Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Muhammad Hussein
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Remembering Israel’s killing of four children on the beach in Gaza
On 16 July 2014, Israeli missile killed four children of the same family on a beach in Gaza...
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‘We will not let anybody harm Turkey’s interests’
An interview with former Deputy Prime Minister Cevdet Yilmaz...
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France directs EU foreign policy against Turkey, and the bloc is too weak to stop it
It is rare to see a government throw a sustained tantrum against another due to differences over foreign policy, especially without first attempting to solve it through diplomatic means. That, though, is exactly what France has been doing for months against Turkey over its influence in the Mediterranean and...
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Are the Idlib civil war and HTS domination the end of the Syrian revolution?
The remainder of the rebel-held province of Idlib is proving to be the greatest experiment in nation-building that the modern world is witnessing, even if the world has largely neglected the Syrian revolution. Consisting of displaced Syrians, refugee camps and an assortment of independent and Turkish-backed groups, the province has...
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The US Caesar sanctions are a punishment not a solution for Syria
Seeing is believing, as the saying goes. And after seeing the 53,275 photographs proving the torture and arbitrary killings committed by the Syrian regime which were smuggled out by a former police photographer named “Caesar” in 2014, the US has finally decided to impose maximum pressure on the regime...
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The protests may reveal America’s social and political decay, but don’t expect another revolution
Imagine that you are a peaceful protestor, never having broken glass or drawn blood, who demonstrated against institutional racism and police brutality in your local area. At home one night during the curfew, you dream of a free society and a more open political system, before being taken by...
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It is time for the Iran-backed axis militias to be treated exactly like Daesh
Conflicts are meant to involve the living, with the dead being long withdrawn from the complex web of political alliances and bloody feuds that mankind revels in. So when the grave of the eighth century Umayyad Caliph Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz – along with that of his wife and...
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Profile: T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt
On 19 May, 1935, Thomas Edward Lawrence passed away following a week of remaining in a coma caused by a motorcycle crash in Dorset, England. The British Arabist, linguist, author of one of the most acclaimed works in the English language and military strategist, who had a senior role...
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While the House of Assad crumbles, the West plays Sykes-Picot 2.0 with Syria’s Kurds
Syria has undergone more drastic and chaotic shifts within the past month than it probably has throughout the past nine years of its conflict. The House of Assad now suffers from a rift caused by the president’s own cousin – the influential wealthy businessman Rami Makhlouf – who took to...
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Turkey will soon be forced to tackle the rebels in Idlib
Long before Turkey’s revenge attacks against the Syrian regime in February, and even before the regime’s offensive to recapture Idlib and its bombardment of the province, Turkey and Russia struck a now apparently forgotten agreement in September 2018. This focused on the “demilitarised zone” which Turkey hoped to create...
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Hajj, the coronavirus and technical innovation
The coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic has caused countless events to be cancelled, forcing them onto the digital realm and leaving them to rely on the power of modern technology. Even the G20 summit ended up online. The annual Hajj pilgrimage, however, is one of those events that cannot be held digitally....
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Haftar and the Gulf states are leading a hypocritical, fake war against Islamism in Libya
In 2017, Abu Dhabi’s Foreign Minister, Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan told a forum that, “There will come a day that we will see far more radicals, extremists and terrorists coming out of Europe because of a lack of decision-making, trying to be politically correct, or assuming that they know...
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Remembering the Douma chemical attacks
A chemical weapons attack was carried out on the people of Douma, south-western Syria, killing around 85 people...
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Lockdowns in Western democracies are a taste of dictatorship; will our politicians give it up?
Over the past few weeks of the coronavirus crisis, democratic governments around the world have imposed stricter controls on their citizens in more places than at any other time in recent history, even during wartime. From the closure of non-essential shops and businesses to curfews and full lockdowns enforced...
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The Arab states need to be completely honest about coronavirus
At the beginning of this month, pro-Assad journalist Rafiq Lutf wrote on Twitter that he had discovered many people infected with the coronavirus in Syria. He said that that he appealed to the Ministry of Health to investigate and reveal the exact number of cases, but because the ministry...
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The Russia-Turkey Idlib deal is as bad as Trump’s ‘deal of the century’
The Middle East has seen some bad deals in recent years; some are still in effect while others have crumbled. The agreement struck between Russia and Turkey last week seems that it will be one of the latter. Instead of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arriving in Moscow resting on...
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Turkey should conquer Damascus, but knows it is a trap
After nine long years, Turkey has finally punished the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad, with the dictator ignoring Ankara’s ultimatum to withdraw his troops Idlib province by the end of February. A confrontation between the two was largely unsurprising: the only tangible factors obstructing it were first the civil...
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The 'Axis of Resistance' is hypocritical, not 'anti-imperialist'
Since the first stages of European colonisation of the Middle East, as with other imperial powers elsewhere, there has been resistance in one form or another. This has been the case right up to and including the stifling US military presence in the region, particularly since 9/11 and the...
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One chemical weapons report should not whitewash a decade of Assad’s crimes
Ever since the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad responded to peaceful popular protests in the country with a brutal military crackdown in 2011, the ensuing civil war has witnessed numerous atrocities in Syria. Opposition fighters as well as civilians have been the victims. One of the most controversial aspects of...
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The EU is dogmatic in its opposition to Turkey
Relations between the European Union and Turkey have seldom been good. Throughout Turkey’s efforts to join the EU over the past few decades to the current tension, Europe has long looked down on the republic as a pawn in its own game rather than a partner with which it...
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Soleimani’s assassination has cornered Iran
The killing of Iran’s Major General Qassem Soleimani by the US in Baghdad has been met with mixed reactions around the world. Some have expressed their grief, while others were overjoyed at the death of the man they call “the butcher of Aleppo” and the killer of Sunni Muslims...
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2020 heralds the decade of new colonial borders
This New Year will mark a century since the historic Treaty of Versailles was put into effect, creating the borders of much of the contemporary world and enabling the European colonial powers to seize the Middle Eastern territories of the defunct Ottoman Empire. The consequences of that treaty and...
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The revolutions in the Middle East are naïve without leadership
A revolution is a project. Like all projects, it has requirements before it can truly be deemed successful. For a start, there must be popular resentment of the government and a desire for change. Another rule is that once completed, the revolutionary government must be purged of the elements...
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Erdogan: The revolutionary enigma who holds the West in sway
There are few political enigmas these days – strongmen, yes, but not enigmas. We have US President Donald Trump, who is far from it; we have UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is Trump without the charm, and we have various leaders across Europe and the world who somehow...