In , the US and UK invaded Iraq under false pretenses that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ready for deployment within minutes and posed a great threat to the world, etc. The civilian death toll has been immense, with seeing almost deaths a day. This section looks into issues during the sanctions following the first Gulf War when the US forced Saddam Hussein to get out of Kuwait, which he invaded, as well as the propaganda build-up to the invasion and issues since.
Regardless of international opinion and their failure to secure a second UN resolution authorizing war, the U. The Iraqi regime was hardly able to resist and the war ended quickly. However, numerous issues turned up, including,. The build-up to the war on Iraq up to led to immense media coverage and propaganda. This section provides a series of articles looking at issues during the period of UN-sanctions that were mostly enforced by the US and UK.
Issues during this period included the immense civilian death toll due to sanctions. Other issues looked at include various bombing campaigns by coalition forces during the sanctions, and the impact on the environment. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or Arab-Israeli conflict, or whatever name it goes by, is perhaps one of the more sensitive issues that is discussed. The introduction section talks about the western involvement in the Middle East in general, that forms a backdrop to the situation between Palestine and Israel.
The history of the Middle East region in the past or so years has been violent. Due to the importance of the region primarily due to the natural resources, geopolitical interests have seen immense power-play at work affecting local populations. This section gives a brief time line of the events that have affected the Jewish and Palestinian people from the creation of the modern state of Israel to the conflicts of today.
Maps are also provided. The Israeli offensive on Hamas in the Gaza Strip on 27th December, ended on January 17, when both Hamas and Israel announced separate ceasefires, which have turned out to be quite fragile. The 3 week offensive claimed some 1, Palestinian lives, of which were children. Another 5, were injured including some 1, children and women.
How did this crisis come about and what were some of the issues raised? According to most mainstream media outlets, the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Hezbollah in mid sparked off the crisis in Lebanon. While Hezbollah has been firing many, many rockets at civilian targets in northern Israel, Israel has retaliated with air strikes at Beirut and elsewhere, bombing civilian infrastructure.
The UN has described both sides as committing war crimes. Thousands have become refugees in Lebanon and Israel, as innocent civilians attempt to flee bombardment. But there were a number of incidents before the kidnapping that contributed to this latest crisis. The end of September and October, , has seen a series of violent events unfold that probably unofficially mark the end of the Oslo accords.
The Oslo Accord, whereby Israel recognized the PLO and gave them limited autonomy in return for peace and an end to Palestinian claims on Israeli territory, has been largely criticized as a one-sided accord, that benefits only Israel, not the Palestinian people. A former Israeli military general, Ariel Sharon, accompanied by soldiers visited a holy Muslim site, called the Temple Mount by the Israelis, and Haram al Sharif Noble Sanctuary by the Muslims and proclaimed it as eternal Israeli territory.
Sharon had been accused of massacres in his military days and is well known to all. He is very right wing and against the peace process. This infuriated Palestinians, and led to a series of protests and violence.
Around the world, countries have condemned Israel's excessive violence. The dreams some of them once harbored of decimating ideological adversaries and remaking the region in their own image will have to be shelved for a more propitious time. Losing this Gulf ballast will impede any U. Although devastated by the pandemic and by crushing sanctions, the Islamic Republic long ago learned to live without significant oil income, and is well-practiced at wielding regional influence on the cheap.
Trump escalated military and economic pressure to punishing levels, but never clarified realistic demands or how he prioritized amongst them. He swung between clumsy bids for diplomacy with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and escalating military confrontation in the Persian Gulf. Just a year ago, dozens of U. That, and the fact that Iran is now much closer to having sufficient enriched uranium for a bomb.
The beefy posture of the last two decades by itself has not deterred the Iranians and indeed, it was largely built to deal with other challenges in the long war on terror. Instead, the United States has deterred Iranian bad behavior most successfully when it has adopted a multifaceted approach using sanctions, intelligence to expose and interrupt bad behavior, multilateral pressure, and the targeted use of force when necessary.
An effective policy package for containing the threats Iran poses to regional stability and American interests will also offer a diplomatic pathway for Iran to temper and ultimately abandon such behaviors in favor of international engagement; most of all, it will not rely on the military as the preeminent tool in the policy package.
All of this requires close coordination with both regional and global partners, a feature decidedly absent from the go-it-alone capriciousness of the Trump years. As senior Pentagon official James H. The dilemma, however, is how best to achieve these objectives in a sustainable and effective manner. Its success will depend on the will of regional actors to tamp down confrontation and build mechanisms for wider dialogue and conflict resolution.
Central Command is sorely overdue for a zero-based review of its posture and personnel. The reduction in U. Additional maritime and air capabilities are not needed in a region that already has a good deal of both. But if the global review now under way at the Department of Defense does not result in a smaller and different mix of military capabilities, personnel, and headquarters in the Middle East, it will have failed to meaningfully align U.
The Pentagon also needs a more formal way to measure the impact of regional posture decisions on deterrence. Instead of viewing current posture as a sunk cost and making decisions about military posture in the region as an ad hoc reaction to crises or to mollify insecure partners, the U. As the United States works to reduce the heavy military focus of its regional policy, it needs to beef up its diplomacy to tamp down other regional conflicts that give troublemakers like Iran and Russia opportunities to grow their influence.
In that regard, there may be a silver lining: the financial pinch felt by Gulf states might also reduce their recent tendency to regional adventurism. Since , Gulf governments have provided financial, material, and political support to armed actors in Syria , Yemen , and Libya , seeing these civil conflicts as proxy wars with their regional rivals for the future regional order.
Most Gulf aid to Syrian insurgents trailed off years ago — although its impact is still visible in the fragmented nature of the Syrian opposition. In Yemen, of course, two Gulf states have been direct combatants. Trump administration policy on all three of these devastating civil conflicts has been capricious and confused, allowing regional actors to pursue their own goals unconstrained by any American red lines.
But Gulf states have achieved neither greater security nor greater American engagement from their assertive approach; instead, their behavior generated bipartisan concerns in Congress about continuing the sale of U. Perhaps now their reduced financial circumstances will encourage them to give peace a chance.
A relative decline in both resources and commitment by some fairly hardheaded actors may provide the United States additional leverage in situations where, over recent years, gaining leverage would have required a significant commitment of resources.
Already, the UAE has withdrawn militarily from Yemen, while Libyan factions have reached a tentative agreement on new elections and are discussing a process for power-sharing. The Yemen conflict offers the most opportunities for the United States to encourage a path toward conflict resolution.
Both the Saudi and Emirati leaderships have begun to recognize that the price they are paying for their involvement in the conflict has grown higher and unsustainable. They have not only failed to achieve their goals, they have also profoundly undermined Yemeni and regional stability, to the benefit of Iran and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. But it takes two to tango — the Houthis, well-entrenched on the ground and feeling secure in the support of their Iranian backers, are resisting negotiation efforts.
The maritime coalition to interdict arms shipments to the Houthis has borne fruit; to support the peace process, this mission should be strengthened. The Houthis might take egregious actions to capture Saudi territory, attack Saudi infrastructure, or cause significant Saudi casualties. But barring such escalation, the United States can helpfully expend some diplomatic energy by encouraging external actors to reduce their involvement in the war, support the negotiations process under U.
Such an effort is vastly complicated by the reckless decision of the Trump administration in January to designate the Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization. Persuading regional partners to pull back from their regional adventurism is one part of a broader reset needed in these fundamental relationships. Security correspondent. UK home secretary says she is "disgusted" at the treatment of Tzipi Hotovely after a meeting in London.
Jersey officials hope the treaty with the UAE will lead to more investment in the island. Ahmed Rouaba. BBC News. The French presidency has said Emmanuel Macron "regrets the misunderstanding" caused by comments he made about Algeria's history. Macron caused a diplomatic crisis after Le Monde newspaper quoted him on 2 October suggesting that Algeria as a nation had not existed before French colonisation. Describing the comment as a "serious mistake" and "unacceptable", Algeria recalled its ambassador to France and banned French military flights from its airspace.
The French presidency's statement also said that Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had been invited to a Paris conference to help discuss how to support Libya ahead of its 24 November election. On Saturday, Tebboune warned he would not "make the first step" to ease tension with his French counterpart over his comment, which sparked widespread anger in Algeria. Social media users in Egypt are furious at TV host Amr Adeeb after he said he had filed a lawsuit against El Ahly football club for congratulating their former star Mohamed Aboutrika for his 43rd birthday.
Al Ahly has not yet commented. Aboutrika is seen as one of the best African football players of all time, however, he has also been associated with the country's now-banned Muslim Brotherhood. He played for El Ahly and represented Egypt's national team for years before retiring to become a football pundit in Qatar. Following the coup led by then-defence minister Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, the government put Aboutrika on a terrorist list for allegedly financially supporting the Brotherhood.
Aboutrika has previously strenuously denied the allegations. The Fifa website has also published a congratulations message to Aboutrika, who enjoys a huge popularity in Egypt and the Arab world.
Egyptian actor Ahmed Khalil has died at the age of 80 after contracting Covid while shooting one of his shows.
Khalil has been eulogised as a great actor and a big name in the country's arts industry. Colleagues in the film industry have been tweeting their condolences. Actor Nabil al-Halfawi tweeted that Khalil was a great team player and brought an "artistic presence in every character he performed". Actress Youssra eulogised him as a great man and condoled his family. Khalil's name is trending on Twitter in Egypt. He is to be buried on Tuesday after noon prayers.
Smugglers tell the BBC the number of Afghans leaving has more than doubled since the Taliban takeover. Human rights activists say the trial of Intisar al-Hammadi by Houthi authorities was unfair. Mustafa al-Kadhimi says he knows who was behind Sunday's drone attack on his Baghdad home. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband is on the 16th day of a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office.
Mustafa al-Kadhimi says he was not hurt in the attack by a drone carrying explosives in Baghdad. Email us at haveyoursay bbc. Follow Have Your Say on Twitter. Why you can trust BBC News. UK urges Iran to back plan to revive nuclear deal Iran wants to see economic sanctions lifted, but the West wants Iran to first reduce uranium stocks.
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