Geopolitics / Middle East

• Iran Unfazed By Congressional Threats of New Energy Sanctions

  U.S. lawmakers are toughening their stance on Iran’s energy industry with new economic penalties, but experts doubt the Islamic regime will pay much attention and is more likely to open the doors even wider to other players eager to replace fleeing investors.Long on Congress’ radar screen, Iran is being targeted by two bills: The Senate’s Dodd-Shelby Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act passed in late January; and the House’s Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act approved in December.The bottom line is these bills, once signed into law by President Obama, will pursue financial institutions and businesses that do business in…

• As the Middle East Peace Talks Hit Deadlock, Talk of Israel Joining the European Union Increases

  The Middle East peace talks are at a deadlock. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to move ahead with the plan established by the so-called Quartet – the US., U.N., EU and Russia -- have faltered and come to a complete standstill. Continuing with this inertia will have a long-term negative effect on the future of the region both from a political point of view as well as from a business perspective. With the exception of a few risk-takers, what company or business executive would be willing to invest in the Middle East once the region plunges onto the abyss…

• Media and Political Hysteria Over Yemen Hides a Deeper Strategic Matrix of Long-Term Importance

  US and Western European political leaders have begun to focus on Yemen as a source of projected instability and as a haven for jihadist terrorism against the West. This simplistic and overly narrow view has largely been a reaction to media reporting of the links of alleged (and unsuccessful) Nigerian-born terrorist bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to a radical Yemeni group, and to intense ongoing fighting between insurgents and Yemeni and Saudi government forces on the Yemen-Saudi border. The reality is far more complex and far-reaching. The situation has a long history which has been ignored — or which has lacked…

• Sharoudi Emerging as Candidate to Replace Khamene'i as Iranian "Supreme Leader"

  Very senior officials in several Persian Gulf states have confirmed to GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs a growing volume of whispers coming from Tehran since mid-December 2009 which identify Iranian Ayatollah Sayed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi (born in 1948) as the new candidate-successor to Iran’s ailing “Supreme Leader”, “Ayatollah” Ali Hoseini-Khamene‘i. (1) The mere floating of Shahroudi’s name is a major development with both domestic and regional ramifications. Iran’s mid-June 2009 intense presidential elections, which led to the current crisis, were actually not over the election of Iran’s President. Rather, the elections served as an instrument for a power struggle within the…

• Iran to Surge to a Hegemonic Position in the Middle East Without a Major War

  Despite the lingering demonstrations and disorder in Tehran, Iran’s ruling mullahs are confident anew in their country’s ability to surge to a hegemonic position in the Middle East without a major war. The main reason for the mullahs’ confidence is their interpretation of the appeasement policies of the US Barack Obama Administration. Most significant is the undeclared – yet widely projected – profound change in US policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran and all other regional governments are convinced that the US now strives to “contain” a nuclear Iran rather than continue the declared objective to prevent the nuclearization of…

• Interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan Set to Collide, With Global Implications

  The coming year: 2010, will see a growing clash of conflicting mega-trends in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater; trends which will ultimately have long-term impact not only on the region, but on all of Eurasia and global energy and political arenas. These main mega-trends are: 1. Obama’s Needs: The desperate efforts of the US White House of Pres. Barack Obama to appease and negotiate with any element of the “Taliban” — and the label “Taliban” is used with great looseness by most observers of the Afghanistan and Pakistan scene — willing to in order to expedite a US withdrawal and legitimize a…

• Iraq to Challenge Saudi Arabia for the Position of World's Largest Oil Producer, if...

  Baghdad is coming of age in its own backyard with the awarding of contracts for developing its oil reserves while taking care of its assets as evident from its tough stand with Tehran. The country’s Oil Minister recently announced that their oil capacity could reach 12 million barrels per day (bpd) in six years. Hussein al-Shahristani told journalists in Baghdad that oil production would not necessarily operate at full capacity, but would take into account demand. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, has a capacity of 12.5m bpd and has predicted it can go up to 15 bpd. Shahristani…

• Arab Leaders Finally Awake to Growing Iranian Threat

  In order to survive revolutions must continue to propagate themselves or else they die; that was true of revolutions on the left that saw their golden years in the late 1950s and ‘60s in much of Latin America and communist Eastern Europe, and it true of today’s Islamist movements. To survive they need to keep moving. Understand that and you understand the basis of what drives Iran’s Islamic revolution.Since its inception the Islamic Republic has followed a clear political line without deviating from it as much as an iota, and analysis of the current situation leads to believe there is…

• Growing Power of Iraqi Kurdistan Could Backfire on Tehran

  Iran's strategy to break Iraq into three component territories, and to dominate those territories in order to reduce regional opposition and to gain unfettered access to Syria and the Mediterranean as a result of the Western invasion of Iraq in 2004, has had profound success. The country is now, at best, a federation, with elements of a slide toward confederacy or even the breaking away of some territory. Iran dominates, and will increasingly dominate, the Shi'a-controlled central heartland and the Government of Iraq, particularly when US and Coalition forces depart. Iraq's northern — and predominantly Kurdish — region is now…

• Is Turkey Shifting Alliances?

  For the last several decades it was generally assumed that Israel was the United States’ staunchest ally in the Greater Middle East. But when former Nebraskan Republican Senator Chuck Hagel introduced Turkey’s prime minister in Washington last Monday, Hagel began his speech by saying Turkey was the United States’ most important ally in the region. And for the last several decades it was also assumed that Turkey was Israel’s only ally in the Middle East. But when he took the podium, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, lambasted the behavior of the Jewish state for its actions during the war…