Discovering MENA and other thoughts

Syria officially opened its presidential campaign on Sunday May 11th, and the cities and towns under the regime's control are filled with billboards and posters presenting portraits of President Bashar Al-Assad. Others, such as the ones hung in Thawra Street in the center of the capital, show either his portrait dressed in a grey suit and blue shirt or the Syrian flag overlaid with the word "together" and the President's signature. In Damascu's Sabaa Bahrat neighbourhood, one billboard proclaims: "We won't close our eyes until we have said yes to the ophthalmologist" - Assad is an eye specialist by training - "We vote for you, 2014". Elsewhere, posters read "our Bashar, we will not accept a president other than you. We have chosen you, you have our loyalty". The campaign is also flooding online media with messages of support for Assad - by the first morning, the Facebook account had garnered 65,000 likes and the Twit...

Last Saturday May 17th, amidst heavy fighting in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi, civilians were told to leave town as troops prepared for a new assault on Islamist militias. These were not however part of the country's army but of the self-declared Libyan National Army, which includes some army and air force units led by the retired general, Khalifa Heftar, as the interim authorities had previously denounced an offensive launched by the former general against Islamists as a "coup" bid. This is not the first alarming news coming from the North African country. Even though the news went unnoticed because Ukraine and the Malayan plane swamped our screens for a while, Libya is not faring that well. First, a Panamanian-flagged North Korean tanker (beautifully called "Morning Glory") took an illegal cargo of crude oil from rebels in the east of the country and safely left the port, ignoring the government’s threats of military action . Afterwards and as a co...

Last 25 January (coincidentally, a key day for Egypt's revolutionaries), Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference (NDC) wound up after more nearly a year of on-off discussions. The talks, for six hours a day, five days a week in normal situations, started last March and were a key part of the 2011 murky agreement brokered by the UN and the Gulf Co-operation Council that saw long-time President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down after 33 years in power at the peak of a momentous uprising that many feared it could have spread to other Gulf territories. Let's not forget that Yemen flanks major shipping lanes vital for both the West and Gulf countries. 

Everything suggested an American attack was imminent ... until Putin and his five-star Foreign Minister made magic and amazed us all by buying Assad a little more time. While never-ending debates about intervention were still invading the media and after the UK Parliament threw a bucket of cold water on the idea of a Libya-style Western-led operation, President Obama decided the US congress would have the last word on any eventual attack. It appeared the Republicans supported this move and, even though a vote has not still been cast, it seemed only the moment and exact target were still to be decided.

Throughout the week, a lot has been said about Israel attacking Syria. The news was about Israel carrying out airstrikes in and around Damascus, targeting missiles Iran intended to smuggle into Lebanon through Syrian soil. The final addressee was Hezbollah, which would in turn have later used this "game-changing" weapons to attack Israel. Even though Israel did not confirm the military move at the beginning (the first information came from US intelligence sources), many officials (including an Israeli ambassador acting as guest speaker in a conference on the Southern Mediterranean I had the honour to attend) have commented on it, affirming that Israel is not looking forward to intervening in Syria, but has drawn its particular "red line", that is, Iran providing the Shiite militia with powerful arms that will put in danger both the stability in the region and Israeli citizens' safety. As a matter of fact, and in anticipation to some kind of counter-attack, I...