, each with their own grievances against the royal house and supporters in the army and individual tribes of the kingdom, were not difficult for “outside forces” to use in a subversive action against King Abdullah II under the slogan: “King is leading us the wrong way and deserves to be removed.” And this is exactly the thought that can be seen in the video message made by Prince Hamzah criticizing the monarch for the socio-economic crisis in the country and rampant corruption.

In the coming days, the kingdom’s intelligence services will be busy figuring out who these “outside forces” are and who else of the accomplices come from Jordan’s ruling elite. And given that Jordanian intelligence has long been working on Prince Hamzah, the very public exposure of the plot was clearly just a preventive measure so that “the situation does not go too far.”

The arrests in Jordan of former politicians close to King Abdullah II and associated with liberal reformers have clearly alarmed the United States and other Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. US State Department spokesman Ned Price was quick to say that US officials are watching developments, and “King Abdullah himself is a key partner of the United States, he has our full support.”

Reuters reported that King Abdullah II was also supported by the authorities of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait and Iraq, and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League. The Office of the Royal Court of Saudi Arabia, for example, endorsed the actions of Abdullah II, which “thwarted attacks on the security and stability of the country.”

The Middle East is one of the most volatile regions on the planet; any moment it could become the scene of some cataclysmic upheaval or face a coup d’état. The events of the Arab Spring and US military interventions in Syria and Iraq proved this. Moreover, it is noteworthy that, even during these difficult years, the monarchies of the region showed great stability, while the “revolutionary events” mainly developed in the countries of the Arab republics.

But this does not mean that the Arab monarchies are completely safe from anti-government shocks. This is confirmed by the fact that Jordan has repeatedly in recent years shown the possibility of aggravation of the internal situation there. In particular, this is evidenced by the attempted failed coup d’état in the Hashemite monarchy in late 2017, which, as regional media reported at the time, involved three members of the royal family associated with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Salman and Mohamed bin Zayed. At the time, the dissent of the Jordanian monarch Abdullah II to support Riyadh’s intervention in Yemen and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policy in the region was clearly used by “outside forces” to instigate a coup d’état. In addition, King Abdullah II did not go along with the Sunni states in their boycott of Qatar in 2017, and in Libya and Syria Jordan also behaved clearly not as the Saudis would have liked it.

In addition, Jordan’s criticism of the US and Israel was also growing and caused serious concerns for Washington and Tel Aviv. In particular, given Amman’s reaction to Donald Trump’s attempts, under Israeli influence, to move the capital of the Jewish state to Jerusalem, as well as regarding the Temple Mount, whose official guardians are the Hashemite dynasty. One must not forget that Washington has repeatedly demonstrated its dissatisfaction with Jordan’s policies toward Iran, Russia, and Turkey.

Its opponents had and still have many means to destabilize the situation in Jordan, and not only among disgruntled members of the royal family. It is also worth remembering that, with a small population of 10 million of its own, this country hosts more than two million refugees from the hot spots of the Middle East, the highest per capita percentage of refugees who are constantly undergoing radicalization processes. In addition, the kingdom is experiencing objective economic and financial difficulties, the percentage of national unemployment is very high – about 30%. And amidst all this, the attempts by Abdullah II to develop much-needed trade and economic relations with Iran, purchase agricultural products from it, as well as intensify relations with Russia and China clearly go against the interests of Washington.

At the same time, the events of April 3 can hardly be called a clear attempt at a coup d’etat in Jordan, which is denied to this day by both the official authorities and the media of the kingdom. Most likely, this was another (as in 2017) signal to King Abdullah II from Washington and Riyadh to “tame him,” to make him obedient to the selfish goals of Washington and Saudi Arabia.

Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

During a meeting between Foreign Minister of PRC Wang Yi and President of Iran Hassan Rouhani in Tehran on March 27, the former said that China opposed the unilateral sanctions against Iran and firmly supported “Iran in opposing hegemony and safeguarding” its national sovereignty and dignity. According to the head of the executive department responsible for PRC’s foreign relations, these sanctions violated international law and caused “harm to the Iranian people”, and the international community needed to “work together to oppose any acts of bullying by powers”. He also stated that China stood “ready to work with Iran to defend the legitimate rights of the two nations and other developing countries”.

In Tehran, Wang Yi met with practically all of Iran’s top officials: President Hassan Rouhani, counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif and Ali Larijani, an Advisor to Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei. Apparently, the latter does not often take part in diplomatic talks. Wang Yi and Mohammad Javad Zarif agreed to start a new chapter of China–Iran relations.

A key outcome of the Foreign Minister’s visit was the signing of a bilateral 25-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (“in areas such as economy and culture”). In fact, its primary focus is on collaboration in the economic sphere. Although neither Iran nor the PRC made the details of the agreement public before the signing, according to experts, it was largely unchanged from the 18-page draft obtained the previous year by The New York Times.

In general, China is one of Iran’s key trade partners and an important buyer of Iranian oil. In addition, for the PRC, cooperation with Iran is vital for its New Silk Road initiative. In 2016, trade between Iran and China was worth approximately $31 billion (i.e. the next year after the historic multi-party Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program was signed). However, after ex-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018 despite opposition to the move from its other signatories, such as Russia, China, Great Britain, France and Germany, and imposed tough sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, trade between the former and the PRC declined.

The words “strategic partnership” in the concluded agreement clearly caused quite a stir. After all, the signed bilateral pact could become a prelude to a fully-fledged alliance (also in the military sphere) between the two countries. The author would like to remind his readers that as far back as last year, former Crown Prince of Iran in exile in the United States, Reza Pahlavi (the son of last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi), expressed his opposition to the 25-year economic and security deal valued at $500 billion, which China and Iran were supposedly close to signing. There were also rumors at the time that “the deal included the transfer of some Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf region to China for military exercises”. A year ago, such news elicited concern among US officials.

More recently, certain US media outlets have already reported on the improving relationship between the PRC and Iran by stating that the deal could deepen China’s influence in the Middle East and undercut American efforts to keep Iran isolated. In such a context, at a meeting with Chinese officials in Alaska, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated: “I said that the United States relationship with China will be competitive where it should be, collaborative where it can be, adversarial where it must be”.

On March 28, in an interview given in Delaware and broadcast by the American TV, US President Joe Biden mentioned that the latest alliance between Beijing and Tehran is a challenge to US.

According to a report published by an Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the strategic pact with China has given “Iran breathing room at a critical time”.

A number of journalists have referred to the recently concluded 25-year agreement between the oil-rich nation of Iran and globally powerful China as a potential game changer in the Middle East. A March 29 article published by the Strategist, a website of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, stated that the agreement was the culmination of growing economic, trade and military ties between the two countries since the advent of the Iranian Islamic regime following the revolutionary overthrow of the Shah’s pro-Western monarchy in 1979. Deeper and wider cooperation between China and Iran, especially when considered in the context of their close ties with Russia and the trio’s adversarial relations with the US, carries a strong potential for changing the regional strategic landscape. “So far, China has been careful not to partner with Iran to an extent that could jeopardize its lucrative relations with the oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Iran’s regional arch-rival) and its Arab allies,” the report also says. Another reason why the PRC leadership must have avoided showing public support for Tehran before is that China enjoys reasonable military and intelligence cooperation with Israel, another main regional adversary of Iran.

Beijing’s conclusion of the deal with Tehran is bound to deeply concern the Gulf Arab states, Israel and indeed the US, as these countries were already troubled by a perceived Iranian threat, given Tehran’s expanding influence across the Levant (Iraq, Syria and Lebanon) and Yemen as well as its support for the Palestinian cause against Israeli occupation. The US is also concerned by Iranian leverage in Afghanistan, where American and allied forces have been fighting the Taliban-led insurgency [an organization banned in the Russian Federation] for two decades without much success, and from which Washington wants to extricate itself with some face-saving measures as soon as possible.

Western observers also point out that combined with Iran’s close ties with Russia, the China–Iran deal potentially generates a strong axis that can only boost Tehran’s regional position and bargaining power in any negotiations with the Biden administration regarding the JCPOA.

It is worth noting that Wang Yi’s trip to Iran was part of his tour of the Middle East, which includes visits to the UAE, Oman and three other nations that the Iranian leadership has highly problematic relations with: Bahrain, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Undoubtedly, the head of China’s Foreign Ministry tried to safeguard Tehran’s interests during meetings with officials from the three latter nations.

In Tehran, Wang Yi and top politicians from Iran showed their willingness to jointly oppose sanctions imposed by the West, as stated earlier in the article. In fact, on March 22, during an interview before his visit to the PRC, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, criticized Western countries for resorting to the use of sanctions. A day later, following the meeting with Foreign Minister of the PRC Wang Yi, Sergey Lavrov stated  “Moscow and Beijing stand for developing interstate relations on the principles of mutual respect and a balance of each other’s interests, justice and non-interference in others’ internal affairs… We noted the growing importance of the joint activities of Russia, China and a wide range of other countries to preserve the current system of international law in the context of the increasing Western attempts to promote its concept of a rules-based international order.”

In any case, the signing of the agreement between Iran and the PRC is an important step for their bilateral relationship, which will not only consolidate China’s position in the Greater Middle East but also facilitate Tehran’s interactions with its regional rivals, i.e. Sunni majority Arab nations.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

In recent days, a mass movement for the removal from power of a political class mired in corruption has intensified in Lebanon. On March 12-13, a protest rally outside the Lebanese parliament turned into clashes, with protesters trying to break through the gates, throwing rocks at Guardians of Order. As a result, the police had to resort to tear gas.

The citizens of Lebanon are dissatisfied with the protracted crisis in the country. The economic situation was exacerbated by the pandemic. The World Bank said that in 2020 alone, Lebanon’s gross domestic product shrank by at least 19.2%. According to Lebanon’s acting Prime Minister Hassan Diab, Lebanon is now on the verge of exploding and at a point of no return as the country’s crisis worsens.

A deep economic and political crisis has plagued Lebanon since the fall of 2019. Two governments have resigned in the meantime: Saad Hariri resigned amid protests, and Hassan Diab resigned after the Beirut port explosion last August. Seven months after the resignation of Hassan Diab’s government, a new one has still not been formed, which creates even more difficulties on the way out of the crisis, because the financial crisis cannot be solved without resuming negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, and this is impossible without reforms, which will also not happen without a new government. To date, the political forces of the country have failed to find a compromise composition of the new government that satisfies all parties.

As a result, there are protests all over Lebanon, complete with roadblocks. Attacks on stores and gas stations and clashes with the army and police have been reported in Saida and Tripoli. Participants of the protests demand that the authorities begin to take real action to overcome the economic crisis and improve people’s lives.

The unrest escalated against the background of a sharp increase in the exchange rate of the national currency on the black market. On March 13, the Lebanese currency hit a new record low: 12,500 pounds to the US dollar, while the official rate at the banks remains at 1,500 to the US dollar. A number of analysts have called the possible price of 25,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar in the coming months, if no emergency recovery of the financial sector. Depositors’ foreign currency accounts at banks have remained frozen since October 2019, and prices of many products have risen by more than 400% in that time, according to official Lebanese statistics.

Small and medium-sized businesses are bankrupt: even before the coronavirus pandemic, half of the country’s six million people were living below the poverty line, and recently there have been significantly more Lebanese living below the poverty line. According to Lebanese police data, the crisis has also led to an increase in crime: the number of murders in the country rose in 2020 by 91% and robberies by 57%.

Protesters’ blockade of access highways prevents vital goods from coming in. The director of the Rafik Hariri Hospital has already cited the protesters’ actions as one of the reasons for the deaths of coronavirus patients who could not get oxygen in time due to traffic jams across the country.

Things got heated between Lebanese President Michel Aoun and commander-in-chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces Joseph Aoun. Discontent among the military is growing against the background of the devaluation of their salaries, they refuse to disperse protesters who are blocking the roads. As recently as last year, the Lebanese army was forced to remove meat from its ration because of worsening funding. Joseph Aoun, commander-in-chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces, warned politicians at a press conference on March 8 that the crisis has endangered the very existence of the armed forces. “Soldiers suffering and starving like the people. Do you want an army or not? You want the army to stand firm, don’t you? They don’t care. The officers also suffer and starve. I am addressing the officials: where are we going? What are you waiting for? What do you intend to do?”

In addition to starvation, power cuts of three or more hours a day have become the norm in Beirut. In some areas of the Lebanese capital there is no power for up to 12 hours. The authorities cannot give a coherent explanation as to why this is happening. At a meeting with interim Energy Minister Raymond Ghajar, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said that if a government is not formed by April at the latest, not only will there be no electricity, but the country itself.

France has taken the lead in trying to break the political deadlock in Lebanon: President Emmanuel Macron visited Lebanon twice last year and the French Embassy donated food to the Lebanese army in February. French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian stressed at a recent press conference that no change followed Macron’s visits in response to his proposed plan to form a government by political parties that would be able to implement economic reforms and fight corruption. In the end, France stated that it could not help Lebanon, which was sliding toward “total collapse”.

But the ultimate collapse in Lebanon could have serious negative consequences for other countries in the region, especially its neighbor, Syria, whose economy is strongly linked to that of Lebanon. This includes bank transfers from abroad, which for a long time helped many Syrians survive after the UAE was cut off from the international banking system. As well as sea cargo from Lebanon’s Tripoli, which bypasses sanctions. Nor should we forget the seasonal work that brought Syrians in, nor the smuggling that kept a certain proportion of Syrians alive. Therefore, the collapse of Lebanon’s economy will inevitably have an impact on the already low standard of living in Syria, leading to even greater social losses there as well.

In these circumstances, there are few possible ways out of the situation in Lebanon. They are all related to a long period of economic and political sanitation and to an end to the backstabbing of numerous Lebanese political groups and their lobbyists. The question now is how long the various political leaders and community heads can keep in check a population that has no money to support its children, and the aggression of young people who have lost their life prospects. If the growing radicalism cannot be curbed, and if the Lebanese authorities fail to rebuild at least the rest of the economy and stop the decline of the Lebanese pound in the near future, Lebanon risks being on the verge of another violent civil-military conflict.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.

Saudi Arabia, overtaxing itself in its vain efforts to establish dictatorial control over all the countries on the Arabian Peninsula, has recently moved toward a compromise with Qatar to end a devastating three-year conflict. However, as practice still shows – and many sources close to the negotiations say – a complete resolution remains unattainable, despite the offer to make concessions. Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah bin Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told AFP agency that the kingdom and its allies – Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE – that imposed the blockade on Qatar in June 2017 are “on board” with resolving the crisis, and an agreement is anticipated in the near future.

A potential “thaw” appears to be arising as the Gulf states prepare for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who will welcome the resolution of the scandal that has undermined US efforts to curb its nemesis, Iran. The countries involved in the blockade continue to accuse Doha of being tied too closely to Tehran, and allegedly funding radical Islamist movements – despite Qatar’s categorical denials. They initially put forth a list for Qatar with 13 demands, including the closure of Al Jazeera, a popular and influential regional broadcasting company that has irritated the Gulf rulers with its “high-decibel” criticism.

Doha flatly refused. And, after a fierce standoff, the Saudi-led bloc is poised to significantly soften its demands in for a final deal. A person close to the Saudi government said that the kingdom is ready to reopen its airspace to Qatari aircraft, freeing them of fuel-consuming detours, if Doha stops funding its political opponents and putting restrictions on its media.

The blockade severed transportation links, tore families apart, and cost billions of dollars in lost trade and investment – damage that Gulf economies can hardly afford as they struggle to pull themselves out of the coronavirus epidemic, with their incomes plummeting as a result of declining oil prices and a harsh economic crisis. Ultimately, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have officially thrown their support behind efforts to overcome the schism between Arab countries.

Another Gulf source that is close to the talks stated that the Saudi process could lead to a certain kind of peace, but not completely address the underlying problems. According to him, the final deal is likely to be a joint document outlining the terms of what perhaps could be a reformatted version of the 2014 Riyadh agreement between Qatar and the other Gulf states – a secret pact believed to emphasize the principle of non-intervention into each other’s affairs. According to one Western diplomat in the Persian Gulf, mediators from Kuwait insist on bringing the three main leaders in the Arabian Peninsula on board for the negotiations – Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and the current ruler of Qatar, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. These three will not only have to negotiate, but agree to peacefully coexist. “We are going to review one potential temporary solution for a few weeks… I don’t think anyone is waiting for a full resolution. Everyone will be looking at how wholeheartedly the official statement is worded,” diplomats from Doha said, quoting a senior Qatari official as saying that the final deal was “agreed upon in principle” but “limited in scope”. The official, they said, suggested that Saudi Arabia was reluctant to announce the deal before the term for current US President Donald Trump expires, possibly to set up a positive tone for Joe Biden, who promised to take a tough stance on Riyadh in regard to its human rights violations. The US is seeking to lift the air embargo that prompted Qatar to use Iranian airspace, contributing to the roughly 133 million USD that Iranian media reports Tehran receives annually from flights, undermining US efforts to exert economic pressure on it.

Experts believe there are strong signs that the media in both Saudi Arabia and Qatar have begun to soften their harsh rhetoric. Writing to the pro-government newspaper Okaz Daily, which usually criticizes Qatar, Saudi observer Tariq Alhomayed hailed “optimistic” sentiments, and called for “unity and cohesion” in the Persian Gulf.

But the real litmus test was the level of Qatar’s representation at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit (GCC), and the presence of the Qatari emir. The blockade led by Saudi Arabia was calculated to literally strangle Qatar, and force it to join the interests held by the Persian Gulf, and above all to ride on Riyadh’s coattails. But the sanctions only pushed Doha to pursue a course of self-sufficiency, and forced the rich emirate with “deep pockets full of money” to pursue a policy toward, and forge close ties with, Iran and Turkey.

In July, a UN court ruled in Qatar’s favor over the airspace dispute. However, despite Riyadh’s stance involving de-escalation, mistrust between both sides is deeply rooted, and experts warn that the differences are “fundamental and existential, and do not end after just a simple handshake”. It will take a lot of time and sustained effort on all sides to rebuild the old ties, says Kristian Ulrichsen, a fellow at the Baker Institute at Rice University in the United States. Any agreement will be the start of a longer process of reconciliation, not an endpoint or return to the previous status quo before 2017.

And ultimately the course taken by Qatar and its emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, led to the surrender of the Arab Goliath – Saudi Arabia – and forced its rulers to admit the fallacy inherent in its policy towards the small but proud emirate. The 41st Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit, which was just held in the Saudi city of Al-Ula, was a significant step towards resolving the differences between Qatar and its Persian Gulf neighbors. On the eve of the summit, the restrictions on airspace were lifted, and maritime and air borders with Qatar were reopened, as an act of good faith. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, speaking at the summit, emphasized: “Today we urgently need to unify our efforts to advance our region, and face the challenges that surround us, especially the challenges represented by Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles programs, its devastating sabotage projects, and its terrorist and religious sentiments”.  This means that this Saudi directly acknowledged that the alleged threat to the kingdom is not Qatar, but the policy adopted by Tehran.

While Saudi Arabia’s solution marks an important milestone on the road to resolving the Persian Gulf crisis, the path to full-fledged reconciliation is far from a guaranteed one. The schism between Abu Dhabi and Cairo, on the one hand, and Doha, on the other, remains the deepest one, since the UAE and Egypt have the most pronounced ideological differences with Qatar over the activities performed by the Islamic organization al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization banned in Russia). And apparently in this case, it would be worth agreeing with the opinion of the astute and experienced UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, who said: “There is still a lot of work ahead, but we are moving in the right direction”.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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