Walking Alone!

CrossFireArabia
Opinion
December 29, 2024

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Opinion

Sheep in a Wolf Clothing

CrossFireArabia
April 22, 2025

When Donald Trump become US president and just before, many in the world and the Middle East thought he would have the imagination to end the Israeli war on Gaza.

But everyone, including this writer, were sadly mistaken. He appears to be fueling the conflict on the little enclave and satisfying the inclination of Israeli Prime’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s appetite for repeated genocide on the territory.

It has become quickly, and blatantly obvious that Trump was not in interested in wrapping up this catastrophic war and ending it but to follow the machinations of the previous Joe Biden administration of adding fuel to the fire, giving Israel more open-cheque, deadly arms under the pretext of finishing the presence of Hamas in Gaza.

The fact that the Israelis with the help of the Americans were only killing more helpless civilians most of whom are babies, toddlers, children and women was neither here nor there. Their bombs fall on what used to be residential areas and certainly not on Hamas fighters and other operatives.

While Trump must be credited for achieving a ceasefire on Gaza in 19 January, 2025, just days before he officially entered the White House, he did nothing to stop Netanyahu when he re-started the war on the strip exactly two months later on 19 March and continues to do so today with no end in sight.

Despite the diplomatic trips of his personal envoy in the name of Steve Witkoff, Netanyahu is thought to be telling Trump that the war on Gaza will continue till Israel roots out Hamas from the enclave regardless of the mostly-Israeli hostages, now standing at 59 and half of whom are in body bags, thanks to the constant Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.

Despite his “peace” boasts, Trump has long appeared to be giving Netanyahu the green light to continue the war on the strip as he already stated he wants to displace the Gaza Palestinians to safer places such as Jordan and Egypt while the United States goes into the Strip and clns up the Israeli-purpetrated ruins and develops into a so-called Middle East Riviera under the pretext that Gaza has become an unlivable area.

It would have been nice of the new peace-tainted US president to say that Gaza was unlivable because of the mass Israeli bombing but Trump is well-aware of that since America has been the superpower behind this genocide since 7 October, 2023.

While he may have since backtracked on the transfer issue because of the mass opposition to it not least of all from Arab countries and the Palestinians themselves Trump’s displacement idea has since become a catchphrase for Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians in his extremist government as a feasible idea to be carried out on a “voluntary” basis and which they are now preparing the ground framework for.

Today Gaza is in a ruinous state. After the 19 January ceasefire, UN food and aid trucks started to enter the beseiged enclave, however all that has stopped when Israel re-started its war on the lone-standing territory. Israel has reinstated the sieged, sealing the Strip with no aid lorries being allowed with the trucks once again standing on the dfifferent entry points of Gaza including Rafah.

For Gaza it is back to the bad old days of starvation, Israeli bombardment, targetting at civilian tents in places like Mawasi and bombing hospitals, a bloody status quo that continued from just after 7 October, 2023 till 19 January 2025 and is resumed today.

Only Trump can stop the present carnage. Only he can put an end to the bloody actions that are being dictated by Natanyahu who is hell-bent on continuing to destroy and kill the people of Gaza who presently stand at 2.1 million.

It is ‘sealed’ starvation for Gaza. It has been now over 50 days when nothing has been allowed to enter the strip but the road is long and the people are bracing themselves for more deaths, not to mention the deadly strikes carried by Israeli planes and drones carried out on a daily basis.

Opinion

Rehabilitating Iran?

Dr Khairi Janbek
April 14, 2025

By Dr Khairi Janbek

All eyes now are on the new game in the Middle East: The US-Iran negotiations. One would say the aim here is far more advanced than the Iranian nuclear programme when the agreement was torn up by US President Donald Trump himself who was more concerned with details which would eliminate all threats against Israel, and would that in all liklihood, transform the whole region.

It seems that in this early intense stage, the ambiance is for reaching an amicable agreement through the recognition that no matter of the outcome, there will be nothing divisive. Trump will continue creating crisis just for the sake of showing that he can control those crises, and act in the manner of the old Arabic adage, for neither the wolf to die nor the sheep to parish. While for the Iranians, they have everything to gain from a positive outcome to those negotiations.

Of course, the Iranian nuclear programme is an important component of these negotiations, and most often than not, at times Iran and at times its enemies, exaggerate the potential of the country to making nuclear weapons for political purposes.

Yet the fact remains that despite the possibility of Iran being still far from creating weapon-grade enrichment programme, if carried on unchecked, it is inevitable that at one point in the future it will have nuclear weapons. Consequently the fact remains, the onus is on Iran to prove credibly that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, and accept periodically, the checks of the international nuclear inspectors.

The other dimension is the relationship of Iran with its proxies in the region, which falls under the category of threats to Israel. Well, and under the circumstances, Iran has to decide the reasons for its continued alliances with its proxies – whether such alliances served their purpose, or have become a burden than an asset – or if it can maintain these alliances with definte no threat commitment Israel but with political clout in Arab world affairs, which incidentally may not seem such a bad idea for Trump.

After all eliminating the threat against Israel is the primary concern, while at the same time his rich Arab allies buy their protection from him, a protection which Iran cannot dare to test.

But what is in it for Iran to reach an accord with the United States? One would say plenty. For a start it’s reintegration back into the region. After all it kept claiming it’s nuclear programme, is in reality, a peaceful programme and Tehran never had the intention of enriching weapons grade uranium.

Well, and with an accord it can now easily prove, and then can start dealing with the issue of not being a threat to Israel by either dissociating itself from these proxies which have become costly to its image and/or work in their transformation to political, unarmed forces and parts of the political structures wherever they exist in the Arab region.

Essentially if the sanctions against Iran are lifted and its assets are no longer frozen, Iran will be able to assume a very strong position in the Middle East region based on its economic strength and its enormous trade potential. In fact, Trump knows that any military action he takes against the Iranian nuclear installations, and any possible response will not have a decisive result. Therefore, the most likely decisive result will be, a new Iran, big in the region as well as moreover, that will owe him a favour.

In the meantime , we are still at the very early stage to even try to guess, but we can safely assume, that no matter how those negotiations proceed, nothing tangible is likely to happen before the visit of President Trump to the Gulf region in May.

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian analyst based in Paris, France