We should notice that the French president said nothing about the authoritarian nature of the Abu Dhabi regime, which imprisons and tortures its opponents, about its involvement in the deadly war in Yemen, or about its use of Pegasus spy software.
Read: GCC-Damascus Rapprochement Can Pit Syria Against Turkey Even FurtherIn the last few years, Riyadh's regional influence, role, and image have been partly eroded by the war in Yemen, the blockade against Qatar, the Khashoggi murder, and the vulnerabilities against Iran's proxy attacks.
During my conversations with Palestinian Nakba survivor Ahmad Alhaaj, who now resides in Gaza, he told me that the Zionist movement had recruited a Yemeni Jew named Ali to work as a spy and that he posed as a Palestinian imam leading the Muslims of the town of Al-Majdal (today’s Ashkol) in their prayers.
-led and Russia-led global alliances, respectively, and the disastrous consequences of their interventions are observable most clearly in Syria and Yemen.
David Wearing, a regular contributor to media outlets such as Sky News, stated that the purpose of the purchase is the whitewashing of the public image of the Saudi regime which is tarnished by events like its horrific human rights record and the war crimes in Yemen.
Read: A Road Map to End Yemen’s War: An Interview with Abdul Galil ShaifFast-forward to the present day, and Hezbollah is the most powerful military and political faction in Lebanon, controlling several ministries, the main airport in Beirut, and even the country’s primary seaport which was the site of a devastating explosion in 2020, which has led to Hezbollah threatening the judge charged with investigating the tragedy.
Khashoggi also criticized the current Saudi administration on many sensitive political issues, such as the blockade of Qatar, the occupation of Yemen, the political discussions with Lebanon, and the financial support for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who remained in power with the support of the Saudi regime.
It was reported that Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Nechirvan Barzani, a good friend of both Erdoğan and MBZ, helped facilitate the rapprochement between Turkey and the UAE – two countries that confronted on almost all regional issues concerning Libya, Egypt, the Horn of Africa, Yemen, and the Eastern Mediterranean throughout the past decade.
The regional tensions between the Arab Gulf states and Iran have shifted the former’s attention to protecting their home front, especially in Yemen and Iraq, two areas which Iran and its proxies have infiltrated and used as bases to attack foreign and Arab interests.
Al-Kadhimi co-sponsored the conference in Baghdad with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss the war in Yemen, Lebanon's collapse, the regional water crisis, and the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement.
In addition to a foreword by Asef Bayat, the authors have provided insightful analyses of Islamist and post-Islamist trends in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Turkey.
Cooperation of the Saudi and Emirati decision-makers rose to the occasion during the 2017 Qatar crisis, the marginalization of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Yemenwar against the Houthi militia since 2015, and lobbying activities in the U.