Developments during Secretary of State Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia fit with growing speculations about the Gulf Cooperation Council becoming more autonomous of the U.S., writes Abdul Rahman.
The decline in U.S. diplomatic influence in the Middle East reflects not just Chinese initiatives, writes Juan Cole, but Washington’s incompetence, arrogance and double-dealing over three decades in the region.
After the Chinese-brokered rapprochement between Saudi Araba and Iran, another diplomatic coup is unfolding in the Middle East. This one is orchestrated by the Russians.
It’s hard to think of a word to describe all this besides “evil.” If intervening to ensure the continued mass starvation of children and mass military slaughter of civilians is not evil, then nothing is evil, says Caitlin Johnstone.
When the U.S. wants to reform certain murderous foreign leaders it can simply provide them with private seminars, according to an addled imperialist think tanker quoted by Politico.
Saad Hariri never mastered the complicated Lebanese political game, and as long as MbS rules Saudi Arabia, Hariri will be banned from Lebanese politics, write As’ad AbuKhalil.
Here is an example of a Western power directly intervening to spread the tyrannical rule of Saudi Arabia over other Arab countries, writes As`ad AbuKhalil.