By James M Dorsey I2-U2, the Indo-West Asian quad, has boasted its first success with the acquisition by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani of Haifa Port. The acquisition was announced days after an I2-U2 virtual summit during US President Joe Biden’s visit last week to the Middle East. The acquisition by a close associate of Prime […]
The post The Privatisation Of Haifa Port With Adani: India-1, China -0 first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey US and European acquiescence in Turkey’s long-standing refusal to honour Kurdish ethnic, cultural, and political rights came home to roost when Turkey initially objected to Finnish and Swedish membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Ultimately, Turkey postponed potential conflict in NATO by dropping its initial objection to Finland and […]
The post Spotlight on U.S. Double Standards In Dealing With Turkey And Middle East first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey It’s a good time, almost 12 years after the world soccer body, FIFA, awarded Qatar the 2022 World Cup hosting rights and five months before the tournament, to evaluate the campaign to reform the country’s erstwhile onerous labour system and accommodate fans whose lifestyles violate restrictive laws and/or go against deeply […]
The post World Cup Balance Sheet Presents A Mixed Bag For Qatar first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey China could be entering choppy Middle Eastern waters. Multiple crises and conflicts will likely shape its relations with the region’s major powers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. The laundry list of pitfalls for China includes the fallout of the Ukraine war, strained US relations with Saudi Arabia and the United […]
The post China Heading To Choppy Middle Eastern Waters first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey The question for Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is not whether either country will recognise Israel but when and who will go first. For the past two years, Saudi Arabia was believed to want a Muslim state in Asia, home to the world’s three most populous Muslim majority countries, to recognise Israel […]
The post Pak Recognition Of Israel Is A Matter Of Time first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al-Baqr, a man known for his pithy retorts, pretended to quiver in his pants. Hindu nationalists had called for a boycott of the Gulf airline after Qatar took India to task for derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed and Muslim worship by two spokespeople of the country’s […]
The post India-Gulf Spat Over Prophet Remarks: Protagonists In Glass Houses first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey United States of America and European acquiescence in Turkey’s long-standing refusal to honour Kurdish ethnic, cultural, and political rights has come home to roost with Turkish opposition to Finnish and Swedish NATO membership. The opposition has sparked debates about Turkey’s controversial place in the North Atlantic defence alliance. Turkey’s detractors point […]
The post Double Standards Haunt US, Europe In NATO Dispute With Turkey first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey For now, Ukraine is the far from my bed show for most Middle Eastern nations. The question is not if but when Ukraine will arrive on their doorstep. Two centrifugal forces threaten to push Middle Eastern nations off the tightrope: an increasingly bifurcated world populated by a multitude of civilisationalist leaders […]
The post Ukraine: How Long Can Middle East Nations Do Tightrope Walk first appeared on IPA Newspack.
James M Dorsey Amid speculation about a reduced US military commitment to security in the Middle East, Turkey has spotlighted the region’s ability to act as a disruptive force if its interests are neglected. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan set off alarm bells this week, declaring that he was not “positive” about possible Finnish and […]
The post Turkey’s Erdogan Plays Games Within And With NATO first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey When Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, he laid down a marker for a critical mass of world leaders who, like him, think in civilizational rather than national terms. In the minds of these leaders, the stakes in Ukraine are about much more than the future of a former Soviet republic […]
The post Modi’s ‘Civilisationalism’ May Be Another Potential Flashpoint first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey There’s a potential silver lining in Hindu nationalism’s endorsement of Indonesia’s Humanitarian Islam. That is if the approval produces a Hindu equivalent. At first glance, Hindu nationalist Ram Madhav’s call on Indian Muslims to embrace one, if not the world’s most moderate expression of Islam, seems patronising and out of step. […]
The post Can Indonesia’s Humanitarian Islam Inspire A Hindu Equivalent? first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey When US Defence Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declared that Washington wanted to see Russia so “weakened” that it would no longer be able to invade a neighbouring state, he lifted the veil on US goals in Ukraine. He also held out the prospect of a long-term US-Russian contest for power […]
The post Renewed US Intervention In Central Asia On The Cards first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey The Russian Orthodox Church blesses rather than fires weapons. In doing so, it has emerged as a powerful weapon in its own right in President Vladimir Putin’s civilisationalist arsenal. Putin justified his 12-day-old invasion of Ukraine in part by asserting that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government had been preparing for the “destruction” […]
The post Putin Adds A Religious Front In His Expansionist Agenda first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the international condemnation it generated contains key lessons for policymakers. They are lessons that should have been learned in past global crises but weren’t. However, the Ukraine crisis offers an opportunity to correct that mistake. A first lesson is that failure to firmly […]
The post Ukraine: Result Of Lessons Not Being Learnt From Past Mistakes first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey Europe is likely to shoulder the brunt of the fallout of a rapidly escalating crisis over Ukraine. Middle Eastern states could prove to be a close second. That is no truer than for Turkey and Israel, whose management of the Ukraine crisis could determine their ability to protect perceived core national […]
The post Middle East Faces Spill-Over Effect From Ukraine War Threats first appeared on IPA Newspack.
James M Dorsey Even by Israeli standards, Uri Tzafon (Awaken North) is a far-right fringe group. Amid mounting tension with Lebanese Shiite political group and militia, Hezbollah, along the Lebanon-Israel border, Uri Tzafon is calling for Israeli settlement of southern Lebanon. The group has yet to gain traction. Uri Tzafon’s membership is in the low teens. Less than 300 people attended the group’s recent online conference. Few, if […]
James M Dorsey Israeli military triumphs and exploits often produce battlefield victories that fail to garner political gains. The Gaza war has changed that paradigm. It has produced neither a military nor a political victory. Adding fuel to the fire, Israel has abandoned the notion that soft power is as important as hard power in the vein of scholar Joseph Nye, who recently cautioned that “ignoring or neglecting […]
James M Dorsey The coming week or two could determine Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s political fate and reshape the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s Gaza war. That is, if Netanyahu fails to comply with war cabinet member Benny Gantz’s demand that the prime minister produce a plan for the post-war administration of Ga If Gantz resigns, he will likely be joined by fellow war cabinet member and […]
James M Dorsey Jordan’s King Abdullah is caught between a rock and a hard place. Hamas and its regional supporters, as well as Israeli politicians and vigilantes, are pressuring King Abdullah from both ends of the political spectrum. Iranian-backed Syrian and Iraqi militants seek to draw the kingdom, in which Palestinians account for at least 50 per cent of the population, into the Gaza war. Hamas, the […]
James M Dorsey US President Joe Biden doesn’t fit the mould of a high-risk gambler. Yet, gambling is the crux of his velvet glove dealings with Israel. With one eye on Israeli politics and the other on presidential elections in the United States in six months, Biden is walking a tightrope. The stakes and the costs couldn’t be higher. At its core, despite the administration’s escalating verbal […]
James M Dorsey Diaspora Jews, Palestinian Israelis, and Turkish Kurds have more in common than meets the eye. The similarities in how the three minority communities define themselves offer insights into what will make either a one- or two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict viable. To be sure, it’s hard to see, amid the Gaza carnage and Israel’s blinded and traumatised view of future relations with the Palestinians, how the two […]
James M Dorsey This week’s Gazan short-lived celebration of a ceasefire that was not to be, highlights what is at stake in the seven-month-old war and Israel’s refusal to end the carnage. Thousands poured into Gazan streets within minutes of Hamas advising it had accepted a Qatar and Egyptian ceasefire proposal. “We have shown the world that we survived this war as Palestinians. We stood our ground on our land. […]
James M Dorsey Israel’s latest Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange proposal puts the ball in Hamas’ court. The proposal, drafted in recent days by Israeli negotiators and Egyptian interlocutors, goes some way to address Hamas’ long-standing demands. The proposal makes concessions Israel has rejected in the past but raises as many questions as it opens doors to possible breakthroughs in the long-stalled negotiations mediated by Qatar and Egypt. In response, Hamas said […]
James M Dorsey An Israeli ground offensive in the southern Gazan enclave of Rafah is a question of when, not if. Not because Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is oblivious to US and international pressure but because it could prove to be make or break for Israel’s embattled leader. Netanyahu has promised “total victory” in the Gaza war and to “finish the job” in Rafah. The stakes for Netanyahu could […]
James M Dorsey Multiple overt and covert wars have pushed the Middle East to the edge of a cliff. Increased tension between Iran and Israel complicates efforts to pull the Middle East back from the abyss. With the two archenemies walking a fine line between waging covert or overt war, escalation between Israel and Iran has the greatest potential to push the Middle East off the cliff. […]
James M Dorsey Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is tying himself up in knots as he grudgingly, and only to a limited degree, bows to US President Joe Biden’s demands. In doing so, Netanyahu is puncturing Swiss-cheese size holes into Israel’s Gaza narrative, making it easier for Mr. Biden to take him publicly to task. Biden has demanded that Israel allow the unfettered flow of desperately needed humanitarian […]
James M Dorsey The Greater Middle East is a ticking time bomb. Generations in war-wracked Palestine, Syria, and Yemen have little, if anything, to look forward to. Moreover, discontent is mounting and could explode anytime in countries like Jordan, Egypt, and Iran. Palestine is a pressure cooker. Gazan youth has known little else than two decades of wars and siege. Beyond the trauma of the latest six-month-old war, Gaza’s next […]
James M Dorsey Muhammad Manassara walked in late February into a gas station near the West Bank settlement of Eli. Armed with an automatic weapon, Manassara killed two people before he was shot dead by the owner of a restaurant at the station, the site of the killing last summer of four Israelis. Three weeks later, Mujahid Barakat Mansour, a father of two small children, opened fire near the […]
James M Dorsey Israel’s refusal to lift restrictions on the unfettered entry into Gaza of food, medical supplies, and other desperately needed humanitarian goods, has less to do with a stand-alone starvation policy and more with who controls distribution in the Strip. Both Israel and Hamas see control of aid distribution as a building block of who comes out on top once the guns fall silent. The […]
James M Dorsey Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s walls are caving in. His multiple battles fall into two categories: keeping his increasingly fragile government in place and fighting a war he has already lost in the court of public opinion and possibly on the ground in Gaza if measured by the prime minister’s war goals. On Monday, Israel suffered its most significant international setback since 2016 with […]
