Concern In Saudi Arabia And Gulf States That Biden Administration s Policy Of Appeasing Iran Will Come At Their Expense
March 3, 2021 | By B. Chernitsky
Introduction
With President Joe Biden s election, the Gulf states - especially in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain - are concerned that this administration will revive the Obama administration s lenient policy towards Iran and its proxies in the region, and will reinstate the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, from which Biden s predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew.[1] From the Gulf states perspective, the main problem with this deal is that it ignored the issues of Iran s ballistic missiles and its interference in the countries of the region. They fear that the Biden administration will reinstate the deal without expanding it to include these issues, despite declarations by Biden and by State Secretary Antony Blinken that these issues will be addressed.[2] Furthermore, in the recent weeks the Gulf states have demanded to be includ
February 1, 2021
Special Dispatch No. 9163
Arab League Head Ahmed Abu Al-Gheit: Any Resolution Of The Iranian File Must Consider Arab Concerns, Unlike The Obama Administration s Nuclear Deal
February 1, 2021
In a January 26, 2021 interview with the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat
, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Abu Al-Gheit addresses the situation in the Middle East, and expresses his hopes regarding the future U.S. policy there, which he says must differ from America s policy in the past.
Noting that the gravest problem facing the region is the ongoing internal conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Libya and Lebanon, which are causing extreme human suffering, Abu Al-Gheit states that a common factor discernable in all these conflicts is the malicious regional interference of Iran and Turkey, which, in some cases, involves actual armed intervention in these countries. All these conflict, he says, will benefit from U.S. diplomacy to neutralize the Iranian and Turk
January 29, 2021
Special Dispatch No. 9161
Senior Saudi Journalist: Biden s Response To Iran s Provocations Will Determine Outcomes In Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon And Palestine
January 29, 2021
In a January 27, 2021 article titled Iran Continues to Test Biden’s Limits, senior Saudi journalist Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rahsed notes that Iran welcomed the Biden administration with a series of provocations - namely the December 20, 2020 rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and with the January 23, 2021 Houthi attack on Riyadh - so as to test the patience of the U.S. and its allies and their willingness to retaliate. Biden s response to such provocations is extremely crucial, he says, as is his overall policy on Iran and especially on its nuclear dossier. This is because the U.S. policy vis-à-vis Iran will ultimately determine the outcome of the crises in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine - all of which have become bargaining chips that Iran can use by threatening to
Hizbullah s Widespread Campaign To Commemorate Qassem Soleimani Sparks Criticism In Lebanon
January 25, 2021 | By O. Peri
The Lebanese Hizbullah took a series of measures and held numerous events to mark the first anniversary of the death of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Qods Force in Iran s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, deputy-commander of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) in Iraq, who were assassinated in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad airport in January 2020. In addition to statements, interviews and articles extolling Soleimani and Al-Muhandis in Hizbullah s media, the organization put up posters of the two in various parts of the country, erected monuments in their honor and commemorated them in various other ways.
How do you stifle a violent strain that has derived encouragement from the president of the United States? That was the dilemma facing GOP lawmakers as the House of Representatives met today to debate and vote on a resolution to impeach President Donald Trump for incitement of an insurrection targeting the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6.
Democrats fault Republicans for allowing this violent strain to gain momentum over the past four years, and have called on them to hold President Trump accountable. Ten House Republicans, including their No. 3 – Rep. Liz Cheney – came out in support of impeachment. But many others, while describing Mr. Trump as in a class of his own when it comes to dangerously divisive rhetoric, describe the storming of the Capitol as symptomatic of a much broader national malaise that has also erupted in violence on the left in recent months. They warn that a hasty impeachment without due process risks inflaming the country just days before the Biden ina