United Arab Emirates

Tuesday

John Fund

It’s the corruption, stupid!

There’s been a change of mood across the country – and not one that is favorable to the GOP. Last November, the prediction markets gave Republicans a 70 percent chance of keeping control of the Senate. Now their odds have deteriorated. It looks likely that the Democrats will win both the chambers – so what’s happened? The latest polls all tell the same story. The economy is no longer Trump’s superpower. Of those polled by Fox News, three- quarters rate the economy negatively, with 70 percent feeling it’s getting worse. Voters now trust Democrats on the economy more than Republicans for the first time since May 2010. Trump’s weakness on the economy brings with it another growing danger for him.

corruption

Wednesday

Matthew Lynn

The US is back in charge of the oil industry

The United States is getting sucked into a conflict in the Middle East, central banks are desperately trying to keep inflation under control and the world is facing an energy shock that may cripple the global economy. There are lots of ways the world looks very similar to the early 1970s. And yet, it is now clear that there is also one significant difference between now and then. Whereas half a century ago, the oil cartel OPEC was rising in power, with Tuesday’s shock decision by the United Arab Emirates to quit the group, it is clear that it is falling apart. In reality, the US is taking back control of the fossil fuel industry – and that is of huge geopolitical significance.

oil

Sunday

Ed Husain

In defense of Dubai

As the Islamist regime in Iran attacks Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Bahrain and Kuwait with drones and missiles, some in the west are quietly happy to see the Gulf’s skyscrapers lose their shine. "Dubai has no culture or history," say the armchair critics. When it comes to measures of wealth preservation, attracting millionaires, rule of law, social safety, artificial intelligence adaptation and combating Islamist radicalism, the UAE comes out far ahead of many western countries. But we can’t acknowledge this, so we insinuate our snootiness is about culture, history, risks and future stability. The snobs are wrong.  We insinuate our snootiness towards Dubai is about culture, history, risks and future stability.

Wednesday

Jawad Iqbal

The Gulf states have a big decision to make about Iran

Iran threatened harsh retaliation in the wake of the American-Israeli attacks that killed the country’s supreme leader and many of its senior commanders. Its response consisted of a barrage of missiles aimed at Israel. So far, so predictable. Yet, at the same time, Tehran chose to direct its firepower at neighboring Gulf states, countries that have been encouraging diplomacy and warning against war. Iran’s actions are an object lesson in how to alienate your friends and neighbors. So far, they have continued to employ the rhetoric of de-escalation. But that’s untenable if Iran continues to target their territory The Iranians targeted Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Jordan. Explosions rocked the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

gulf

Friday

Cockburn

Prince Andrew’s business blueprint for Trump 2.0

President Trump has had a mixed reaction to the enormous document dump of “Epstein files” from the Department of Justice a week ago. The President had a terse exchange with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins when she asked about the files Tuesday – yet in his pre-Super Bowl NBC interview, Trump was empathetic toward one of his predecessors. “It bothers me that they’re going after Bill Clinton,” he told Tom Llamas, referring to how the former president and his wife, Hillary, were being compelled to testify before Congress about Epstein. Cockburn wonders if that compassion extends to another figure he moved in the same circles as back in the early 2000s: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

andrew epstein trade business

Friday

Cockburn

The World Cup of ICE arrests

The White House and Department of Homeland Security are making hay out of the DHS “Worst of the Worst” database, posting links to it throughout the week as evidence that ICE’s actions in Minnesota are justified. President Trump also held up printouts from the database during his Tuesday marathon presser. But Cockburn has been playing a different game with the database: filtering villains not by state of residence, but by country of origin. Of note: none are from the United Arab Emirates, or from Belgium, (which, unlike the UAE, refuses to join President Trump’s Board of Peace). There are only three Greeks but seven Israelis, including a burglar with the piquant name of Jack Shlush (which, Cockburn guesses, comes after Jack Frost).

newsletters

Tuesday

Kara Kennedy

Don Jr.’s Gold Rush

On the ground floor of Georgetown Park, Donald Trump Jr. is putting the finishing touches on his invitation-only club, the Executive Branch. When the doors open, reportedly in the next few weeks, it will become Washington’s new power hangout. Cabinet secretaries will mingle with tech billionaires and foreign investors, each having parted with $500,000 for the privilege. The launch party last month included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson. David Sacks, the President's crypto and AI czar, proudly announced himself as member number one. This tableau – celebrity, politics, profit – perfectly captures the Trump dynasty’s particular brand.

business don jr

Monday

Alexander Bull

The underground music scene reshaping Dubai’s cultural landscape

Nestled between the sci-fi skyscrapers of downtown and luxury marina beaches, Dubai has a side few tourists or outsiders get to see. Forget the glamour and explore the industrial warehouses of al Quoz and the unassuming streets of al Barsha, coated in a layer of desert dust. You would be justified in assuming the al Barsha Holiday Inn, awkwardly situated adjacent to the eighteen-lane Sheikh Zayed Road, must be a low point. But if you find yourself in its gaudy lobby on the odd Saturday night, you might be surprised to see punk ravers and goth girls draped in chains suddenly streaming toward the elevators at the back. Follow them down to the lower levels and you’ll find the Q Underground, one of the venues at the vanguard of Dubai’s boundary-pushing alternative music scene.

Dubai

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

COP28 is nothing but hot air

What position should the distant observer take on the COP28 conference in Dubai? That the sight of 70,000 delegates flying into a desert oil state from around the world to discuss human impacts on climate change is beyond satire and that its proceedings are never likely to rise above Greta Thunberg’s encapsulation of all such jamborees as “blah blah blah?” Or that the climate problem is now so obvious and urgent that all efforts towards global action, however small, should be uncynically applauded? I leave that choice on the table.

COP28

Monday

Daniel DePetris

Don’t expect much from Biden’s Middle East trip

It took Barack Obama less than three months to fly to the Middle East for a visit, landing in Iraq to visit the tens of thousands of US troops stationed there at the time. Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as president was to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (also three months into his tenure), where he basked in the limelight, watched in awe as his face was plastered on buildings in Riyadh, and hovered over a glowing orb with King Salman. Now, eighteen months into his presidency, Joe Biden will be spending a few days this week in the region, making stops in Israel, the West Bank, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Saturday

Daniel DePetris

Russia is sidestepping American oil sanctions

When the European Union finally made the decision to ban 90 percent of Russia’s crude oil imports by the end of the year, the bureaucrats in Brussels were jubilant. The EU’s adoption of oil sanctions was thought be a big blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who depends on the revenue generated by his country's oil exports to fund his war in Ukraine. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why European officials were so thrilled. The EU imported 2.2 million barrels per day of Russian crude last year, amounting to tens of billions of dollars in profits for the Kremlin every month.

kenneth starr
Dennis Lennox

Kenneth Starr’s new group makes Saudi Arabia and UAE uncomfortable

It fell under the radar when it was announced, but a new project with some major names from the political right have come together to fight fraud and corruption in the Middle East at a pivotal time for US relations in the tumultuous region. Launched last month at the National Press Club in Washington, the Global Justice Foundation includes former Clinton-era independent counsel Kenneth Starr and Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor who has been outspoken in calling out corruption in the Deep State’s war against President Donald Trump. The first case the group has highlighted is Tameer Holding, which they claim is among the largest-ever cases of real estate fraud in the Middle East.

Thursday

Dominic Green

The UAE-Israel deal is a triumph

The American-brokered opening of full relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel is a rare outbreak of peace and hope in a region short of both, and a significant vindication of the Trump administration’s diplomacy. Above all, it is a testimony to the strategic courage and fresh thinking of Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) of Abu Dhabi in particular, but also of Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump and — whether you like it or not — Jared Kushner.Thursday’s announcement is nothing less than groundbreaking. The complete and instant opening of full relations with Israel by an Arab leader is a crossing of the diplomatic Rubicon. MbZ has created an opening for further normalization by his fellow Arab and Muslim leaders.

uae-israel

Monday

Paul Wood

Andy Khawaja: ‘the whistleblower’

It’s after 2 a.m. in Club 38, a nightspot in an old railway shed in Beirut. The DJ is in the cab of a rusty train. Lights sweep across a dense crowd below. My host is Andy Khawaja, a Lebanese-American businessman. We’re sitting at the club’s VIP table and he’s scrolling through photographs on his phone. Here he is with Hillary Clinton at a fundraiser. Here, he’s shaking hands with President Trump in the Oval Office. The men he’s with in the club have shaved heads, bushy beards, tattoos. I wonder if they’re mafia, militia, or mukhabarat (secret police). When I get up and walk to the restroom, a burly minder with a Glock in his waistband follows a step behind. He turns on the tap and hands me a towel.

khawaja