The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

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Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a…

James M. Dorsey


    • May 19, 2025 LATEST EPISODE
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    Latest episodes from The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

    Qatar is at the center of a battle for hearts and minds

    Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2025 14:41


    The winds didn't just blow hot when Donald J. Trump recently touched down in Qatar on the first visit ever to the Gulf state by a sitting US president, which generated deals worth US$s1.2 trillion. They also blew cold, chilled by a long-standing, Israel-inspired campaign aimed to sully Qatar's reputation.

    Is Trump's Gulf victory lap a watershed-Gaza may be the litmus test.

    Play Episode Listen Later May 15, 2025 10:58


    Donald J. Trump and the American economy are two beneficiaries of the president's Gulf road show. So are the Gulf states, Syria, and Make America Great Again supporters within Mr. Trump's administration. In less than 24 hours in the kingdom, Mr. Trump received a standing ovation from Arab leaders and hundreds of thousands poured into the streets of Syrian towns and cities to celebrate his lifting of long-standing crippling sanctions—a rare achievement for an American president. On the surface, Syrians, Saudis, and Israel critics have much to celebrate, including Syrians' prospects for reconstruction, Gulf states' defense, technology, and aviation mega deals with the United States, and seemingly upgraded Gulf relations with the US that potentially put them more on par with Israel. Even so, Mr. Trump has yet to pass the litmus test on whether, how much, and what history he wrote on his Gulf tour, packaged in pomp and circumstance.

    Is Syria the Middle East's next exploding powder keg

    Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2025 14:11


    Syria could be the Middle East's next exploding powder keg.

    US-Houthi truce triggers pro-Israel alarm bells

    Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2025 10:20


    Alarm bells went off in Jerusalem and pro-Israel circles in Washington when US President Donald J. Trump this week announced a truce in America's Red Sea tanker war with Yemen's Houthi rebels that failed to take Israeli interests into account. Mr. Trump's announcement of a deal that protects US assets and international shipping but leaves space for continued Houthi targeting of Israel suggested that the president and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu differed on multiple issues, including Yemen, Gaza, and Iran.

    Separately, Trump and Hamas let the cat out of the bag

    Play Episode Listen Later May 8, 2025 10:51


    US President Donald J. Trump and Hamas have separately opened a Pandora's Box that could fuel Middle Eastern fires for years to come. Hamas did so when it unleashed Israel's assault on Gaza with its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. With more than 50,000 dead and tens of thousands wounded and/or maimed for life, Palestinians have paid a stark price. Israel's assault has devastated the Strip and opened the door to Israeli reoccupation 20 years after the Jewish state withdrew its forces from the territory. Mr. Trump played his part when he called in February during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's first visit to Washington this year for resettling Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians elsewhere and turning the Strip into a high-end luxury real estate development. In doing so, Mr. Trump allowed Israel to adopt a plan long envisioned by ultra-nationalists but not the general public as its official policy. Now, the Pandora's Box could come home to haunt Mr. Trump as he prepares to visit the Gulf next week.

    US-European culture war puts Israel in a bind

    Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2025 10:37


    Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's embrace of the global far-right faces a difficult choice. The question for Mr. Netanyahu is whether to maintain Israel's boycott of Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country's second-largest political party, and Austria's Freedom Party (FPÖ) amid an escalating feud between the Trump administration and Germany over attitudes toward the far right.

    Is Algeria Next

    Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2025 10:12


    Algeria may be the latest target in efforts to garner further Arab recognition of the Jewish state, despite its Gaza war conduct and rejection of Palestinian national aspirations. To that end, a Philadelphia-based far-right pro-Israeli organisation, the Middle East Forum, has put Algeria in its crosshairs in an apparent attempt to build pressure on the North African state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Algeria would be a prize catch.

    Netanyahu hardens his position despite pressure to lift the Gaza blockade

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 30, 2025 9:14


    Netanyahu hardens his position despite pressure to lift the Gaza blockade by James M. Dorsey

    Crunch time may be approaching for Netanyahu

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2025 9:42


    The coming days will tell whether it's crunch time for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The litmus test will be whether US President Donald J. Trump forces Mr. Netanyahu to lift his almost two-months-long blocking of the flow of humanitarian aid into war-ravaged Gaza.

    Netanyahu's allies turn Jews into potential scapegoats

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 25, 2025 22:28


    Betar, the far-right youth movement of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud party, is happy to help US President Donald J. Trump curtail pro-Palestinian speech and academic freedoms. That has mainstream American Jews fear that the Trump administration's crackdown on democratic freedoms of speech, assembly, and academia will fuel anti-Semitism rather than enhance their security.

    Hamas and Netanyahu bet on each other's unpopularity

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2025 13:34


    This week's Gazan anti-Hamas protests demanding an end to the war could prove to be a double-edged sword. There is no doubt that Gazans want to see an end to the further devastation of their already war-ravaged Strip, the killing of more than 50,000 primarily civilian Palestinians, and Israel's blocking of the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food and medical supplies. Similarly, there is little doubt that Hamas's popularity in Gaza has hit rock bottom, which is not to say that Gazans absolve Israel, the United States, and the international community of responsibility for their desperate plight or oppose armed resistance against occupation. A mere six per cent of Gazans polled in January by the Palestine-based Institute for Social and Economic Progress wanted to see Hamas in power once the war ended. Only 5.3 per cent would vote for Hamas in an election.

    Vietnam looms large in Gaza

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 17, 2025 11:50


    Hamas has Israel where it wants it. The group's insistence that ending the war be part of any ceasefire deal and refusal to disarm strengthens its position. To be sure, Israel has severely weakened Hamas militarily. To be sure, Israel has severely weakened Hamas militarily. Moreover, Hamas barely scores double digits in Gaza opinion polls. Hamas may no longer be able to organize an attack on the scale of its October 7, 2023, assault on Israel in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed. Even so, Hamas still has a de facto presence in much of Gaza. Moreover, based on-19th century Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz's principle of “war as a continuation of politics by other means," Hamas is scoring points in what amounts to a war of attrition as Israel relentlessly batters the Strip.

    Whither Trump's Gaza resettlement plan

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 11, 2025 9:26


    As he embarked on a Middle East tour, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto this week offered to accept an estimated 1,000 wounded Gazan Palestinians and “traumatised, orphaned children.” Mr. Prabowo, the leader of the Muslim world's most populous country and democracy, was careful to limit those that would qualify to Palestinians in medical or psychological need and to insist that Indonesia would host the evacuees until they have fully recovered from their injuries and the situation in Gaza was safe for their return. He said the evacuations would be coordinated with the West Bank-based, internationally recognised Palestine Authority.

    Israel's Gaza strategy is doomed to fail

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 8, 2025 12:14


    Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's multi-pronged strategy to crush the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation by destroying Hamas is doomed to failure with or without the potential expulsion or departure of Gazans. Eighteen months into the Gaza war, Israel has failed to dislodge Hamas, militarily free hostages held by the group, stop it from firing rockets at Israeli towns and cities, and halt Hamas' smuggling of arms into the territory. “Hamas still maintains sovereignty in the Strip,” said reserve Major General Tamir Hayman, the executive director of Israel's prestigious Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and a former head of the Israeli military's Intelligence Directorate.

    Mr. Netanyahu goes to Washington

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 6, 2025 8:14


    This week, US President Donald J. Trump put Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on a pedal stool for the second time since he returned to the Oval Office two months ago. Mr. Trump is not known for handing out goodies without extracting a price. The question is whether that is what Mr. Trump's last-minute surprise invitation to the White House is about, and if so, what the cost will be.

    The Israeli-Palestinian battle of the narratives

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2025 11:03


    Israeli journalist Zvi Yehezkeli pinpointed the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as he reflected on a post-interview conversation with Yasser Arafat, the late chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), more than two decades ago. A one-time secular security official who became a religious West Bank settler and called on air for the slaying of 100,000 Gazans in the wake of Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Mr. Yehezkeli said it took him years to understand what he believed the Palestinian leader was telling him once the camera stopped rolling. “I don't recognize your right to the land, and your logic is completely different from mine. The end of the conflict is your invention... I never agreed to it," Mr. Yehezkeli quoted Mr. Arafat as saying. In a recent email inviting recipients to subscribe to his monthly broadcasts, Mr. Yehezkeli offered an interpretation of Mr. Arafat's remark that ensures the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than acceptance of a reality that potentially holds out the promise of an eventual healing of the wounds on both sides of the divide if adequately managed.

    Gaza's anti-Hamas protests mean different things to different players

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2025 11:52


    The United Arab Emirates is betting that recent anti-Hamas protests in Gazan towns, supported by influential tribes and clans, will strengthen Abu Dhabi-based Mohammed Dahlan's chances of playing a prominent role in the territory's post-war administration.

    Reading tea leaves-Is the US signalling potential differences with Israel

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2025 11:21


    A stickler for language, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu twice this month remained conspicuously silent when senior Trump administration officials chose words that signalled potential changes in US policy towards Gaza, the Palestinians, and Hamas.

    Gaza's fault lines are less linear than meets the eye

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 22, 2025 9:25


    Like much else in the Middle East, Gaza's fault lines are less linear than meets the eye.

    Want to join the fight against anti-Semitism Check your anti-Semitic antecedents at the door.

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2025 9:49


    It's ok to be anti-Jewish as long as you support Israel. That is Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's bottom line. Mr. Netanyahu is willing to risk losing European officialdom and prominent mainstream intellectuals and activists in the fight against anti-Semitism to garner the support of the global far-right, despite its anti-Jewish roots and sustained links to racism and neo-Nazism. Mr. Netanyahu and his de facto envoy to the global far-right, Diaspora Affairs and Combating Anti-Semitism Minister Amichai Chikli, intend to broadcast that message at an international conference on combatting anti-Semitism scheduled to open in Jerusalem later this month.

    Netanyahu gambles on Trump

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 16, 2025 12:48


    At first glance, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu could not have a better friend in the White House. In his first two months in office, President Donald J. Trump authorised US$11 billion in arms sales, signed a swath of executive orders to crack down on criticism of Israel, put universities and student protesters in his crosshairs, and legitimised ethnic cleansing. Even so, Mr. Trump's four years in office may not be honeymoon years for US-Israeli relations.

    Israel's times may be ‘a-changin'

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2025 15:40


    When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu first cultivated Evangelical and far-right support for Israel, he didn't worry about their theologically rooted associations with anti-Semitism and/or willingness to turn a blind eye to racially-motivated anti-Jewish sentiment. It was a bet that paid off for decades. It solidified Republican support for Israel and helped ensure that successive US administrations, whether Republican or Democratic, had Israel's back. A recent Gallup poll showed 83 per cent of Republicans as viewing Israel favourably as opposed to Democrats, among whom positive perceptions of Israel dropped from 74 per cent in 2014 to 33 per cent this year. President Donald J. Trump catered to his pro-Israel base in his first two months in office by authorising US$11 billion in arms sales, signing a swath of executive orders to crack down on criticism of Israel, and putting universities and student protesters in his crosshairs. Even so, the times may be ‘a-'changin' to borrow singer Bob Dylan's phrase.

    Netanyahu's reshaped Middle East aligns neatly with Trump's new world order

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2025 11:41


    Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's effort to reshape the Middle East aligns neatly with US President Donald J. Trump's notion of big power geopolitics. In 2023, Mr. Netanyahu outlined elements of his vision in an address to the United Nations General Assembly. The prime minister held up a map that erased Palestine and showed the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, as part of Israel. Mr. Trump's plan to resettle Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians elsewhere and turn the war-ravaged Strip into a high-end beachfront real estate development has allowed Mr. Netanyahu to officially embrace the notion of ethnic cleansing for the first time, even though ultranationalist members of his Cabinet have long propagated expelling Palestinians from the territory. US and Israeli officials said concern that Hamas may repurpose some 30,000 unexploded ordnances was one reason why Mr. Trump proposed resettlement. Even so, Mr. Trump's plan fits a pattern, following his recognition in his first term as president of Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Since then, Mr. Netanyahu's big power vision of the Middle East has evolved substantially as a result of the toppling in December of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Turkish-backed group with jihadist antecedents.

    With his right hand not knowing what his left hand is doing, Trump plays with fire

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 7, 2025 10:57


    US President Donald J. Trump may be a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Mr. Trump's dealings this week with the Palestinians tell the story.

    The logic in Trump's madness

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 5, 2025 10:57


    There is logic to Donald J. Trump's madness. Irrespective of the merits of the US president's ethics, policies, and style, Mr. Trump's grenade-throwing shock-and-awe approach has galvanised Arab states into action over Gaza, much like it did with the Europeans regarding their defense and Ukraine policies. “Love him or hate him, Trump has shaken things up… Before him, Gaza had no real roadmap. Now, the Arab world is singing a new tune: No Hamas, No Arms,” said journalist Amjad Taha.

    Israel joins Russia in laughing its way to the bank after Trump-Zelensky spat

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 1, 2025 10:48


    Russia is not the only country laughing all the way to the bank after US President Donald J. Trump's war of words with his visiting Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky. So is Israel. Mr. Trump's willingness to accommodate Russian President Vladimir Putin serves Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's purpose as he seeks to redraw the Middle East map in his mould.

    Israeli security demands threaten to upset Syria's apple cart

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 26, 2025 8:55


    Israeli security demands threaten to upset Syria's apple cart by James M. Dorsey

    US President Trump's Gaza shock therapy rocks Arab boats

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 22, 2025 12:51


    US President Donald J. Trump's shock-and-awe Gaza therapy appears to be working. Infuriated by Mr. Trump's assertion that the United States will take ownership of the Strip, resettle its 2.3 million inhabitants in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere, and turn it into a high-end beachfront real estate development has forced Arab leaders to come up with an alternative plan. Mr. Trump has acknowledged as much.

    Trump can only play both sides against the middle so long

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2025 12:22


    Second-guessing US President Donald J. Trump is a tricky business.

    Israel and Hamas adopt hard line as they enter second-phase ceasefire talks

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2025 8:51


    An Israeli refusal to allow mobile homes and heavy construction equipment into Gaza bodes ill for this week's second-phase indirect Gaza ceasefire talks with Israel and Hamas hardening their negotiating positions.

    UAE emerges as the United States and Israel's best Arab friend

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 16, 2025 12:45


    With Arab leaders gathering in Cairo later this month for an emergency summit on Gaza, the United Arab Emirates has emerged as the United States and Israel's best Arab friend.

    Trump puts ‘might is right' principle on steroids in Gaza and Ukraine

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 15, 2025 13:15


    Might is right. That sums up US President Donald J. Trump's vision of a 21st-century world order. Barely a month in office, Mr. Trump has not wasted time creating building blocks for his worldview. Mr. Trump's efforts to end fighting in Ukraine, coupled with his territorial ambitions in Gaza, Greenland, Panama, and Canada, have put the ‘might is right' principle on steroids. So has the president's unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

    Saudi Arabia's Future-Palestine or Zion

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2025 15:40


    Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may have opened a Pandorra's Box when he suggested creating a Palestinian state on Saudi territory. Mr. Netanyahu wasn't just throwing a hand grenade into US efforts to engineer Saudi recognition of Israel when he told Israeli television, “The Saudis can create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia; they have a lot of land over there.” A quick Saudi retort hinted at the Pandorra's Box, a decades-old assertion, as fantastical as it may sound, that Judaism's Zion was in Saudi Arabia, not in Palestine.

    Marco Rubio treats himself to a Middle East reality check

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2025 8:48


    Marco Rubio is likely in for a reality check when he visits the Middle East for the first time this week as US Secretary of State.

    Trump plays with fire in Gaza

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2025 13:33


    US President Donald J. Trump's Gaza plan could change the nature of the Gaza war and prolong rather than end the hostilities. Amid calls for a unified Arab response to Mr. Trump's plan to resettle or ethnically cleanse Gazan Palestinians, according to many Middle Easterners, officials, journalists, analysts, and social media activists are mulling options. The options under discussion range from approaches that would give US companies a significant stake in Gaza's reconstruction to the fuelling of a Hamas-led armed guerilla-style resistance.

    Palestinian prisoners released by Israel arrive in Ramallah_TRT 9 Feb 2025

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 8, 2025 5:33


    Hamas has released the fifth batch of hostages to the Red Cross. In exchange, Israel will release 183 Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people, including 18 serving life sentences, and 111 detained in Gaza during the war, according to Hamas. James M. Dorsey, an adjunct Senior Fellow, at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies give us more analysis on the story.

    Trump focuses Middle Eastern minds with potentially unintended consequences

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 8, 2025 10:52


    US President Donald J. Trump's call for the permanent resettlement of Gazan Palestinians has focused regional minds, even if the White House and senior officials have walked back key elements of the president's proposal

    Trump's Gaza plan turns the Middle East on its head

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2025 10:49


    US President Donald J. Trump's plan to expel Palestinians and take control of Gaza threatens to render second phase ceasefire negotiations to the dustbin of history and kill prospects for Saudi recognition of Israel. So has Mr. Trump's suggestion that he would decide in the next month whether to endorse Israeli annexation of the West Bank occupied by Israel since 1967. Mr. Trump's propositions take Palestinian aspirations off the table. They fulfill visiting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's wildest dreams.

    Trump's meeting with Netanyahu could decide the Gaza ceasefire's fate

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2025 9:36


    Donald Trump's Oval Office could be Binyamin Netanyahu's brick wall. That is if the president uses Tuesday's meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, the first foreign leader to visit Washington since Mr. Trump returned to office, to ensure a successful Israeli-Hamas negotiation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement's second phase.

    Trump's Middle East plan may have legs

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 1, 2025 11:27


    US President Donald J. Trump's approach to managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may have legs, even if Arabs and Muslims reject his call for the resettlement of Gazan Palestinians. Egypt, Jordan, and Palestinians have rejected resettlement in no uncertain terms. So have non-Arab Muslim countries like Indonesia and Albania, who the United States reportedly approached with a request to take in Palestinians. Palestinians say they voted with their feet with hundreds of thousands of Gazans returning this week to their ruined homes in the north of the Strip. Even so, Egypt and Turkey, a more strident Middle Eastern state, see geopolitical and geostrategic advantage and commercial opportunity in working with the Trump administration on a plan first tabled during Mr. Trump's first term in office that falls short of Palestinian aspirations but would serve Egyptian and Turkish interests.

    Netanyahu flaunts his ties to the global far-right

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2025 8:50


    Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Israel's ultra-nationalists and ultra-conservatives have turned Israel into a ‘haven' for some Jews rather than all Jews. Not only by encouraging an intolerant, supremacist domestic environment hostile to vigorous public debate and equality for all but also by endorsing the far-right's flirt with language and imagery that risks stoking ant-Semitism, and efforts to rewrite the history of the Holocaust, Jews' worst calamity in modern history.

    Trump's support for expelling Palestinians fans Middle Eastern fires

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2025 12:02


    US President Donald J. Trump risks putting relations with Saudi Arabia and other US partners in the region on a knife's edge, sending the Middle East into a tailspin, and complicating, if not undermining, negotiations to make the three-phase Gaza ceasefire permanent rather than temporary by advocating the removal to Egypt and Jordan of 1.5 million Gazan Palestinians.

    Trump has everyone running in circles when it comes to his Middle East policy

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2025 12:56


    US President Donald J. Trump has foreign governments, domestic constituencies, journalists, and pundits running in circles as they attempt to identify his Middle East policy.

    US-backed Israeli efforts to curb freedom of expression are likely to backfire

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 23, 2025 12:05


    US President-elect Donald J. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may soon diverge in their approaches to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet, the Trump administration is set, as a ceasefire takes effect in Gaza, to cement suppression of criticism of the Jewish state, a pillar of Israel's long-standing effort to manipulate US and international public opinion and squash public censure.

    Trump puts Israelis and Palestinians on a knife's edge

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 16, 2025 9:15


    Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may welcome two Middle East policy goals articulated by US President-elect Donald J. Trump in response to the Gaza ceasefire but may not like what it will take to achieve them. The same is true for the Palestinians, including the West Bank-based, internationally recognised Palestine Authority and Hamas.

    The Middle East's New Jigsaw Puzzle

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 15, 2025 25:07


    Decimating Hezbollah and ousting President Bashar al-Assad were the first steps in a Middle Eastern power struggle that is likely to define not only who wields the most influence in Syria but also who will emerge as regional hegemons. Turkey, Israel, and Iran are prime candidates, with countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar playing catch up, at least in Syria. The line-up in Syria reflects the likely longer-term divvying up of influence regionally in a complex jigsaw puzzle.

    Saudi Arabia and international sports, a tale of politics and greed

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 12, 2025 11:47


    Saudi Arabia brings out the worst in the world of international sports in terms of politics and greed. FIFA's awarding Saudi Arabia the 2034 World Cup hosting rights is just the tip of the iceberg. The awarding violated the world soccer body's human rights policy and mocked the sports world's fiction that sports and politics are separate rather than Siamese twins joined at the hip. The Olympic Council of Asia's earlier awarding of the 2029 Asian Winter Games to Saudi Arabia, even though the kingdom lacks a qualifying winter season and intends to hold the tournament in a troubled mega science fiction project that is under construction, is another example of politics and money trumping sports.

    Iran Fears Setback May Open A Pandora's Box

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 9, 2025 13:03


    With Donald j. Trump two weeks away from returning to the White House, Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) fear that recent setbacks could open a Pandora's box. Israel's puncturing of Swiss cheese-sized holes in the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance has upended the Islamic Republic's forward defence strategy, raised questions about the future of the IRGC's Quds Force, its foreign operations arm, and risks turning Iran into a tradeable geopolitical commodity.

    Israel's Military Has A Crisis Even If It Refuses To Admit It

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2025 16:52


    Israel's once-vaunted military faces an uncertain future. Not just because the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to judge Israel's Gaza war conduct and the issuance by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of arrest warrants for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. But also due to assertions that the military is unable or unwilling to enforce discipline, questioning of the military's capacity to investigate itself, a long-held US-supported holy grail of the military's self-perception as “the world's most moral army,” and the rise of an officer corps infused by religious ultra-nationalism. In addition, several recent books by Israeli veterans of the Gaza war belie the military's moral claim and document the traumatic fallout of Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, as well as 15 months of combat in the Strip.

    Putting Humpty Dumpty together in Syria

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2025 11:53


    Israel's demolition of the ill-equipped Syrian military and the recent occupation of additional Syrian territory beyond the Golan Heights it conquered in the 1967 Middle East war is just one obstacle. So is a daunting list of challenges that, if unresolved, threaten the new Syrian rulers' ability to rebuild an economy ravaged by 14 years of civil war and, potentially, the country's territorial integrity. The challenges include Turkey's military presence in northern Syria, fighting between a pro-Turkish militia and Syrian Kurds, differences over whether Syria should be a centralised state or a federation, the failure of large numbers of Al-Assad conscripts to turn in their weapons despite being promised amnesty, and concerns about the place of religious minorities in the future Syria.

    How important is the Syrian Foreign Minister's first overseas visit to Saudi Arabia_TRT 02012025

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 2, 2025 3:37


    The new leadership in Syria has dispatched officials to Saudi Arabia, for the first official visit outside the country. The delegation is being led by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani, the defense minister and the head of intelligence services. James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, discusses the importance of the Syrian government's efforts to rebuild ties with Arab nations.

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