Yemen’s Wars

Mountainous and dry, with a tendency to anarchy in the ample spaces between its cities, Yemen has long been hospitable to insurgency. Yet in ancient times it was home to the Sabaeans and had claims to be the biblical land of the Queen of Sheba. Its fertility and beauty were such that the Romans called it Arabia Felix, ‘happy Arabia’. The people there are mostly Arabs and like much of the rest of Arabia, became subject to the distant domain of the Ottoman sultan. The fate of the peninsula was influenced significantly by Britain, which in 1937 took the port city of Aden as the centre of its colony (on independence in 1967, it became South Yemen). Britain exercised significant influence over who ruled Muscat and Oman; assisted succession to the monarchy and imamate of North Yemen; and together with the US confirmed the al Saud family as hereditary rulers of what became Saudi Arabia. Now combined, the former North and South Yemen are together Sunni by bare majority, but the Zaidi Shia remain a large, mainly northern minority.

Zarif’s Hardliner Misdirection

Attentive readers will have noticed an Iranian media campaign of late. Most recently, this has included a strange back and forth between Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and Joe Biden’s special envoy on climate, John Kerry. Once the best of friends, Kerry and Zarif have fallen out. Zarif claimed that Kerry had told him details of Israeli strikes on Iranian assets in Syria, to which the Iranian minister says he listened with shock. Stretching credulity, Zarif claims all of this was news to him. 

America and Shia Militias

So great is America’s identity crisis in this century of isolationism, that its citizens have spent last week and this one bickering among themselves about whether the United States should retaliate when it is attacked by an avowed enemy.

The Soleimani Assassination and the Arab Spring

You may have read some of the contemplative and mournful journalism produced to mark ten years since the beginning of the Arab Spring. All the writing prompted by this anniversary assumed, as if by default, a funereal tone. 

As the Virus Spreads Across Iran, the Revolutionary Guards Pretend All Is Well

When Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed the country last week to mark Nowruz, he referred to the difficult time Iran is facing.

Usbat al-Thairen: The New Iran-backed Militia on Iraq’s Block

On March 11, rockets struck Camp Taji in Iraq, which houses troops from several countries. Two US soldiers and one British reservist were killed.

Coronavirus Tests Iran’s Limits

The spread of coronavirus around the world has been rapid and disruptive, but nowhere is the outbreak as uncontrolled and chaotic as it is in Iran.

Although Iran only confirmed its first cases on February 19, the virus has spread widely and infected people from every class of Iranian society.

The Death of Qassem Soleimani and the Survival of Iraq’s Protests

So surprising was the death of Qassem Soleimani, former leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps—Quds Force (IRGC—QF), that it was fair to suspect – at least initially – that he was killed by mistake. Perhaps America had meant to kill his travelling companion, the leader of Kataib Hezbollah Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, instead, with Soleimani merely (in that odd euphemism) collateral damage.

Rumours of a Third World War Prove Greatly Exaggerated

The strike was violent, decisive, and wholly unexpected. After frantic reporting, initially doubted by many, the news was confirmed in the early morning on January 3 in Iraq. Two of America’s enemies were dead.

Control and Violence in Atypical Iraq

The events surrounding the resignation of Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi were atypical. His country witnessed uncommon protests against not only the dysfunction of Iraq’s government and political life but also the stake Iran has in the running of the neighbouring nation.