Articles

Following drone attacks by the pro-Iranian Yemeni militia on the Saudi capital this weekend, the United States says it fears “a rapid escalation” in the region and issued a warning to its citizens on Sunday. On the Lebanese front, a preparatory meeting in Paris for a conference in support of the Lebanese army produced no conclusive results, at a time when a confrontation with the Israeli army in the south appears to be a worrying sign. At the end of a week marked above all in the Middle East by the Houthis’ continued escalation against Saudi Arabia, one might think that the Iranian front remained at a standstill. As usual since the conflict began, statements by US President Donald Trump have sent mixed signals about his country’s military or diplomatic intentions.

Just days before the start of the school year, public schools and secondary schools found themselves facing a problem that should have been settled before they even opened their doors: which teachers does each school need, and how many teaching hours does it require? The problem arose after the Ministry of Education decided to postpone the return of contract teachers paid through school and secondary-school funds, as well as the so-called “auxiliary” teachers, until a survey of needs had been completed and any surplus identified. As a result, around 3,500 teachers are waiting to find out what will happen to their teaching hours, while some schools have been forced to shorten their schedules because of teacher shortages.

This series of articles offers a clearer understanding of the current situation in Lebanon through the lens of the past, steering clear of impassioned, ideological, or romantic narratives that overlook the realities on the ground. Readers are free to draw their own conclusions. The previous sixteen installments revisited the events surrounding Hezbollah’s rise to power, from the Taif Agreement through the first half of President Michel Sleiman’s term. (See the previous 16 installments) Saudi Arabia’s outreach to Syria took the form of two visits to Damascus by newly appointed Prime Minister Saad Hariri. The first took place on December 19, 2009, at the personal request of Saudi King Abdullah, for talks with Bashar al-Assad. Supporters of the Future Movement, led by the prime minister, viewed the visit as a major political sacrifice. Hariri’s second visit to Damascus took place six months later, on July 18, 2010. This time, he was accompanied by 17 ministers to sign bilateral cooperation agreements.

While tensions between the United States and Iran have eased somewhat around the Strait of Hormuz, hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis dominated the week, with the equally strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait emerging as another flashpoint. Saudi Arabia is now being hit by Houthi strikes almost daily, increasing pressure on the world’s largest crude oil exporter, while Washington, its longstanding ally, has made it clear that the U.S. military will not come directly to the kingdom’s aid. According to several corroborating sources, including the Reuters news agency and New York Times , U.S. diplomats met with Houthi representatives in Oman in early September to preserve the ceasefire agreed between Washington and the Yemeni movement and keep Bab el-Mandeb open to U.S. shipping.

With each passing day, it becomes clearer just how vital Iraq once was to the security of the Gulf as a whole, and how severe the regional imbalance created by the George W. Bush administration in 2003 truly was. That year, the United States handed Iraq to Iran on a silver platter. American tanks rolled into Baghdad without fully grasping the consequences of a transformation that would reshape the regional balance. That balance had been an integral part of the regional order since the creation of the Iraqi state following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1920s. Iraq, from which drones were launched toward Saudi Arabia in an attempt to disable the oil pipeline terminating at Yanbu on the Red Sea, is not simply another country sharing a long border with Iran.

As the fighting continued in Hormuz, two military axes emerged in plain view of Washington, embodying two geostrategic approaches destined to compete with each other. What is more, this was happening across an area stretching from the Arabian Sea to the eastern Mediterranean—a region still regarded as the United States’ backyard, if not its exclusive preserve. Indeed, the missile and drone defense agreement concluded between Israel and Greece on September 2 appears to be a replica of the joint defense alliance signed in Mecca on August 7 by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Thus, in theory at least, we now have “two security poles facing each other without forming two entirely separate blocs.”