Donald Trump said in October 2018 that the Saudi royal family ‘wouldn’t last two weeks’ without American military support. Last week, on the back of the collapse of the US fracking industry, he finally acted on his long-standing anti–Saudi instincts. He ordered the immediate withdrawal of two patriot air defence batteries, sent to defend the
In a dramatic move even by his own mercurial standards, Donald Trump has authorised the withdrawal of two Patriot missile systems guarding Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, accompanied by hundreds of American military troops operating them. They were deployed last September after a massive cruise missile and drone attack on the Saudi oil infrastructure – blamed
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The current crisis could see the end of the petrodollar
For the first time in months, the coronavirus panic was briefly demoted as the main news story on Sunday when OPEC and oil-producing non-OPEC nations agreed a deal to cut oil production by 9.7 million barrels a day – initially to stabilise and then hopefully increase prices. It is the most dramatic production cut in
It all started at what every-one thought would be a routine meeting between Opec and non-Opec nations in Vienna. There were the usual fake smiles and firm handshakes in front of the cameras from the dignitaries. Bored journalists roused themselves to prepare to write stories they expected never to be read, before they could at
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Saudi Arabia is hitting the brakes on normalization with Israel
A decade after the Arab Spring, good news anywhere is hard to find. In contrast to Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty has increased in the Arab region. Both internal economic growth and direct foreign investment have declined. Unemployment, especially among the young, has grown. Education standards are falling. There is less press
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The democracy junkies are at it again — craving another fantasy revolution in a country they don’t understand
A blood red flag was raised over the Jamkaran mosque in the Iranian holy city of Qom last week, one normally reserved to commemorate the death of martyrs. This time, it was intended as a call to arms. ‘We have unfurled this flag so that all [Shia] believers in the world gather around it to avenge
Ever since Donald Trump was elected president on a non-military interventionist platform, sceptics have questioned his commitment to withdrawing troops from the Middle Eastern quagmire and stopping the endless wars he claims to despise. Now he has authorised the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the head of the powerful Iranian Quds Force, we can be in
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The Saudi Arabia of today is not the Saudi Arabia of 2001
That noise you can hear is Donald Trump flip–flopping in the sand. Last week, American troops and dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles moved to occupy oil fields in Syria. The escalation came just half an hour after Trump had tweeted that all US soldiers had left the country and would be coming home. As
When President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference later today we can be sure he will be milking, for all it is worth, the presumed killing of Isis leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi during a raid on his compound in north-western Syria by US special forces. Trump is said to have authorised the operation last
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The media mantra of ‘Trump betrayed the Kurds’ will soon make way for ‘Trump betrayed Israel’
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Donald Trump, peacemaker?
The oil-for-security alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia, forged in 1945 when Franklin D. Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz aboard a US Navy destroyer, is now over. Just look at the American reaction to the attack by Iran on Saudi oil facilities. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo duly called it an ‘act of war’;
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The louder Washington calls for Nicolás Maduro’s ouster, the more likely it is that he will survive
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According to the western media, yes
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It makes a conflict with Iran less likely
TIME magazine has lost relevance, in the United States and globally. The only thing it is now known for is its Person of the Year issue, the 2018 edition of which was out on Tuesday. Historically, its editors have chosen ‘the person or thing that had the greatest impact on the news, for good or
