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Culture wars bubble under Arab surfaces

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  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . Religious conservatives and nationalists in the Muslim world and beyond have the wind in their sails. So do Arab autocrats, even if they increasingly cloak themselves in nationalism rather than religious conservatism. Last week’s first election round in Turkey saw conservatives and ultra-nationalists win control of parliament . At the same time, Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears set to win a third presidential term in this Sunday’s run-off against opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Irrespective of whether he is reelected, Mr. Erdogan’s conservative religious and nationalist coalition will enjoy a 322-seat majority in the 600-member Turkish parliament. To even stand a chance of defeating Mr. Erdogan in the May 28 presidential run-off, Mr. Kilicdaroglu has hardened his anti-migrant and anti-Kurdish rhetor
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Are Muslim religious conservatism and political Islam making a comeback?

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  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . Little did Elianu Hia know that a video he posted on Facebook in early 2021 would shape Indonesian policy and turn his life upside down. A Christian in a Muslim-majority nation, Mr. Hia objected to vocational school authorities in the West Sumatran city of Padang, obliging his daughter to wear a hijab. In a secretly taped video, his daughter's teacher insisted that wearing a hijab was mandatory. The teacher demanded that Mr. Hia put his daughter's refusal in writing, which would have been a first step to expelling her. The video went viral. In response, Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas and his home affairs and education counterparts threatened to sanction state schools seeking to impose religious garb in violation of government rules and regulations. “Religions do n
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Sudan tests the limits of Middle Eastern de-escalation.

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By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . With Saudi-hosted talks to end Sudan fighting producing minimal results and Arab states supporting rival forces, de-escalation in the Middle East faces a major test. So does Gulf states' ability to employ dollar diplomacy to persuade poorer Arab brethren to align with the policies of countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In Sudan, the stakes are high. Gulf states fear four weeks of fighting between the Sudanese army headed by Army General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the dissident Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a.k.a. Hemedti could spark a broader war in the Red Sea that threatens their maritime and strategic interests. The most US and Saudi mediators were able to achieve in days of talks in the port city of Jeddah between the army and the RSF was “a d
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Middle Eastern rivalries are alive and kicking despite de-escalation

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By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . Middle Eastern battlegrounds are alive and kicking even though rivals seek to balance contentious relations. Take efforts by the United Arab Emirates, and more recently Saudi Arabia, to bring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in from the cold in a bid to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran and address numerous fallouts from the more than decade-long brutal war he waged to keep himself in power. Sanctioned by the United States and Europe, Mr. Al-Assad was also a pariah in the Arab world after the 22-member Arab League suspended Syrian membership in response to his conduct in the war. A meeting of the League’s foreign ministers decided on Sunday to readmit Syria . With sanctions and international isolation failing to topple Mr. Al-Assad or moderate his policies, the UAE and Saudi Arabia hope engagement
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Is Central Asia and the Caucasus the Indo-Pacific’s next stop?

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  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . America to the rescue. In a twist of irony, that may be Central Asia's only alternative, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine upsetting the region's security apple cart. The question is whether the United States, already rejiggering its commitment to security in the Middle East, has the will and wherewithal to engage. Depending on one’s analysis of the Middle East’s strategic importance, the glass is either half full or half empty. With the US wanting to focus on the Indo-Pacific, it has reduced interest in the Middle East. Yet, there is no cohesive Indo-Pacific strategy that fails to include the Arabian Sea, the Western mouth of the Indo-Pacific. A similar argument could be made for Central Asia, a potential land-based counterpart to the maritime Indo-Pacific in Russia’s soft underbelly and
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