Middle East Policy

In a historic unprecedented case (for a sitting head of state), the Paris Court of Appeal, earlier this month, upheld the Syrian president arrest warrant over the use of chemical weapons in Syria.  However, the French Public Prosecutor has appealed this decision to the Cassation Court. This move is widely deemed to be morally and legally wrong and disrespectful of victims' rights and the law and justice principles. It is also considered as a political move to protect the perpetrators at the expense of the human rights and the world's committed effort to stop the use of the weapons of mass destruction and the struggle against the crimes against humanity. This case and its issued arrest warrant of a sitting head of state is a sign that the Syrian plague has contributed to raising awareness of the suffering of peoples at the domestic level and to forming an international consciousness about this sensitive issue formerly deemed a domestic affair. There is a new margin i

After a wide round over analyses and commentaries by Western experts and scholars as regards the mutual defense pact between Russia and North Korea, I started to get an insight into the underpinning mentality, which lays the foundations of the Western irrationality (and most probably hysteria given the Western support of a Neo-Nazi regime) over Russia and its operation in Ukraine. (I will write about the hysterical West and its abundance of politics for quite hysteria over Russia and its interests and national security in a future post). Most of analysts refer to desperate Putin in his resort to the internationally-isolated regime of North Korea. No one even mentioned or cared about geopolitics, especially in Asian region, which is the playground of the forthcoming world watershed geopolitical war. The war in Europe and the wars in the Middle East are the introductory and preparatory measures for this grand war or at least conflict.  Putin, who got a little bit surprised by the stronge

At the same time as the U.S. various sources are revealing and hailing the advanced stage of the undergoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia for a security agreement, the Saudis are in China to discuss the strategic defense partnership between Riyadh and Beijing and to discuss " ways to strengthen military and defense cooperation". Some Yemeni Houthi sources informed the Lebanese pro-Iranian Al-Akhbar newspaper that Saudis are exploring the possibility of requesting China’s mediation with the Houthis. Meanwhile, many U.S. media outlets and analysts are still insisting that all Saudi policies, moves and agreements with China are directed at the U.S. as maneuvers or teasing to promote the relationship with the U.S or to attain its assistance in particular fields despite a very significant series of developments in terms of KSA-China relationship and the Chinese changing role in the Middle East.  In this regard, I am wondering about the threshold of which the U.S gover

  1- First of all, the Syria's Brussels eighth conference catching phenomenon for me was the show of some panelists of wealthy Syrian NGOs crying for Syrian children soliciting donors' mony while supporting (at least implicitly) the authority that made them suffer. Some watchers and analysts refer to various kinds of profit-sharing between them.  This reality has enabled me to make a contribution to the political science by recognizing a political phenomenon and suggesting a name and a definition for it. The "Humanitarian-Political Prostitution" is the state of a 'humanitarian' actor with covert or candid political bias that is advocating and fundraising for a humanitarian issue while it supports the very actors and/or factors that brought this issue about.  2- Syrian Religious and churches' subsidiary humanitarian organizations can really go bare of ethics they claim to have in their practices and work in Syria. 3- It is widely believed in Syr

Through my attentive watch of the political and strategic developments in the Middle East, I can profoundly suggest that Israel's foremost problem belongs to the Israeli mentality and its conventional persistent perspective. By which, Palestinians are considered the essential source of threats and dangers that threaten Israel's existence and wellbeing. Then, this belief is directing almost all Israeli strategies and policies, which obviously have been resulting a consecutive series of failures and shortcomings at the domestic and regional levels in strategic and security terms.  For the governing establishment of Israel, coexistence with Palestinians is an existential myth and impossible end despite that Oslo agreement and consequent cooperation with the Palestinian Authority refuted this belief.  Furthermore, the recent developments in the Middle East since the Obama nuclear deal with Iran along with Obama's policies that empowered Iran and its regional 're

In the era of normalization and globalization, let's get it internationally branded: SYRTAGON   You Will Never Get Enough!   For Syrian domestic consumption, there is a local brand: SYRIAGONE   Your Salvation By Default! (Disclaimer: I willingly and freely give up the intellectual property rights.) Well, after a second thought I will give up these rights to Joe Biden and Iran resistance axis. Stay tuned to my X (formerly Twitter), Middle East Policy Blog, and NeoInternationalism website.

In an unprecedented development, the French judiciary has issued an international arrest warrants for the chemical weapons attacks performed by the Syrian government (regime) against civilians during the Syria war. The warrants target three top Syrian officials including the Syrian president.  Here is all you need to know about the first international (non-ICC) arrest warrant of a sitting head of another state for a grave crime against humanity and/or war crime by the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) .  This international precedent is stating that no sovereign impunity for grave crimes against humanity, as clearly indicated by the issuing judiciary, prompts two questions. First, would it be a followed precedent marking a change in the int practice? And the second question, how the following practice will define the initiating grave crimes?  One explanatory enquiry should follow here is about whether the western powers that practically ignored and neg

Netherlands' torture and other ill-treatment case against Syria at the International Court of Justice opens a new chapter in the international order and practice. Although our previous experience with the international order and the international institutions, especially in the Syrian crisis, lets almost no room for any expectations for this case to end torture in Syria or to achieve any difference in the course of action of the Syrian regime, it definitely can lay the foundation for this end by the international documentation, indictment and recognition of these domestic crimes.   In general, this unprecedented ICJ case has a particular international importance as It has a real chance to prompt a beginning of some international system development in terms of the international responsibility and role concerning ill-governance, which is generally fenced by the norm of sovereignty, especially in terms of systematic practice of torture and other kindes of ill-treatment by

It seems that the Israeli governmental establishment applies the 'ostrich' perspective as regards the Israeli Syria policy and the Iranian entrenchment in post-war Syria, which is reluctant to see or recognize. They are still insisting that they managed to defeat the Iranian 'project' (by their own definition of this project) in Syria and hold an assessment which concluds that post-war Syria is not a geopolitical field of the Iranian influence. This conclusion is definitely not shared by the vast majority of the Syrian scholars and activists, who have a quite different assessment of the Iranian power and influence in their country Syria.  These substantially different assessments and conclusions prompt a necessary enquiries to discern this persistent Israeli pretence: - What is the Israeli governmental understanding of the outstanding comprehensive Iranian power and influence in Syria in the military, governmental, economic and social fields? - Does Iran ha