New Statesman: Libya’s storms of history

 The impact of this unprovoked attack on three integral provinces of the Ottoman empire in Africa was profound. The Italian pursuit of Ottoman naval forces led to repeated closures of the Turkish Straits, blocking the passage of transport ships carrying Russian grain for export and seriously disrupting the Russian economy. A series of knock-on crises broke out in south-eastern Europe, triggering two major wars in 1912 and 1913 and sweeping away security arrangements that had previously prevented Balkan conflicts from escalating into continental wars. In short, the war for Libya proved a milestone on the road to the conflict that broke out in 1914. [...]

There was no third world war in 2014, of course. But the airstrikes of 2011 did exacerbate tensions among the major powers, partly because Nato’s humanitarian intervention quickly morphed into an assault on the Gaddafi regime. Vladimir Putin, then prime minister of Russia, compared the action to a “medieval call to crusade”. It was an unsettling feature of the world order, he remarked, that armed interventions could so easily be unleashed against sovereign states. Russia, Putin declared, would respond by strengthening its own defensive capacity. Commentators who know Putin well have suggested that the Libyan crisis of 2011, and especially the lynching of Gaddafi, were decisive in placing the Russian leader on the path to a more aggressively anti-Western foreign policy. [...]

It is still unlikely that a direct clash between Egyptian and Turkish troops will result from these steps. Egypt has for the moment promised only training, equipment and logistical support for its eastern Libyan proxies. But whereas the events of 2011 recalled the history of Western colonial and imperial violence, the prospect of an Egyptian-Turkish stand-off in northern Africa has switched on memories that extend far beyond the war of 1911 to the 1830s, when an ambitious Egyptian leader challenged Ottoman power in the eastern Mediterranean. [...]

There is a religious dimension to the crisis. The al-Sisi government claims that the fighters loyal to the Turkish-supported GNA include partisans of Islamic State. More specifically, Turkey is accused of sending Isis fighters from Syria to support the GNA. But it should be noted that a US Pentagon investigation found this accusation to be false. As many as 3,000 Syrians had been transferred by Turkey to Libya and paid to fight there, but these were mercenaries and not Islamist militiamen, according to the Pentagon’s report. On the other hand, Erdogan’s sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood, ruthlessly suppressed by al-Sisi in Egypt and still active in Libya, is well known. Erdogan is often seen making the rabaa sign to his supporters. This gesture, in which the four fingers are raised and the thumb tucked into the palm of the hand, recalls the massacre in Cairo’s Rabaa Square on 14 August 2013, when Egyptian security forces fired on a sit-in of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, killing more than 800 civilians (the Arabic word rabaa means “four”, hence the raised fingers).

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The New York Review of Books: Reckless in Riyadh

America’s delicate treatment of the Saudis persisted: for example, while the two countries were targeting terrorists, Washington said little about the enormous Saudi NGOs that spread their ultraconservative Wahhabi Islam around the globe. As the scholar Will McCants remarked, when it comes to Islamist extremism, “the Saudis are both the arsonists and the firefighters.” Still, the burgeoning ties among spies produced real benefits. At least two plots that could have killed significant numbers of Americans during the Obama administration were disrupted because of Saudi tips. American officials murmured approval when the Saudis took small steps to alleviate the plight of the country’s Shia minority or to promote women’s education and participation in the workforce, but their criticism of human rights abuses—torture and other mistreatment of government critics, harsh punishment of migrant workers, and mass beheadings, whether of Shia “terrorists” or common criminals—remained muted at best. [...]

At first, Vision 2030 gave MBS a real sheen. Donald Trump broke with tradition and made the first overseas trip of his presidency to Riyadh instead of visiting democratic allies. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, “I never thought I’d live long enough to write this sentence: The most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia.” He praised MBS for rolling back the power of the country’s clerical establishment and proclaimed, “Not a single Saudi I spoke to here over three days expressed anything other than effusive support for [his] anticorruption drive.” During a visit to the US in April 2018, MBS was feted by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and, at a dinner party hosted by Rupert Murdoch, entertained by the actors Michael Douglas and Morgan Freeman, before having an audience with Oprah Winfrey.

The sheen faded quickly, though, as it became clear that MBS’s notion of reform owed less to Western norms than to Xi Jinping and the Chinese policy of pushing for economic growth without permitting the expansion of political freedoms. There has been a degree of limited liberalization, but in MBS’s view, reforms must be granted by the crown, not elicited, let alone demanded, by his subjects. Hence the imprisonment of women who pressed for the right to drive and for a relaxation of the “guardianship laws” that give men control over the lives of the women in their families—the very measures that MBS had endorsed and, to some extent, enacted. Despite the reforms, there has also been an increase in the pace of executions. Several are now planned for well-known Sunni clerics who, though previously incarcerated for opposing royal policies, were viewed as too popular to be treated more harshly. [...]

Equally astonishing has been the kingdom’s open embrace of Israel. In 2015 a retired Saudi general, Anwar Eshki, participated in a discussion of Israeli and Saudi mutual interests with Dore Gold, a right-wing Israeli former diplomat, at the Council on Foreign Relations’ office in Washington; in 2017 Saudi media broadcast a lengthy interview with then Israeli chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot. In November 2018 Israeli media leaked a diplomatic cable from the country’s foreign ministry instructing its embassies worldwide to advocate for Saudi foreign policy objectives, especially vis-à-vis Iran. And Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended MBS for his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder—in which the Saudi go-between with Israel, General Ahmed Asiri, was implicated. It has also been widely reported that the Trump administration expects the Saudis to fund an Israeli–Palestinian peace agreement; according to MBS, the Palestinians should either accept it or “shut up.”

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The Atlantic: The Arab Winter Is Coming

To go back in time, as it were, the counter-revolutionary bloc—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and their allies in Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere—believes the future must be more authoritarian than ever. Based on extensive conversations with senior Arab officials, I’ve found that the dominant outlook could be summed up as follows: a heavy-handed domestic and regional approach may well carry risks, but the alternative is worse.

If the autocrats lost control over the masses in 2011, the thinking goes, that was because they did not go far enough in their repression. Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak gave some space to the Muslim Brotherhood, political activists, and critical media. Look what happened to him.[...]

Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, for example, declared in 2017: “We will not waste 30 years trying to deal with extremist ideas; we will eradicate them here and now.” In defense of moderation, he proposed simply stomping out religious radicals. (In American terms: Shock and awe rather than hearts and minds.) And MbS was probably using the term “extremist” conveniently; the Saudis have since designated as terrorist organizations certain religious groups, such as the International Union of Muslim Scholars, broadly perceived as mainstream.[...]

For counter-revolutionary regimes, the top priority is to prevent a repeat of the 2011 uprisings, and they believe the best way to do that is to stay the repressive course. Which is why recent talk that MbS was doomed, or that he could be replaced after the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was out of touch with the broad reality of the region. MbS is seen as a key member of the pack of new leaders remaking the Middle East, and the pack will stand by him. This dynamic also informs the continuing blockade of Qatar as well as the war in Yemen; humanitarian concerns simply don’t matter next to the perceived efficacy of aggression.

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Haaretz: Why Are Some pro-Israel Voices Speaking Out Against Jamal Khashoggi?

Even as gruesome allegations emerge that he was tortured, murdered and dismembered after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, some Israel supporters have joined other figures on the right in describing Khashoggi as a terrorist sympathizer and fierce opponent of Israel. Their goal appears to be to counter a portrait of Khashoggi as a Saudi reformer and free speech activist, and perhaps derail pressure building on the White House to punish Saudi Arabia for his disappearance and presumed murder. [...]

Purveyors of the attacks on Khashoggi said they wanted to set the record straight. Other observers suggested that the public fight over Khashoggi’s reputation has to do with a number of issues central to the latest crisis in U.S.-Saudi relations: cultivating Saudi cooperation in the diplomatic fight against Iran, keeping the Saudis on board the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and maintaining the kingdom as a bulwark against violent forms of radical Islam.[...]

Donald Trump Jr. retweeted one of the earliest attacks on Khashoggi, from a correspondent for the PJ Media conservative website. The correspondent, Patrick Poole, had posted photos of interviews Khashoggi had conducted in the late 1980s with Osama bin Laden, who went on to found al-Qaeda and to plot the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. [...]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has touted emerging ties with Saudi Arabia and other countries as validating his strategy of downplaying peace with the Palestinians, believing he can make Israel at home in the region without the Palestinians. Bin Salman was a key figure in this strategy.

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The Guardian: Mike Pompeo fails to bring Jamal Khashoggi scandal under control

It did not go to plan. The US secretary of state’s two-day trip has seemingly led Saudi Arabia and Turkey to dig further into positions that are starting to seem irreconcilable. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has not taken Washington’s bait – a push to blame elements of the Saudi state for Khashoggi’s death, but not the royal court itself. Instead, he has reiterated denials of any state connection to Khashoggi’s death inside the consulate. [...]

Erdoğan, a master tactician, is showing himself as a competent strategist. Using this crisis to diminish Saudi Arabia while cementing Turkey as a rising power in the Islamic world appears to be a consideration that eclipses the lucre offered by Saudi officials to make this all go away.

The steady leaks have been extremely difficult for Bin Salman to combat, and all the more so on Wednesday with a startling partial transcript that claimed the kingdom’s lead forensic scientist had told other assassins to listen to music as they dismembered Khashoggi on a table inside the consulate after slicing off his fingers. [...]

He is in so deep that even a partial confession at this stage would represent a humiliation that could eat into his domestic base, which has mostly accepted the state line that Khashoggi’s disappearance was a conspiratorial collaboration of Qatar and Turkey - two countries aligned to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the current Saudi regime views as one of its two mortal foes.

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Haaretz: 'Murder' of Saudi Dissident: Why Turkey Is in No Hurry to Cut Off Ties With Riyadh

The dilemma isn’t only over the required response but what the target of punitive measures should be. Why, for example, should Saudi Arabia be targeted but not Russia or Bulgaria, or Egypt or Turkey, where journalists, male and female, have been killed or raped or arrested without trial, or have disappeared? [...]

One can only assume that if it had been any other country besides Saudi Arabia that had been involved in the disappearance of the journalist on Turkish soil, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would have immediately severed diplomatic relations with the other country and probably even demanded an immediate emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the incident. But Turkey, which has links to the Russian-Iranian-Qatari axis of power, has still not given up on its dream to exert influence on the Middle East.

It’s difficult for Ankara to forgo the huge achievement that it snagged in 2015 when it became a member of the Saudi coalition in the war against the Islamic State, which then gave Turkey an admission ticket into the Arab club of Middle Eastern countries, many of which still view Erdogan's republic as hostile. In addition, too much Saudi money is invested in Turkey: Last year alone, the Saudis, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait invested nearly $2 billion, equal to all of the other foreign investments in the Turkish markets. But these interests and investments, it should be noted, didn’t keep the UAE's ambassador in Washington from labeling Turkey as a threat. [...]

On top of this, initial reports about Khashoggi's disappearance in the Arab press, particularly the Egyptian media, actually portrayed Turkey rather than the Saudis as the culprit. Dandrawi al-Harawi, editor of the Egyptian daily Al-Yawm al-Sabaa, has alleged that Turkey was directly involved in abducting Khashoggi, and added that the Turks falsified evidence to sully the Saudis’ reputation, as part of an effort by the Muslim Brotherhood to harm Arab regimes, “since it is well known that Khashoggi was part of the Muslim Brotherhood and was previously even a close associate of [Osama] Bin Laden and radical Muslim movements.”

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The Atlantic: Arab Democracy Depends on Normalizing Islamist Parties

The perennial question of whether democracy can work in the Middle East isn’t always easy to answer. Generally, it hasn’t worked. But amid civil war in Yemen, Libya, and Syria, authoritarian resurgence in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and economic instability in Jordan, there are at least three cases that challenge the notion that it can’t happen here. Tunisia, which held its first post-revolution municipal elections in May, continues to be a (relative) bright spot. Then there are the more unlikely cases of Iraq as well as Lebanon—probably the world’s most successful failed state. All three share two related features: Largely without controversy, they include Islamist parties in their democratic processes; and, second, they feature some degree of power-sharing. [...]

The very presence of Islamist parties can be inherently polarizing, particularly when they represent large, powerful, and conservative constituencies. Through successive administrations, the United States has regarded too much Islamist representation—or any Islamist representation—as a risky prospect. Yet it was the George W. Bush administration that, despite its discomfort with Islamism, ironically paved the way for Islamists to take power through democratic elections in Lebanon—a first in the Arab world. After its January 2005 elections, Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Shia Islamist Dawa party assumed the prime ministership. Interestingly, Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood members served in various cabinet positions, including as ministers of higher education and planning. In Lebanon, Hezbollah—however much the United States and Saudi Arabia oppose it—has become a fixture of coalition governments. The point here isn’t that these groups are good (Hezbollah is a designated terrorist organization as well as an active participant in the Syrian regime’s mass killing of civilians), but rather that Arab democracy, in practice, often coincides with the normalization of Islamist parties. [...]

In the case of Tunisia, the irony is that Islamists’ willingness to play nice—something that would generally seem quite positive—has contributed to a troubling trend of democratic backsliding on things like police reform, an overly securitized counterterrorism strategy, and the lack of accountability for the crimes and corruption of old regime figures. As the largest party in parliament, Ennahda potentially has considerable power to challenge Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and President Beji Caid Essebsi Essebsi’s priorities. Instead, they have emphasized caution, consensus, and stability, fearing that doing otherwise might summon the old days of polarization and repression. Embracing their role as junior partner in the government, they have, in effect, gained protected status. But this also means that Tunisia is deprived of a cohesive bloc that could serve as an effective lobby for strengthening the democratic transition. The desire for compromise, unchecked, can come at a cost.

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Al Jazeera: What is going on in southern Yemen?

On Sunday, forces loyal to the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, backed by Saudi Arabia, exchanged fire in the southern Yemeni city of Aden with an armed group aligned with the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a secession movement supported by the United Arab Emirates.

Both sides in this conflict have been fighting alongside the Saudi-led coalition against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels for the past few years now. [...]

Since its liberation from the Houthis, Aden has witnessed severe security challenges, economic and basic infrastructure problems, and most recently growing support for secession from the North. The city has also seen a deliberate attempt to silence activists supporting the Hadi-allied Islah Party (seen as having links to the Muslim Brotherhood), as well as some voices within the Salafi movement with a number of imams gunned down in the last several months. [...]

There are significant regional cleavages within southern Yemen which could gain political salience if Aden proceeds with its independence ambitions. Local identities with roots in the colonial era could re-emerge and aggressively reassert themselves. For example, the Hadramout region may not agree to be ruled again from Aden.

Additionally, the post-independence fate of South Sudan suggests that ill-conceived political separation is inherently dangerous and can lead to a major humanitarian crisis. Seven years after its independence from Sudan, South Sudan has become a tragedy rather than a model for other regions seeking independence.

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Al Jazeera: What is going on between Egypt and Sudan?

Among these agreements was a deal to temporarily hand over the Red Sea island of Suakin to Turkey. Ankara and Khartoum said Turkish investors would rebuild the ruined, sparsely populated island to increase tourism and create a transit point for Muslim pilgrims crossing the Red Sea to reach the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The agreement over Suakin has triggered a heated debate in the region, as many saw Erdogan's move as an attempt to establish a third military base - after the ones in Qatar and Somalia - outside Turkey's borders.[...]

In 2016, it flared up again. That year, Cairo signed a controversial agreement with Riyadh to hand over two strategically important Red Sea islands - Tiran and Sanafir - to Saudi Arabia. The agreement, which redrew the maritime border between the two countries, also unilaterally recognised Egypt's sovereignty over the Hala'ib Triangle. [...]

There are indications that Khartoum is actually trying to escalate the ongoing confrontation with Egypt, in order to exploit the nationalist sentiments of the Sudanese people and divert attention from the country's grave internal problems - particularly the current protests over the new austerity budget and the increase of the price of bread and other basic goods. However, Egypt may be inclined to de-escalate until after its presidential elections later this year. [...]

Ethiopia, just like Sudan, has become closer to Qatar in its struggle to navigate the ongoing tensions in the Gulf. The Ethiopian government, which previously accused Egypt of supporting separatist movements on Ethiopian territory, understandably chose to place itself against Egypt in this conflict.  

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Jacobin Magazine: Egypt’s Rainbow Raids

Egypt does not officially outlaw homosexuality, but the country’s “Morality Police” have become experts at fabricating charges based on the country’s vague laws against “debauchery” and “prostitution.”

Some detainees have been sent to court swiftly and given prison sentences, while others are still undergoing interrogation. Among them is Sarah Hegazy, a prominent pro-LGBTQ leftist. Her defense lawyers say inmates beat and sexually abused her after a police officer incited them to violence. Other detainees have faced similar treatment, including humiliating anal examinations.  [...]

Members of the LGBTQ community members I spoke with told me that, until 2001, the government had largely adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach. Though gay people faced occasional arrest, the state informally tolerated specific bars, cafes, and events that served as centers for the gay community. Some leading government officials, intellectuals, and artists were known to be gay, but, because they never spoke openly about their sexual identity or raised the issue in wider circles, they generally avoided harassment. [...]

Since 2013, the EIPR has recorded the arrests of at least 232 “LGBTQ suspects.” Meanwhile, the government instructed the mainstream media to “boost anti-gay coverage,” and now sensationalist stories about the arrest of “Muslim Brotherhood queers,” “wife-swapping networks,” and “foreign conspirators promoting homosexual marriage” appear regularly. The Morality Police intensified their online entrapment efforts on social media and dating apps. [...]

As it stands, the future of the Egyptian LGBTQ community appears bleak. But the crackdowns have pushed the cause of gay rights to the forefront, providing a litmus test for the opposition. As the Egyptian left builds a force capable of confronting the Sisi regime, these are the struggles it can’t ignore.

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Haaretz: This Is Why Arab States Are Conspicuously Silent on Temple Mount Crisis

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu engages in boastful rhetoric about the meetings he holds with Arab leaders – including the recent revelation of a secret meeting five years ago with the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister – he seemingly ignores Islamic forces looking on at these diplomatic moves. The recent tensions over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount make it clear that any diplomatic or security move is also immediately gauged from a perspective that transcends the religious importance of the holy sites.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, like the Kaaba in Mecca and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, is an Islamic site that is inseparable from the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are sites that, when harmed, spark public outrage that can put the regimes in Arab and other Muslim states on a collision course with Islamic movements in their countries.

It also puts them in conflict with a sensitive Muslim public that can delegitimize closer ties between Israel and Arab countries, and places them in conflict with a secular Arab public that views the events as a deliberate attempt by Israel to take over Palestinian sites. [...]

Saudi Arabia, whose king, Salman, did lobby the United States to pressure Israel to reopen the Temple Mount compound to Muslim worshippers, refrained from making statements on the matter – and the silence was not only on the part of senior Saudi officials. It was also impossible to find detailed news reports in Friday’s Saudi press on the sequence of events on the Temple Mount. [...]

These comments contain a hint of a Jordanian expectation of a gesture on Israel’s part that will give the Jordanian monarch ammunition that will convince Abbas to agree to new security arrangements on the Temple Mount. It is possible Netanyahu received similar messages from the Egyptian president.

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Al Jazeera: Analysis: The implications of the Qatar-Turkey alliance

Shortly after Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates severed diplomatic relations with Qatar and closed their airspace to commercial flights, Turkey condemned the blockade against Qatar, sent food stocks to stave off possible shortages in the country, and fast-tracked legislation through parliament to deploy Turkish troops on Qatari soil. [...]

A key ally of Qatar, Turkey is setting up a military base in the country - the first Turkish overseas military installation in the Middle East. Qatar also hosts the largest US airbase in the Middle East, Al-Udeid, where around 10,000 military personnel are stationed.

The defence cooperation between Doha and Istanbul dates back to 2014, when the two nations signed an agreement aimed at helping them confront "common enemies". [...]

They have both also refused to classify the Muslim Brotherhood movement and Hamas as "terrorist organisations" and backed rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. [...]

Furthermore, Turkey's disputes with several of its fellow NATO partners have prompted Ankara to seek new partnerships and diversify its alliances to counterbalance the country's dependence on its traditional Western allies.

Turkey already has a presence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo whether through peacekeeping, humanitarian or other missions. In addition, Turkey is also reportedly setting up a military training camp - said to be its largest overseas facility - this year in Mogadishu, Somalia. The camp will be used to train Somali soldiers in the fight against the al-Shabab group.

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Al Jazeera: The Hamas problem

Furious after Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections, the US and Israel pushed for a regime change in Gaza, clearly a Hamas stronghold. The 2007 attempt to depose Hamas was led by Palestinian security chief at the time, Mohammed Dahlan. That plot was, in fact, financed by the UAE to the tune of $30 million that ultimately ended in disaster and consolidated Hamas' power, while expelling Dahlan and his co-conspirators from Gaza. [...]

However, regional players astutely observe that the main obstacles to Dahlan's coronation are the current PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his political movement, Fatah, as well as Hamas. While overcoming the objections by Abbas and Fatah would be relatively easier due to the massive leverage Israel, the United States and other regional actors have over them, the acquiescence of Hamas and other groups to the installation of Dahlan, they reasoned, would have to be achieved through economic, political, and military measures, including pressuring their current Qatari patron. [...]

Since Hamas is considered the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the threat of this movement was, fairly or not, extended to Hamas. For political and strategic reasons, Saudi Arabia offered support to Islamist groups, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, for decades. But ever since the Arab Spring phenomena, this marriage of convenience was abandoned in favour of a bitter rivalry that became enmity.

Furthermore, the Saudi regime has claimed twice to have been undermined by Hamas. The first occurred when Hamas did not accept the so-called Arab peace initiative for resolving Israel's colonisation of Palestinian land, initially promoted in 2002 by then Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. And secondly, the Saudis blamed Hamas for the failure of the 2007 Mecca reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas - brokered by the late King Abdullah, even though other players, particularly the US and Israel, played a crucial role in blocking it.

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Al Jazeera: Forces loyal to Libya's Haftar 'burn 6,000 books'

Forces loyal to renegade Libyan general Khalifa Haftar have been accused of burning more than 6,000 books, including works on religion, politics, poetry and philosophy.

According to a video posted on Facebook by Al Manara, a Libyan media platform, more than 6,000 books - including reported biographies of the Prophet Muhammad - were destroyed by a police force in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday.

The video showed a police officer claiming that the seized literature was promoting the ideas of "Daesh" (the Arabic term for Islamic State of Iraq and Levant or ISIL), as he sat behind a desk covered with books, including classical Islamic works.

The officer said the books "promoted violence" and the "ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood", which has been banned by UAE and Egypt.

In January, more than 100 Libyan writers and intellectuals, including renowned Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho, condemned a seizure of books deemed "erotic" or anti-Islamic by authorities in eastern Libya.

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The New York Times: How the Saudi-Qatar Rivalry, Now Combusting, Reshaped the Middle East

When Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the crown prince of Qatar, took power in a bloodless coup in 1995, he seized a barely independent nation about the size of Connecticut, with one-seventh its population. It had been dominated since independence in 1971 by its far larger and more powerful neighbor, Saudi Arabia. [...]

Few countries have ever grown from client state to regional power. Qatar managed it in just a few years. [...]

Then, in the 1990s, technological and economic developments created a global market for liquefied natural gas, which can be loaded onto ships, bypassing pipelines that would run through Saudi territory. Qatar controls some of the world’s largest gas reserves, so its economy expanded from $8.1 billion in 1995 to an astonishing $210 billion in 2014. [...]

“It takes until 2008 for Saudi Arabia to really digest the notion that Qatar is a fully independent state,” said David B. Roberts, a professor at King’s College London. [...]

For all its rising influence, Qatar had never been able to crack Saudi regional dominance. Now, with Saudi-aligned autocrats under threat, it saw opportunity.

It backed antigovernment movements, both secular and Islamist, with Al Jazeera airtime, diplomatic support and, later, money and sometimes weapons, hoping to install friendly new governments. When Islamists showed the most promise, Qatar threw its support behind them. [...]

Aaron Stein, an analyst at the Atlantic Council, a think tank based in Washington, said Turkey had recently patched up relations with Saudi Arabia, seeking a middle ground, “but there are limits to that.”

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Al Jazeera: Looking beyond the siege of Doha

The Saudi camp seems to be running out of patience for the same Doha policies that triggered the 2014 diplomatic crises. In my view, the Saudis have three main demands: Ejecting Muslim Brotherhood leadership as well as other prominent figures from Doha, neutralising the Qatari media, especially Al Jazeera, towards the Gulf states and Egypt and moulding Qatar's regional policies so they do not collide with Saudi/Emirati interests. While Qatar is expected to offer concessions, it will deem some of these demands as a violation of its sovereignty. [...]

But it is also necessary to evaluate the US' position in the region. Qatar, after all, is the home of the largest US military base in the region. I think the Trump administration is implicitly pleased to see the Qataris sweat this crisis out. From Washington's point of view, this crisis may help Doha to fully understand the importance of the American presence, and to modify some of its regional policies that are not aligned with US interests. [...]

When it comes to the GCC, it is clear that the current crisis a symptom of the long-term problems between Qatar, Saudi, UAE and Bahrain and does not effect the entirety of the cooperation. Kuwait and Oman did not - and are less likely to - cut relations with Doha. Both Kuwait and Oman are the only two members who never severed diplomatic ties with any other GCC states. In fact, the Kuwaiti leadership undertook shuttle diplomacy between Doha and Riyadh to end the 2014 diplomatic crisis. [...]

Doha faces tough choices. If it does not address the concerns of the Saudi camp, it will be geographically isolated. Saudi Arabia could also push to freeze Qatar's membership in the GCC. Over time, this will place an unprecedented geopolitical pressure on the Qatari policymakers. At worst, this could slide Qatar towards Iran. This would be an unintended consequence that neither Riyadh nor Doha aspire towards. If Doha gives in to all of the demands at once, the Qatari government might not be able to survive the humiliation at home. Giving in to all Saudi demands and handing sovereignty to Riyadh would be viewed as political suicide by many in Qatar.

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Al Jazeera: Analysis: Qatar-Gulf crisis: Who are the 'terrorists'?

Most of the current accusations against Qatar date back to the years leading up to and during the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2010. Unlike its neighbours, Qatar lent its support for the removal of authoritarian regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, and generally endorsed the possibilities offered by a new era of political openness for repressed populations around the region.

That support was quite often channelled through Islamist parties poised to take power in democratic elections such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda Movement in Tunisia. Even amid questions surrounding Qatar's actual motives for pursuing such a policy, or the fact that it stopped short of supporting the uprising in neighbouring Bahrain, Qatar was placed in the anti-establishment camp.  [...]

Along with punishing Qatar for past offences, this battle appears to be more about crushing the last vestiges of hope for any independent political thought in the Middle East.

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Al Jazeera: Analysts: Leaks could threaten Emirati diplomacy

The latest email leaks from the Hotmail account of the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, could threaten Emirati diplomacy and strain regional relations, analysts say. [...]

On Saturday, hackers released what they claimed was the first in a series of emails taken from the inbox of Otaiba. The leaks have revealed a strong relationship between the UAE and think-tanks closely allied to Israel, along with Emirati efforts to tarnish the images of Qatar and Kuwait; Emirati involvement in the failed coup attempt in Turkey; and the UAE's fight against Islamist movements, particularly Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. [...]

Some of the leaked emails include a detailed agenda for a meeting scheduled later this month between officials from the UAE government and representatives of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a pro-Israel think-tank. The agenda includes a joint assessment of the changes that have taken place in Saudi Arabia, which proposes a plan to support Saudi stability and its new policy directions.

The agenda also includes a review of internal Saudi policies, domestic challenges faced by the Saudi leadership, foreign policy and the kingdom's role in stripping legitimacy from worldwide "jihad".

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Haaretz: Trump and Netanyahu Are Deluding Themselves Over Sunni Coalition

The paradox is that while Qatar hosts the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, it is also an ally of Iran, a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood (which is defined in both Saudi Arabia and Egypt as a terrorist organization), and funds extremist Syrian militias, including those affiliated with Al-Qaida. [...]

The Arab settling of scores with Qatar does not end there. For decades, the regime-controlled Al Jazeera has served as a tool to attack other Arab countries and leverage Qatar’s influence on Arab public opinion. The network’s unreserved support for the Muslim Brotherhood led to a long feud with Egypt; a television series about relations between the founder of the Jordanian monarchy and the Zionist movement infuriated Jordan; and the exposure of corruption in Saudi Arabia rocked the House of Saud. Last week, a Saudi newspaper, Al Jazirah, published an article stating: “Confusion is shrouding the small country that grew up and became a television station.” [...]

For example, even when it has supported extremist Islamic groups, Qatar has had official relations with Israel. And while it has cooperated with Turkey in the fight against Syrian President Bashar Assad, hosted conferences of the Syrian opposition and funded anti-Assad militias, at the same time, Qatar has offered its services as a mediator between the rebel militias and the Syrian regime. It is a member of the Sunni Muslim coalition that King Salman of Saudi Arabia established 18 months ago, which was intended to confront Iranian influence – at the same time Qatar and Iran have joint ownership and management of the world’s largest natural gas field (in the Persian Gulf), and even have joint agreements for military cooperation. [...]

Qatar may be the most prominent example of how a Sunni Arab state can maintain strong relations with the two “religious axes” at the same time without losing its relationship with the United States. The fabric of Qatar’s ties shows that national and economic interests are more important than a shared religious foundation – more so than the shared religious component between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which has created tensions between the two countries, despite the fact both are acting to block the growing Iranian influence.

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The New York Review of Books: Egypt: The New Dictatorship

That fall, Sisi launched a sweeping crackdown on civil society. Citing the need to restore security and stability, the regime banned protests, passed antiterrorism laws that mandated long prison terms for acts of civil disobedience, gave prosecutors broad powers to extend pretrial detention periods, purged liberal and pro-Islamist judges, and froze the bank accounts of NGOs and law firms that defend democracy activists. Human rights groups in Egypt estimate that between 40,000 and 60,000 political prisoners, including both Muslim Brotherhood members and secular pro-democracy activists, now languish in the country’s jails. Twenty prisons have been built since Sisi took power. [...]

Donald Trump, who has spoken bluntly about “radical Islamic terrorism” and appears to share Sisi’s view that the Muslim Brotherhood is involved in such activity, quickly signaled his support for the military government. Sisi was the first Arab leader with whom Trump spoke after his inauguration, and in April the US president invited him to the White House for what was described as a cordial private meeting. According to reports, Trump did not broach the subject of human rights violations, and observers believe that his embrace may embolden the Egyptian leader to extend his repressive policies. [...]

International peacekeepers describe the fighting in Sinai as starting to resemble the conflict in Afghanistan, with a committed army of religious fundamentalists, rocket and sniper attacks on foreign military observers, and defections by government troops angered by the state’s persecution of Islamists. “They are globally inspired local insurgents,” Major-General Denis Thompson, the Canadian former commander of the peacekeeping force, said in a recent interview. “And their effort is really to use the [ISIS] brand to attract recruits, and locally they’re trying to redress many long-standing grievances they have with the Egyptian government.” Abuses by the military may also be drawing more local men to the ISIS cause. In late April, Human Rights Watch urged the US government to suspend military aid to Egypt after a video surfaced showing troops executing eight captured insurgents, then planting rifles next to their corpses to make it look as if they were killed in combat. [...]

By the late 2000s, Shenker writes, “unemployment had risen so sharply that one in four Egyptians was out of work; among the millions who had been born since 1981 and knew no other leader than Mubarak, the jobless figure was estimated at over 75 per cent.” On the surface, Mubarak’s Egypt was stable, secular, and welcoming to tourists, but few of those who came to gaze at the pyramids and cruise down the Nile had any sense of the corruption, police brutality, and gross disparities of wealth that were breeding discontent among the population.

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