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Tuesday, March 3, 2026
[Salon] Lebanon at risk - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Lebanon at risk
Summary: with the attack by Hezbollah and Israel’s response the Iran war is pulling Lebanon into its vortex at a point when the country was beginning to show recovery from an economic crisis that had lasted for over five years.
As the war continues into day four the widening escalation threatens every country in the region but none more so than Lebanon. Late Sunday night Hezbollah launched a rocket and drone attack towards a military base south of Haifa in northern Israel in response to the killing of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The IDF said the weaponry fell short of its intended target and responded with an immediate reprisal attack.
31 people were killed and nearly 150 injured in air strikes on a southern suburb of Beirut and in the south of Lebanon. The Israeli defence minister Israel Katz declared that the Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem was “a marked target for assassination.” Katz added with the sort of hyperbolic language that is now the norm “anyone who follows Khamenei’s path will soon find himself in the depths of hell with all the thwarted members of the axis of evil.”
Hezbollah though seriously degraded both militarily and politically remains a powerful player in Lebanon’s fractured world of sectarian politics. Still the Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam denounced the Hezbollah action as “irresponsible” and one that “jeopardises Lebanon’s security and safety and provides Israel with pretexts to continue its aggression.” President Joseph Aoun while condemning the Israeli strikes decried what Hezbollah had done. In a statement he said “Using Lebanese territory as a platform for military operations unrelated to Lebanon will not be allowed to happen again.”
It may be that it will be Hezbollah and not the government that will decide to stand down from any further strikes bearing in mind that much of their weapons stocks have been destroyed by the Israelis. Iran even if it were able to supply more is in no position to do so. However the fragility of the Lebanese government is underscored by Monday’s events.
The Iran war comes at a point where the economy was showing modest signs of recovery from what has been described as one of the most severe economic crises globally since the nineteenth century. A crisis that began in 2019 and condemned the Lebanese to rampant inflation, runaway unemployment and the degradation of infrastructure and state services was on 22 January this year described by the World Bank as being at “the start of a modest recovery following years of severe contraction.”
The World Bank stated:
Looking ahead, Lebanon’s economic momentum is forecast to continue, with real GDP growth projected at 4% in 2026 provided reform efforts persist, modest reconstruction inflows materialize, and political stability is maintained. Remittances and tourism will remain critical growth drivers, but risks including delay on critical reforms and regional instability—threaten the fragile recovery.
People in Beirut have been fleeing their homes after Israel began striking what it says are Hezbollah targets in the city, in response to an attack by the Iran-backed group
The World Bank’s section on “Outlook and Risks” makes no mention of the threat of a war on Iran launched by Israel and the US something that many observers had been saying over many months was a question of not if but when. President Trump had for several months been mixing threats with cajolery but as protests against economic conditions in Iran were escalating so too was his rhetoric. The war when it came came as no surprise.
What is quite extraordinary is the fact that Lebanon had achieved any level of economic and political stability at all. Following the killing of Hassan Nasrallah and many other senior Hezbollah officials by the Israelis a ceasefire had been in place since November 2024. As documented by the UN Israel in one year had violated the ceasefire 10,000 times. The war Israel has conducted in the midst of the “ceasefire” has emptied out communities in southern Lebanon leaving hundreds of thousands in need of government assistance putting further strain on already well overstretched resources. After Israel’s latest attacks thousands more are fleeing Beirut’s southern suburbs and the capital itself.
Responding to the crisis engulfing the country Prime Minister Salam issued a statement that said in part: “we announce a ban on Hezbollah’s military activities and restrict its role to the political sphere.” That may not be enough for the IDF who for the more than two years since the ceasefire was announced have coupled ground and air strikes with forced evacuations of southern communities, a tactic that is now being applied to the suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah still holds sway.
With the Iran war having already smashed through so many red lines it will be a challenge for the government to enforce a ban and keep Hezbollah in check. But clearly it is something that must somehow be achieved in order that the fragile rebound of Lebanon’s economy is not snuffed out.
[Salon] Trump and the trampling of international law - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Trump and the trampling of international law
Summary: in violation of international law the US and Israel have launched a devastating air war on Iran and the consequences are being felt across the region and the world.
When in the early hours of Saturday the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran none of their allies in the region or beyond had been given the courtesy of advanced warning. Indeed the Omani foreign minister had arrived in Washington on Friday 27 February bearing news that he believed a deal with Iran was close to being achieved.
On Tuesday evening last week Trump in his State of the Union address had said he was waiting for Iran to say “those secret words ‘we will never have a nuclear weapon’”, curious given what followed a little more than 72 hours later. Though the Israelis and the Americans accused Iran of playing for time while having no intention to follow through on a deal it was the case, as ever with Trump, that the opposite was the truth. The US had no intention of doing a deal and it was Trump’s ploy to play for time.
Trump emboldened by his Venezuela adventure and urged on by Benjamin Netanyahu was convinced that this was as Jeremy Bowen put it “an opportunity not to be missed.” The assassination of the Supreme Leader together with members of his household as well as reportedly the head of the IRGC and a top security official in the first hours of the war was a significant achievement. Israel also claims to have killed 40 senior military leaders and heavily degraded Iran’s missile launch and defence systems.
However the question that cooler heads are asking is a simple one. What happens next? Trump seems to think that with Ayatollah Khamenei out of the way regime change is just a matter of the Iranian people coming into the streets. Somehow the deeply entrenched structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its IRGC and its military will melt away. And though tens of millions of Iranians detest the regime, there are still many millions who support it. Couple that with the fact that any country under attack will see its people coalesce against the attackers and it is clear that Trump’s facile assumption is an exercise in ignorance.
A satellite image shows black smoke rising and heavy damage at the compound of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [photo credit: Airbus]
Emily Thornberry the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee got it right speaking to the BBC on Sunday morning:
The Americans and the Israelis have gone into this without a plan as to what is going to happen next. We know the regime is very deeply rooted and it is not a question of the one man in charge, get rid of him and everything will change….The concern is that in the next few days, weeks and months the country might descend into chaos.
The other equally crucial point she makes is that this latest war against Iran has been launched without any legal justification or even an attempt at such:
I think to see international law undermined in this way is a matter that should concern us all because without some form of structure, without some form of agreed laws under which we all operate it becomes the law of the jungle…. This is not a matter of self-defence and there is no legal justification.
Trump in his “war of choice” ignored not just international law but his own Congress. That will cause him no small amount of grief from the Democrats and even a Republican or two. His MAGA base is also showing some fracturing which will widen if the war continues over several weeks or months. After all in his two successful presidential campaigns he committed to ending America’s “never ending wars” in countries his supporters know little about and care even less for.
And it is not just the Iranians who are paying a price. Ayatollah Khamenei had warned on 1 February that if Iran was attacked a regional war would follow. That is exactly what is transpiring with numerous US allies in the Middle East coming under assault from Iran. The Iranians say their targets are Israel and US military facilities in the Gulf. However civilians are bearing the brunt of missile and drone attacks in Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Kuwait. Even Oman, the key player in negotiations, has been hit with a drone attack on the port facility of Duqm. Iraq and Jordan have also been attacked by Iran. In Israel at least nine have been killed and more than 2 dozen wounded. In Iran the civilian toll is well over 200 with at least four times that number wounded.
As a Saudi commentator put it a few hours after the war commenced: “this is the nightmare scenario; diplomacy has been abandoned and (we) are on the frontline of a war involving three other nations.” At the time of writing the death toll of civilians in the Gulf had risen to four with dozens more injured. The commercial impact is already being felt with air spaces closed and flights disrupted and cancelled. Maritime routes and most particularly the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of the world’s oil transits are under threat. Should the Iranians retain the ability to block the Strait the implications for the global economy may be profound with predictions that the price of oil could skyrocket.
For now however we remain in the realm of speculation, a dangerous and uncertain place to be. Trump wants a quick result. It is not at all clear that he will get it. Netanyahu wants to destroy the threat of an armed and hostile Iran but bear in mind that after more than three years of intense fighting and the IDF holding an enormous weapons and tactical advantage Hamas remains undefeated. Iran, or rather its theocratic regime, wants to survive. In the medium to long term it may not. For now it could well do so but if and when the regime falls chaos - with all the consequences that holds for the region and the world - is the more likely and most disturbing outcome.
Monday, March 2, 2026
Sunday, March 1, 2026
Saturday, February 28, 2026
Friday, February 27, 2026
[Salon] The growing Saudi-Emirati rift - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
The growing Saudi-Emirati rift
Summary: Riyadh and Abu Dhabi may not yet be at daggers drawn but tensions between the two are increasing as the UAE flexes its muscles in Africa and together with Israel challenges Saudi Arabia’s stake in the Red Sea.
We thank a regional contributor for today’s newsletter.
Amid the crowded field of conflicts across the Middle East, the growing divergence between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has drawn comparatively little attention. While it has not turned violent, this strategic drift between two cash-rich Gulf monarchies could carry far-reaching consequences from Yemen to the Horn of Africa to the Red Sea. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) has increasingly sought to bolster regional governments and prioritise stability, while Abu Dhabi, under UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ), has continued to take risks, cultivating local partners to maximise access to resources and influence. At stake is not merely tactical disagreement but rather two competing modes of regional power projection.
The fault line first became visible in Yemen. Both countries entered the war in 2015 with the stated aim of restoring the internationally recognised government and rolling back Huthi gains, which were seen as a dangerous extension of Iranian influence in the Arabian Peninsula. But as the war dragged on, Saudi Arabia, bearing the brunt, shifted toward deescalation and a frozen conflict aimed at securing its border and extracting itself from a costly war. Conversely, the UAE developed relationships with southern separatists, embedding itself in port infrastructure and maritime networks along Yemen’s coast and in the strategically important islands of Socotra in order to project power into eastern Africa.
In late December, this fracture turned into an earthquake. Saudi Arabia reportedly struck a weapons shipment linked to UAE-backed factions amid accusations that the UAE was empowering southern separatists to seize territory, thus threatening Saudi security. The UAE was compelled to withdraw its remaining forces from Yemen.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are increasingly at odds as they pursue competing strategies for regional power, with Riyadh prioritising economic stability and de-escalation while Abu Dhabi utilises subnational actors to expand its maritime and commercial influence
For MbS, the logic is economic. Several giga project timelines have been delayed or scaled back as with low oil prices his Vision 2030 faces fiscal and implementation constraints. Regional stability is required to attract investment and tourism. The crown prince has sought to deescalate tensions with Iran, enhance relations with Türkiye and focus on economic growth. His decision to push the Emiratis out of Yemen, and since work to neutralise their influence across the region, is recognition that MbZ’s expansionist foreign policy seriously disrupts those efforts.
The UAE has taken a different path. Its foreign policy relies on cultivating networks of subnational actors and establishing and developing commercial footholds. From southern Yemen to Somaliland and Sudan, Abu Dhabi has demonstrated a willingness to gamble in pursuit of access to trade and political leverage. This approach has expanded Emirati influence but it has also generated instability and insecurity.
Nowhere is this seen more than in Sudan, where a conflict in its third year has led to famine and the world's largest displacement crisis. Multiple investigations and UN findings have alleged that the UAE has armed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in its fight against the Sudanese Armed Forces. UN reporting came out last week that has linked the RSF to mass atrocities, including “hallmarks of genocide” in Darfur. Prolonged chaos in Sudan is bad for business in the eyes of Riyadh, seeing instability along the Red Sea corridor as threatening plans for trade and coastal tourism and port developments. In November, on a trip to the United States, to the chagrin of the Emiratis MbS requested that President Trump intervene in the ongoing war in Sudan.
Another diplomatic row came in late December when Israel became the first UN member state to recognise the independence of Somaliland, a breakaway region from Somalia, in return for joining the Abraham Accords. Earlier this week Israel formally welcomed the appointment of Mohamed Haji as Somaliland’s ambassador causing further unease in Riyadh.This controversy connects to Emirati port investments and their close security relationship with Israel, along with their multilayered relationships with both Somalia’s federal government and its semi-autonomous regions. Convinced that the Emiratis had helped facilitate Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, Mogadishu moved to end its long-standing partnership with the UAE, announcing the cancellation of all port management and security cooperation agreements. As far as Riyadh is concerned, the episode reinforced concerns that Emirati activism could further destabilise already fragile states and create new flashpoints. This concern is intertwined with the potential of an Emirati-Israeli foothold near Bab el-Mandeb, a strategic chokehold between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.
Amid these regional dynamics, Saudi Arabia has partnered closer ties with Türkiye, Egypt and other countries to try to counterbalance the UAE’s assertiveness. Riyadh has deepened defence coordination with Pakistan and Türkiye. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan each visited Ethiopia this month to persuade the government not to recognise Somaliland. The visits came amid reports alleging Emirati financing of an RSF-linked facility in Ethiopia, the first direct evidence of Addis Ababa’s involvement in Sudan’s ever expanding war.
As a new Middle East takes shape, one now marked by growing Saudi-Emirati competition, Washington has so far avoided direct mediation. President Trump appears more interested on deciding whether to start yet another war with Iran which will only further exacerbate the situation. He appears reluctant to engage in the intra-Gulf dispute, choosing to prioritise economic ties with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi as he seeks to secure investments into the American economy as well as into his own family businesses. Yet Trump’s fence-sitting carries serious risks.
In the past two months the competition between MbS and MbZ - two assertive cash-flush royals each with ambitions to secure regional hegemony - has become increasingly bitter. If left unmanaged, these tensions will only grow and further exacerbate proxy dynamics in Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and other fragile states, with the potential to disrupt and reshape the political landscape of the Red Sea and beyond.
Thursday, February 26, 2026
[Salon] The military tightens its grip on Egypt’s economy - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
The military tightens its grip on Egypt’s economy
Summary: from statistics to bread to electricity and the Cairo Stadium President Sisi continues down the path of strengthening the generals’ hold on the economy whilst sharply escalating fines for avoiding mandatory conscription unless you happen to have US$5000.
We thank Hossam el-Hamalawy for today’s newsletter, an edited version of his 3Arabawy Egypt Security Sector Report. Hossam is a journalist and scholar-activist, currently based in Germany. He was involved in the Egyptian labour movement and was one of the organisers of the 2011 revolution. Follow his writings on Substack and X.
The military grip on statistics
Last week’s appointment of Maj. Gen. Akram al-Gohary, as acting head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), once again highlights how one of the state’s most politically sensitive civilian institutions remains firmly under military management.
Founded in 1964, all CAPMAS directors have been army generals. The agency is not a neutral technical body. It produces inflation figures, labour statistics, census data, trade numbers and poverty indicators—the metrics shaping economic policy, IMF negotiations and public narratives. Control over CAPMAS, therefore, means control over how social and economic reality is officially measured. For instance, the agency simply stopped publishing its annual report on poverty rates in 2020 since the numbers contradicted the constructed reality of the regime’s propaganda.
Gohary’s career reflects this logic. A 1991 Military Technical College graduate, before moving into CAPMAS leadership, he served as director of the Armed Forces’ Administration of Information Systems which, since 2021, fell under the umbrella of the upgraded Military Intelligence Authority structure. His predecessor, Maj. Gen. Khairat Barakat was a career infantry officer who previously headed the Armed Forces’ Administration of Officers Affairs and the Administration of Military Records.
Equally telling is President Sisi’s reliance on “acting” appointments. Gohary was named for a one-year renewable term under a presidential decree published in the Official Gazette. Barakat himself was first appointed on 14 February 2018 and remained in place through seven consecutive annual renewals, a mechanism that keeps institutional heads permanently dependent on presidential favour.
Air Force in Charge of Bread Now
Bread subsidy costs surged despite falling global wheat prices after the state handed control of imports to the Air Force-run Future of Egypt Project for Sustainable Development, dismantling a decades-old civilian procurement system based on open tenders, reports Saheeh Masr.
Under a November 2024 presidential directive, wheat purchasing shifted from competitive international auctions to direct contracts and intermediary deals. Within a year, bread subsidies jumped by more than LE26 billion (approx. US$540 million) in the 2025/2026 budget, even as global wheat prices fell by nearly 13.6 percent.
Critics say the military body has been paying around US$30 per ton above world averages. Official figures show it sold wheat to the state for between US$225 and US$275 per ton, while global prices dropped to about US$177 by late 2025. Between March and December 2025, the agency imported roughly 3.5 million tons of wheat.
Meanwhile, the regime has paired coordinated digital propaganda with on-the-ground political theatre to defend the agency from criticism. Networks of inauthentic accounts on X pushed synchronised hashtags praising the agency as Egypt’s “food basket,” a pattern consistent with managed influence operations rather than organic debate.
Simultaneously the military organised tightly choreographed field tours for parliamentarians and regime-linked media figures showcasing curated “success stories.” Addressing his guests Air Force Col. Bahaa el-Ghannam, the Future of Egypt’s director, said that the agency is prepared to float its subsidiaries on the Egyptian Exchange, pursuing initial public offerings (IPOs), once they meet listing requirements.
Established in 2022 under the Egyptian Air Force, the utterly untransparent Future of Egypt Authority for Sustainable Development (Mustaqbal Misr) is the new centerpiece of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s national development strategy and has rapidly evolved from a land reclamation project into a massive conglomerate with a diverse business portfolio
Youth and Sports Ministry Hands Cairo Stadium Project to Army Engineers
In his very first move as Minister of Youth and Sports, the new appointee, Gohar Nabil, is already pressing ahead with Sisi’s favourite playbook: monetising public assets under military supervision.
The ministry has announced a massive “investment project” at Cairo Stadium featuring a commercial mall and parking complex built inside the historic sports facility. The project will be managed by a private company but overseen by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority with promised total inflows over 25 years of more than LE25 billion according to the cabinet’s statement.
Powering the Generals: SE and Egypt’s Military Business Empire
Schneider Electric (SE) began operating in Egypt in 1987, later investing roughly €300 million over 35 years and building major assets, including its Badr factory, a distribution centre in 10th of Ramadan City, and engineering hubs. Before the military’s economic expansion after 2013 SE was already embedded in strategic state infrastructure.
In 2016, the company announced it would build four control centres for Egypt’s national energy grid, a core sovereign system. It later participated in digitising electricity distribution infrastructure, including the South Sinai Control Center in Sharm el-Sheikh inaugurated under the Ministry of Electricity.
These grid and control systems fall within sectors that, after 2013, increasingly came under the oversight of military and security institutions.
The first clearly documented institutional partnership with Egypt’s military economic apparatus appears in September 2015, when SE signed cooperation protocols with factories under the Ministry of Military Production. In 2016, cooperation extended to the Arab Organization for Industrialization to localise renewable energy manufacturing.
By the early 2020s, SE’s systems were integrated into mega project infrastructure, including the New Delta wastewater treatment plant administered by the Air Force.
In 2022, the company supplied electrical equipment and automation systems for the El Hammam wastewater treatment plant within the New Delta agricultural expansion—which falls under the control of the Air Force-run Future of Egypt Project—and was officially carried out by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority. The same year, Schneider provided technology for desalination facilities in the El Galala development zone, a project also supervised by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority.
SE, moreover, embedded itself inside Sisi’s New Administrative Capital. It delivered smart-building systems for major commercial developments such as PARAGON and infrastructure for Knowledge City.
Recently, SE joined a strategic partnership for the IL Monte Galala Towers and Marina, a LE50 billion prime real estate development overseen by the military. The industrial partnership deepened further last week when SE signed a protocol to assemble data-centre units inside factories of the Arab Organization for Industrialization, one of the main pillars of the military-economic complex
Conscription Is Mandatory Except for Those Who Can Pay
Parliament last week approved sweeping amendments to the Military and National Service Law, sharply escalating penalties for draft evasion and skipping reserve duty. Under the new rules, those who evade compulsory service after the age of 30 now face prison and fines ranging from LE20,000 to LE100,000, up from the previous LE3,000 to LE10,000. Reservists who fail to report when summoned risk jail time and fines between LE10,000 and LE20,000, replacing the earlier LE1,000 to LE3,000 range.
Lawmakers presented the measures as a defence of national duty and respect for military sacrifice. Curiously, this renewed love for patriotic obligation follows several government initiatives inviting Egyptians abroad to settle their conscription status with a convenient bank transfer of 5,000 US dollars or euros. Service to the nation remains sacred unless you can wire hard currency fast enough.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the First Sunday in Lent - Guest Post
In 1976, author Doug Alderson wrote a remarkable article for Campus Life Magazine, describing a 2,000-mile hike he made along the Appalachian Trail. Stretching from Georgia to Maine, the trail passes through New York – and even through the grounds here at Graymoor.
Doug set out on his journey just after graduating from high school, carrying more than a backpack. He was burdened with unanswered questions: Was there a God? Did life have a purpose? And what was his place in it all?
In the article, he wrote, “There had to be more to life than money, TV, parties and getting high.” His hike became more than a physical challenge; it was a search for inner peace – a journey to discover who he truly was.
The journey proved far more difficult than he had imagined. The trail often became steep and dangerous. Rain fell day after day. His clothes were constantly soaked, his feet blistered and wet, and at night his body ached and shivered from the cold. Yet, despite the hardship, Doug pressed on.
Those long hours alone on the trail gave him time not only to think, but to grow. With no one around to influence him, he came to know himself more deeply.
Five months later, Doug returned home, a changed person. He joked that even his dog looked at him strangely – as if to say, “Where have you been? You look different.”
He was different. Doug had found what he was searching for. He discovered that God exists, that life has meaning and that he himself had a purpose. Reflecting on his experience, he wrote, “I was my own person. I liked what I saw in myself.”
Doug Alderson stands in a long tradition of people who stepped away from the noise of life to reflect on its meaning. Moses did it. The Old Testament Prophets did it. John the Baptist did it. And in today’s Gospel, Jesus does it as well.
In the wilderness, during 40 days of solitude, Jesus encounters three great temptations. We might think of this moment as a preview of the Gospel – revealing just enough to help us understand who Jesus is and what He came to do.
The temptation story first reveals Jesus’ humanity. He faces the same inner struggle we all face: the battle between good and evil. Yet there is something strikingly different about His response. Jesus never even considers giving in to Satan’s false promises. Not once.
In fact, the devil himself acknowledges that Jesus is no ordinary man when he says, “If you are the Son of God.”
At the same time, this scripture passage reveals Jesus’ mission. It points us back to the first reading, when Adam and Eve are tempted by the devil and give in. From that moment on, humanity became enslaved to sin.
But Jesus comes to undo that damage. Where Adam and Eve failed, Jesus remains faithful. He comes to free us from slavery and to restore what was lost.
As we begin the season of Lent, this Gospel is especially fitting. It reminds us that Jesus has already won the battle. At the end of these 40 days, we will celebrate His victory over sin and death.
And if we unite ourselves with Christ – through prayer, fasting and trust in God – that victory becomes ours as well.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Monday, February 23, 2026
Sunday, February 22, 2026
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