All posts tagged: regional powers

Celebrating the Holidays, Waiting for War

Celebrating the Holidays, Waiting for War

On January 2, at about 5:30 p.m., as I was reading at my desk in my Beirut apartment and contemplating a busy start to the year, I was jolted out of my focus by a loud blast. The first question that came to my mind was: Has it started? An explosion had ripped through an apartment block in the southern suburbs, just a 10-minute drive from where I live, killing Saleh Arouri, a senior leader of Hamas, along with at least six others. These suburbs are a Hezbollah bastion; Hamas leaders must have felt, wrongly, that they were safe there. City streets emptied quickly. People rushed home, checked on their loved ones, and waited. Will Hezbollah’s response be immediate? Will it be big? Will there be war? The following day was a big travel day for the tens of thousands of expatriates who’d returned to Lebanon for the holidays and were heading back to their lives abroad. Now the planned departures took on an added urgency. [Read: Hezbollah watches and waits] “We’re leaving just in …

Qatar Can’t Go On Like This

Qatar Can’t Go On Like This

As Israel and Hamas sink deeper into conflict, Doha finds itself in a delicate position. As a long-standing backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar has huge influence over the movement’s Palestinian affiliate, Hamas. That offers a significant opportunity in the short run. Doha’s deep connections with the Gaza-based Islamist group make Qatar a central player in the current diplomatic game. But for exactly the same reason, Doha faces the looming risk of being called to account over its record of support for such radical Islamist groups, and especially for Hamas. Doha has a long history of serving as a broker, and in the past, this has often worked well for the Gulf state. By allowing the Taliban to establish a Doha office, Qatar provided the U.S. with a channel for negotiations with the group. Doha thus facilitated the agreement to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan concluded under the Trump administration and carried out by President Joe Biden in 2021. Qatar hopes to play a similar role now. Doha has provided a home for much of …