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Monday, July 27, 2026
[Salon] Algeria Loses its Way - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Algeria Loses its Way
Summary: a record low turnout in Algeria’s recent election is a reflection of how the North African state has failed its citizens while benefitting a select elite through a crony capitalist system and a stagnant status quo backed by the military.
We thank Francis Ghilès for today’s newsletter. Francis is a senior associate research fellow at CIDOB and a visiting fellow at King’s College, London. You can find his latest Arab Digest podcast Algeria, Libya and Europe’s urgent energy needs here.
Most of the polling stations in the major cities of Algeria were deserted during the general elections on 2 July 2026. As he announced the results the following day, the interim president of ANIE (Autorite Nationale Independente des Elections), Karim Khelfane congratulated himself on the “fairness and transparency” of the vote. Repeated entreaties by President Abdelmajid Tebboune had failed to convince 24m electors to “massively” cast their ballots. As 78% of those entitled to vote refused to do so, Khelfane added insult to injury, by pointing out that elections in Western democracies were also characterised by abstentions.
In 2019 the army, which has held effective power in the country since independence in 1962, had opted for repression after months of peaceful protests. The movement known as the Hirak seven years ago brought millions of Algerians into the streets and forced the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. With Bouteflika gone, army chiefs refused to listen to the millions who week after week shouted “El Djazair jumhuriya, mashi mamlaka” (Algeria is a republic, not a monarchy). Coming after a brutal civil war in the 1990s and twenty years of the immensely corrupt Bouteflika presidency, Algerians hoped against hope that their leaders would treat them as citizens rather than subjects. By refusing to do so, the Algerian army has destroyed the historic legitimacy it once enjoyed thanks to its fight against the French coloniser.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune casts his ballot amid a record 78% voter abstention, highlighting deep public disillusionment with Algeria’s military-backed ruling elite.
Crony capitalism rules
The low voter turnout is a measure of how the reign of crony capitalism has robbed elections of any legitimacy. Algeria may comfortably live off its oil and gas exports and enjoy a GDP growth rate of 3.5%. But it has become a caricature of its former self as a leader of Third World emancipation and the fight against Western capitalism. The legendary Pan-African Festival of 1969 in Algiers with its passionate debates about the moral and political stakes involved in the creation of a postcolonial culture belong to prehistory (see Analogue Africa: Notes on the Anti-colonial Imagination, Jeremy Harding, Verso 2026). The dead hand of censorship and fear has fallen on a once vibrant capital city.
Crony capitalism today characterises a country which has lost its way economically and diplomatically. According to one Algerian friend “the lacklustre performance of Algeria’s team at the football World Cup symbolises the drift of a country whose leaders have battened down the hatches, and live in constant fear of alleged foreign plots”. Unlike Moroccan and Chinese leaders, those who run Algeria are scared of their diaspora who are well-educated and well-travelled people, keen to experiment with new ideas, build on new technologies and join in the wider world of economic and cultural exchange. Meanwhile private Algerian businessmen close to the president and senior military officers offer perfect examples of crony capitalism.
The huge investment in Saharan agriculture sums up the folly of it all. The state owned Algerian National Fund for Investment (FNI) and private Italian companies have jointly invested in producing durum wheat in the desert of southern Algeria pumping non-renewable water from deep underground aquifers. The wheat is exported to Italy.
The FNI and a private Qatari company are investing US$500m to produce milk near the desert town of Adrar: in such temperatures, according to a leading Algerian expert, each cow requires 800 litres of water a day. The milk produced is transported 600 kilometres to the north to be conditioned and sold. Such absurd policies are strongly supported by Yacine Oualid, an IT specialist appointed Minister of Agriculture in 2025 who proclaims that to “digitalise agriculture” is a priority. The slogan makes many Algerians shake their heads in sheer disbelief.
Lost opportunities
The unwillingness of Algeria and Morocco to cooperate and build a chemical Maghreb explains why Algeria which boasts gas, sulphur and ammonia has failed to build a powerful fertiliser industry, one of the industrial success stories of the Gulf States. Morocco today is the world’s largest exporter of phosphate based-fertilisers and instead of using gas and sulphur from neighbouring Algeria and jointly producing ammonia with it, the kingdom is importing these feedstocks from far afield, including the Gulf. The missed opportunity to create a “powerful chemical Maghreb” has in the words of Amar Drissi, a former executive director of the Office Cherifien des Phosphates (OCP) - Morocco’s state phosphate company - deprived North Africa but particularly Algeria of a major source of jobs, fertiliser production and influence on food production worldwide.
Chemical industries had started moving from Northern Europe to the Southern Hemisphere twenty years earlier. As a result Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia had already built a powerful petrochemical base to take advantage of the “major shift in demand, supply, competitiveness and long term margins that will further reshape the whole industry” Drissi notes. Since 2010, OCP has prospered by positioning itself in the international value chain of fertilisers. It has morphed from a “sleeping beauty” to a nimble international player. However Algeria refuses to insert itself in the global value chain for fear of becoming a “vassal state” in the words of one Algerian economist.
The mining sector offers another illustration of crony capitalism. Foreign investors, essentially from Türkiye and China invest in the extraction of Algeria’s vast wealth in minerals - phosphates, copper, iron ore etc. Minerals are exported to the aforementioned countries without any attempt to add value in Algeria. The contrast with neighbouring Morocco ‘s policy of internationalising its economy has never been greater.
Algerian foreign policy loses its way
Algerian diplomacy was once renowned for its savviness and capacity to intermediate on crises in the Middle East and Iran. Helping release the US diplomats held hostage in Tehran in 1981 was a triumph. No longer. During the war in Gaza and following the US-Israeli attack on Iran, Algeria’s voice has not been heard. Relations remain tense with Morocco but what is new is that relations with Russia, Algeria’s major arms provider, have become tense following the intervention of the paramilitary Russian Africa Corps in Mali and other Sahel countries. Algeria was quick to denounce the intervention of French troops in Mali in 2013 but, in public at least, no criticism of Vladimir Putin is allowed even though events in the Sahel pose a significant threat to Algeria’s security.
Algeria accuses the West of hypocrisy where human rights are concerned in particular on Palestine but remains silent on Putin’s Ukraine war and the presence of the Africa Corps in the Sahel countries.
Meanwhile, young Algerians vote with their feet. A young academic who lives in Bejaia, due east of Algiers remarked that the only people left in the Berber villages in the Kabylia mountains behind this historic port were “old people and thieves”. As for the official fury at President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to shift France’s position on the vexed question of Western Sahara two years ago (which led to a bitter crisis between the two countries), he remarked that “the vast majority of Algerians had never been interested in the question, assuming they even knew where the place was on the map.”
Relations with the US remain good despite Donald Trump’s recognition of the “Marocanité” of Western Sahara. One example: the EU recently bowed to pressure from US and Qatar insistence that Brussels should significantly weaken the enforcement of its flagship methane regulation. The US-Qatari letter to the EU was co-signed by Algeria and Nigeria. The EU’s reversal runs counter to advice from the International Energy Agency which has warned that methane escaping during fossil fuel production - the key issue the EU regulation seeks to tackle – wastes more gas than flows through the Strait of Hormuz (natural gas is predominantly methane). Algeria is making a serious efforts to reduce its own flaring fully appraised of the economic benefits of doing so. Backing the US and Qatar would seem to work against that effort.
Conclusion
In a context of diplomatic decline and economic follies, the details of which political parties won the most seats is pure shadow boxing. President Tebboune has secured a majority in a parliament which is no more than a rubber stamp. He might ask it to approve a change in the constitution so that he can “legally” stand for a third term. The vast majority of Algerians do not care because, since 2019 and the crushing of the Hirak, they consider their rulers with their caricature of democracy to be neither competent nor legitimate. Hence the abysmally low voter turnout of 2 July.
Sunday, July 26, 2026
Saturday, July 25, 2026
Friday, July 24, 2026
[Salon] A deal too far? - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
A deal too far?
Summary: the announcement of a nuclear deal between the US and Saudi Arabia has raised concerns about an arms race in a region riven with war but Donald Trump’s demand that the Saudis join the Abraham Accords has thrown into question whether the deal can go ahead.
Wednesday’s announcement that the US and Saudi Arabia have signed a nuclear cooperation deal has raised concerns that it could trigger a nuclear arms race in the Gulf. As ever with Donald Trump’s deals detail is in short supply. The US Department of State released a statement noting that the agreement will:
Expand American nuclear technology exports
Create high-paying U.S. jobs and long-term economic growth
Strengthen America's energy and national security posture
Reinforce global nonproliferation standards
Deepen the strategic partnership between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
It is worth noting that the reference to non proliferation comes fourth in a list that sets out the benefits that are intended to accrue to the US. Non proliferation is dealt with under the US Atomic Energy Act Section 123 which details the curbs that any country that enters an agreement on nuclear matters with the US must abide by as set out in nine non proliferation criteria. The 123 though it stops countries from enriching or reprocessing material acquired from the US does not prevent those countries from enrichment of nuclear material acquired elsewhere.
What Trump’s deal ignored was the so-called ‘Gold Standard’ which was part of the deal that the US signed with the United Arab Emirates in 2009. It saw the UAE voluntarily renouncing the pursuit of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technologies and capabilities. Additionally and equally important the UAE agreed to ratify the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Model Additional Protocol which among other things significantly strengthens the IAEA’s inspection powers. The protocol was included in the 2015 Barack Obama negotiated JCPOA with Iran that Trump walked away from in 2018.
Trump’s deal represents a break from precedent. As noted by the Arms Control Association: “The United States has not in recent years negotiated a 123 agreement with a state that had not signed an additional protocol.”
Trump’s demand that Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords in exchange for nuclear tech puts MbS in a tight spot over Riyadh's stance on Palestine.
After the deal was signed Trump announced via his Truth Social platform that the agreement would only go ahead if Saudi Arabia agreed to join the Abraham Accords:
The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.
Setting aside that the president seems to have forgotten that he killed the JCPOA and that he is apparently ignorant of the Gold Standard that the UAE agreed to, the claim that this deal is no different from the ones the US made with Iran and the UAE is demonstrably false.
And what of the Saudis who have stipulated that they will not even consider joining the Abraham Accords unless and until there is a fair resolution to the issue of Palestine? Trump’s transactional bullying may have worked in the US real estate market (though there is much evidence to suggest it did not) but on the world stage and with a volatile region that he has made ever more dangerous and violent such tactics are only likely to further exacerbate tensions.
Already as we have noted in recent podcasts the Gulf states and other Arab countries are casting about for allies more reliable and less likely to plunge the region into all out war than Donald Trump’s America.
And one wonders how the UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed is feeling after Wednesday’s announcement. Relations between him and Saudi Arabia’s Mohamed bin Salman have been tense on a number of fronts as they jockey for regional ascendancy. There will be unease in Abu Dhabi that the Saudis appear to have gotten a deal with far less restraints placed upon it than the one the UAE signed in 2009. The Emiratis may push to have the same deal as the Saudis thus increasing the risk of proliferation and that from a state with an assertive and aggressive foreign policy and the moniker of 'Little Sparta.'
Equally though the Saudi crown prince will be affronted by Trump’s near instant decision to use the nuclear deal to force him into joining the Abraham Accords. He has, after all, been very publicly put in the most awkward of situations. To join the accords to acquire the nuclear deal means abandoning the Palestinians. Arabs and Muslims everywhere would see such a step as a betrayal from MbS who strives to project himself as the leader of both camps.
Given the demand he has put on the crown prince whether the deal sees the light of day remains something of an uncertainty but what is not uncertain is that Donald Trump’s slender grasp of the complexities of a region he is attempting to reshape is driving it into deeper and ever more dangerous turmoil.
For more on the situation we urge you to listen to our most recent podcasts from Giorgio Cafiero the CEO of Gulf State Analytics based in Washington DC and from London the Gulf defence and security analyst Andreas Krieg:
Giorgio Cafiero “The GCC, Iran and Trump’s busted flush”
Andreas Krieg “No war, no peace”
Thursday, July 23, 2026
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Guest Post
In the 1970s, bumper stickers often carried the phrase, “Stop the world, I want to get off.” It reflected the anxiety of the times – wars, threats of nuclear conflict and a growing sense that the world was spinning out of control.
In many ways, not much has changed. We still live in a world marked by division, suffering and sin. Goodness and evil continue to exist side by side. And that raises an important question: how are we meant to respond to the darkness around us?
Jesus speaks directly to this reality in today’s Gospel through the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Good and evil grow together in the same field, often even within the same human heart. Some suffering comes from our own choices. Other suffering – sickness, grief and disappointment – arrives uninvited and beyond our control.
At times we may wonder: where is God’s Kingdom in all of this? Jesus assures us that it is here. Like wheat planted in a field, the Kingdom continues to grow, even when surrounded by weeds.
One temptation is to give in to frustration and despair. We can become cynical, angry, or withdrawn, spending our lives cursing the darkness around us.
But Jesus calls us to something greater. Instead of cursing the darkness, we are meant to light a candle.
As the Psalmist reminds us, “Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.” Prayer does not lead us away from the world; it sends us back into it with renewed faith and purpose.
A powerful example of this is Terry Fox. In 1977, the young Canadian was diagnosed with bone cancer and lost his right leg. Rather than surrendering to bitterness, he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.
With an artificial leg and remarkable determination, Terry began his “Marathon of Hope” in 1980. Day after day, he ran through pain and exhaustion, inspiring an entire nation. After 114 days and more than 3,000 miles, he was forced to stop when the cancer spread to his lungs. Although he never completed the journey, his efforts raised millions of dollars and continue to inspire people around the world.
If anyone had reason to curse the darkness, it was Terry Fox. Instead, he chose to light a candle.
That story mirrors the Gospel. Jesus began the work of bringing light into the world and entrusted that mission to us. We are called to carry His light into places overshadowed by fear, loneliness, hatred and despair.
Most of us will never do something as dramatic as Terry Fox. But every one of us can light a candle. A kind word, an act of forgiveness, a gesture of compassion, or a prayer for someone in need are all ways the Kingdom of God continues to grow.
The weeds may still exist in the field, but the Gospel reminds us that even the smallest light shines brightly in the darkness. Christ asks us not to run from the world, but to help transform it – one small flame at a time.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Pope: Should humanity continue to inhabit the Earth? - Guest Post
Pope: Should humanity continue to inhabit the Earth?
In a new preface, Pope Leo XIV warns of the dangers of a third world war fought piecemeal, nuclear weapons, and the deadly threat of global rearmament.
Anna Kurian
“Must the human species continue to inhabit the Earth?” Pope Leo XIV posed this radical question in a new preface released on Tuesday, July 21. In the text, he takes a hard look at the convergence of the “cyber domain and global rearmament.” The text features unusual references for a papal document, including citations of American musician Bob Dylan and Russian officer Stanislav Petrov.
On Tuesday, the Vatican Publishing House released an Italian anthology of Pope Leo XIV’s addresses on peace. Titled Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, the book features an original preface by the Pope. He laments a world in which “a good 103 States are involved in some way, in a war on Earth.”
Referencing singers and future saints
The Pope hopes the truth will “push through” in the face of warmongering logic, affirming that “it is not atomic weapons that generate peace, but disarmament.” Faced with an arms race that “frightens and terrifies,” he quotes singer-songwriter Bob Dylan; in his 1963 song “Go Away You Bomb,” Dylan addressed the atomic weapon, writing, “I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned an’ man-handled.”
Speaking on behalf of the Church, Pope Leo XIV then asks an uncompromising question: “Must the human species continue to inhabit the Earth?” He adds, “The combination of the cyber domain and global rearmament impels one to seriously ask this question.”
However, quoting Pope Pius XI, the American-Peruvian Pontiff notes that amidst these “present problems,” it “is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre.” The Holy Father holds up several role models, including Blessed Floribert Bwana Chui, a Congolese man killed in 2007 for resisting corruption; the former mayor of Florence, Servant of God Giorgio La Pira; and the American Catholic activist Servant of God Dorothy Day. For the Pope, peace is also embodied by “‘little-known protagonists’ who followed their own conscience.”
The human conscience of Stanislav Petrov
On this subject, the Successor of Peter refers to the story of Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov (1939–2017), who on September 26, 1983, “contributed to avoiding a possible global atomic war.” Petrov was on duty at a bunker near Moscow when the satellites he was monitoring sounded an alert: they had detected the launch of five intercontinental ballistic missiles from the United States toward the Soviet Union. However, the officer “disobeyed orders and chose not to signal the presumed attack.”
“It was a decision that was made with the conscience of someone who knew that that simple gesture could have caused millions of deaths,” the Pope notes.
History proved Petrov right, as it was actually an “error of the Soviet satellite detection system,” Pope Leo XIV recalls. He denounces the specter of a “truly frightening” world in which machines “decide to bomb defenceless people.” In contrast, the Pontiff affirms that “the conscience of a single person can be worth the entire world.”
Urging the faithful to resist the “temptation to despair,” the Pope encourages everyone to “make peace his or her life’s cause.” Indeed, “peace is a responsibility” that falls to each and every one of us. It’s tempting to accuse others, he points out, but “peace instead, begins with me,” he insists.
“We cannot ask the powerful people in the world for peace if we do not begin to live it out ourselves,” he explains. This doesn’t require grand gestures; instead, it starts in “our daily relationships” with the people around us. “Peace is built with small daily gestures,” he notes: “the gift of a smile, an injury pardoned, a kind word.”
[Salon] The slide toward a regional cataclysm - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
The slide toward a regional cataclysm
Summary: following the killings of US service members in Jordan and Iraq, a major military escalation between the United States and Iran has collapsed their previous ceasefire agreement, threatening to spark a comprehensive, multi-front war that could devastatingly target civilian infrastructure and choke global energy supplies.
The Middle East stands on the precipice of a comprehensive, region-wide war as the fragile remnants of diplomacy dissolve into ever widening open conflict. A dangerous new uptick in hostilities between the United States and Iran has shattered previous de-escalation frameworks, drawing regional powers and critical global energy corridors into a highly volatile spiral and threatening to ignite a confrontation of unprecedented scale.
The current crisis reached a boiling point following a devastating military exchange in Jordan. According to reports from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, an Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack targeted the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, killing two U.S. service members, wounding several others, and leaving a third missing. These represent the first American military deaths from hostile fire since a short-lived ceasefire was declared in early April. The attack also successfully struck manned and unmanned aircraft on the base, exposing vulnerabilities in local air defences.
In immediate retaliation, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) launched its eighth consecutive night of intensive airstrikes on what it said were Iranian military targets. The Pentagon has deployed stealth F-35 fighter jets from the United Kingdom, F-16 squadrons from Germany, and aerial refuelling tankers to reinforce the Gulf region. While Washington asserted these strikes were aimed at degrading Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) drone and missile capabilities, Iranian state media confirmed that civilian networks bore the brunt of the damage in southern Iran. Notably, a U.S. attack struck a critical water desalination plant in the coastal city of Jask, leaving approximately 10,000 residents facing severe water shortages. Under international law, targeting critical civilian infrastructure necessary for human survival is a war crime.
Iran has retaliated by launching drone and missile attacks on U.S. facilities in Kuwait, damaging a Kuwaiti oil facility and striking a second power and water treatment plant. It had already hit several desalination plants in the Gulf. The mid-June Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which was designed to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz to global shipping, has completely collapsed. Iran’s Foreign Ministry formally withdrew from the agreement, reinstating its total blockade on the waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows and driving global energy prices sharply higher. On Saturday another American servicemember died in northern Iraq during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian attack drone, adding to what has been one of the deadliest weeks for U.S. forces in the Iran war.
The 'Gates of Hell' open both ways: Washington weighs total humiliation against a full-scale invasion, as its troops face the deadly reality of a tit-for-tat war.
Geopolitical analyst Vali Nasr argues the collapse of the MoU was inevitable. While the US initially sought regime change or complete submission regarding Iran’s nuclear programme and regional influence, Iran secured a major strategic victory by seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz, forcing Washington to negotiate the accord. However, Tehran remained deeply suspicious of American intentions, viewing the MoU as a temporary tactical retreat to replenish US oil reserves and ease economic pressures without offering genuine sanctions relief. These suspicions were confirmed as Washington continued freezing Iranian assets, deployed more military hardware to the Persian Gulf, and attempted to divert commercial shipping away from Iranian channels toward the Omani shoreline.
Emboldened by a massive show of domestic backing during the funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the IRGC leadership concluded that restraint would only invite further American aggression. For Iran, controlling the Strait of Hormuz is not a bargaining chip, but the ultimate “sword of Damocles” hanging over the global economy and its leverage to force Washington into serious diplomacy. Believing it has no economic benefits left to lose, Tehran has made an existential bet: it will absorb US military strikes while using its asymmetric capabilities to choke global trade, gambling that Washington will blink first.
The conflict has now reached a critical fork in the road. On the one hand, President Donald Trump could abruptly change course and announce a sudden peace agreement, either directly or leaked via media outlets like Axios, as he has done in the past. On the other hand, the region may be on the verge of a full-scale, catastrophic war.
Many military analysts view the second option as far more likely because the United States has trapped itself in a rigid binary choice: Washington must either endure a visible, deeply humiliating strategic defeat by allowing Iran to establish regional hegemony, or it must launch a massive, full-scale invasion. Following the deaths of the U.S. service members in Jordan and Iraq, significant American escalation is virtually guaranteed. US officials speaking to NPR have confirmed that Trump has ordered CENTCOM to open "the gates of hell" upon Iran.
Such American outrage is deeply ironic given that the US government and Israel initially launched this war of aggression by assassinating Iran’s leader alongside most of his family and slaughtering some 160 schoolgirls. The deaths of US service members during Iranian retaliatory strikes, individuals who volunteered as professional soldiers in an army of aggression, should hardly be framed as an unexpected outrage justifying the total destruction of a sovereign nation, yet Washington continues to use these casualties to justify the devastating “punishment” of civilian infrastructure.
Compounding this crisis is the complete collapse of deterrence boundaries. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a strict written warning stating that the United States has repeatedly violated its commitments, rendering Trump’s signature “worthless and invalid.” He warned that the Iranian nation and the broader “resistance front” have prepared “unforgettable lessons” for the US military. Because each strike sets a higher baseline for deterrence, both sides are forced to match the other’s escalation, rapidly eliminating the guardrails that previously contained the conflict.
If this volatility escalates into a massive US ground invasion or a devastating aerial carpet-bombing campaign designed to obliterate Iran’s national infrastructure, neighbouring Arab Gulf states face catastrophic blowback. Traditional U.S. allies including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE are structurally defenceless in the event of an all-out war. Their coastlines and oil infrastructure in the Eastern Province are directly exposed to Iranian power projection. Saudi Arabia faces an added threat: a comprehensive war could trigger a “double insurgency” for the Saudis, as Iran deploys its regional proxies to squeeze the Kingdom from two fronts: Huthi forces launching a synchronised ground invasion from the southern border while Iraqi Shia militias (Al-Hashd al-Shaabi) push heavily through the north.
This vulnerability has been compounded by severe tactical blunders committed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) in Yemen. His reckless decision to bomb the international airport in Sana’a has led the Kingdom into a trap: halting his airstrikes signals a humiliating Saudi defeat while Iranian weapons continue to flow to the Huthis, but continuing them invites a war he cannot manage. The Saudi regime’s public attempts to claim that these sophisticated airstrikes are being executed by the fractured, internationally recognised “Yemeni Legitimacy” government forces are risible. The public and the Huthis see entirely through this deception, knowing the fractured Yemeni government completely lacks the advanced aviation and rocketry required for such operations.
If the Huthis respond to Saudi pressure by completely closing the Bab al-Mandab strait, they will create an absolute bottleneck alongside Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Because the world’s largest oil tankers cannot physically traverse the Suez Canal without passing through Bab al-Mandab, Saudi Arabia’s ability to export its oil would be completely strangled overnight, paralysing global energy supplies. Ominously on Monday the Huthis announced they were implementing a naval blockade on the Saudis in a move that raises the stakes considerably, immediately further threatening global energy supplies and international trade.
The window for diplomatic intervention has nearly closed. With no active negotiations and an entire theatre of war operating on a volatile tit-for-tat dynamic, the region once again finds itself on a dangerous precipice. The coming days will determine if the Middle East plunges into an unmanageable, multi-front war that will reshape the global geopolitical and economic order for decades to come.
Monday, July 20, 2026
[Salon] Are the Huthis on the warpath? - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Are the Huthis on the warpath?
Summary: escalation in the war between the US and Iran is set against a developing and dangerous situation in Yemen with the outlook for a return to full scale war there a growing possibility.
We thank Helen Lackner for today’s article. An expert on Yemen, Helen also works as a freelance rural development consultant with a particular interest in water, among other environmental issues. SAQI Books has published the paperback edition with new material of her Yemen In Crisis, now subtitled Devastating Conflict, Fragile Hope. It is a seminal study of the war: what lies behind it and what needs to happen for it to finally end. Her latest book is Yemen: Poverty and Conflict published by Routledge. You can find Helen’s most recent Arab Digest podcast A black eye in Yemen for the UAE here.
Worrying developments are taking place in Yemen. With the renewal of the Strait of Hormuz Iran-US fighting and Iranian threats to also close the Bab al Mandab, the situation in Yemen is ominous, beyond the issue of the Huthis joining Iran by relaunching attacks in the Red Sea. Numerous tensions are worsening, suggesting that ‘no war no peace’ status prevailing since 2022 is no longer sustainable.
Military aspects
Following years of regular ongoing low-level clashes, in recent weeks both the internationally recognised government [IRG] and the Huthis have been mobilising forces far more aggressively than at any time since the 2022 truce, sending reinforcements to all fronts. Noticeably more serious clashes took place in the southern Tihama in the first week of July, causing dozens of casualties on both sides.
The Huthis have also created a new force modelled on the Iranian Basij militia, the ‘Mobilisation Forces, a parallel structure designed to organise recruitment and maintain combat readiness outside its conventional military formations’.
On the IRG side, since the exclusion of the Southern Transitional Council [STC] from the Presidential Leadership Council [PLC] in January, and the formation of the new government, the IRG in association with Saudi military advisors has been involved in restructuring the military, appointing new leaderships, moving units around the country and holding meetings of senior military leaders. The IRG’s military chief of staff claimed in mid-July that 80 percent of the restructuring has been achieved. These moves alongside a series of government instructions ordering increased military readiness also suggest preparations for possible hostilities.
Fighting has not broken out in Marib, but a major tribal mobilisation in neighbouring Jawf is also cause for concern should this tribal assembly be supported by the Saudis and/or the IRG to support an offensive against the Huthis. However, regardless of these moves, IRG forces are still insufficiently coordinated and organised to be effective against the Huthis.
On the warpath: Yemen's uneasy truce is pushed to the brink as aggressive troop mobilisations ramp up on all sides.
Iranian civilian flights to Huthi controlled Yemen
For the first time in a decade, at least one Iranian plane landed in Sana’a airport, supposedly to evacuate medical cases though few were noticed. It did convey a large Huthi delegation to Tehran for the funeral of Supreme Leader Khamenei. The flight caused outrage in the IRG who denounced the “flagrant violation of the Yemeni republic’s sovereignty… undermining of international laws and United Nations Security Council resolutions… a dangerous threat to Yemeni and regional security.” Apparently Saudi air force planes attempted to prevent its landing leading to further threats from the Huthis. The IRG called for a meeting of the UNSC on Monday 13 July which condemned the flights and expressed support for the IRG. It took place within hours of the return flight which landed in Hodeida after the IRG used drones to make the runway at Sana’a airport inoperative. In response the Huthis launched drones and missiles against the southern Saudi airport of Abha; there has been no retaliation from Saudi Arabia to date.
Huthi discourse describes these flights as integral to ending the blockades on the areas under their control. A further Iranian flight on 18 July was forced to turn back after the IRG forbade its travel in Yemeni airspace. Focus on access to Sana’a airport is now a significant point of conflict. In a possible solution, welcomed by the UN Special envoy, Jordan announced an agreement to resume flights between Sana’a and Amman, a move supported by the Saudis and the international community.
Threatening Saudi Arabia
The Huthis have been making unusually aggressive threats against Saudi Arabia. While in Tehran, a senior leader, Mohammed al Bukhaiti revised the usual Huthi rhetoric which describes the IRG as Saudi mercenaries replacing it with overt threats of bringing the fight directly against the Saudis. He said they would not attack Yemeni forces provided they did not get involved. His suggestion that the STC might support the Huthis is confirmed by the STC statement that ‘the Southern Armed Forces Command categorically denies issuing any statement regarding participation in any military operations against the Houthi militia.’
In his 16 July weekly television address, Supreme Huthi leader Abdul Malik al Huthi’s hostility against Saudi Arabia was unprecedented. In addition to usual themes, e.g. US and Israeli aggression against Gaza, he emphasised Yemen’s independence, rejecting the Saudi blockade and its influence over Yemen, asserting that renewed military action would be responded with like for like: ‘The equation is airports for airports, ports for ports, and blockade for blockade… It has become clear that we will never accept the humiliation of our people, their enslavement, or the continuation of this suffering, injustice and oppression against our people.’
This rhetorical escalation reflects Huthi urgency. It has been clear for years that both the Huthis and the Saudi regime want to reach an agreement. However the intensification of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran has worsened the situation in two main ways: first the Saudis cannot reach an agreement with the explicitly Iran-aligned Huthis as this would effectively be interpreted as openly joining the conflict on the side of Iran. Second, the renewal of attacks in Hormuz has led to a recent Iranian threat to expand the conflict by getting the Huthis to close access to the Red Sea. It would be difficult for the Huthis to ignore such a request, despite their primary concern of reducing domestic economic difficulties through an agreement which would bring Saudi finance. The focus on Sana’a airport both addresses some social tensions and distracts from the disastrous humanitarian situation.
Among the current unlikely convergences and rivalries are both a Saudi-Huthi agreement and a STC/Emirati covert alliance with the Huthis. Both would demonstrate the rival Saudis and Emiratis aligning with Iran in the current war!
In summary, escalation and a return to full scale fighting in Yemen is more likely today than it has been since the 2022 truce. However there are good reasons to believe that it might not happen. On the IRG side, military restructuring and consolidation are not yet likely to ensure victory in a full-scale confrontation against the Huthis. Saudi Arabia must take many aspects in consideration [see our posting of 21 May], not least possible Huthi attacks on its Red Sea ports, oil and other economic facilities. The fact that Iran has only rarely attacked Saudi Arabia is notable. For the Huthis, returning to full scale fighting and attacks on the Red Sea would almost certainly lead to US and Saudi air strikes, worsening the political and economic crisis suffered by the people under their rule. Although close to Iran, retaining an agreement with Saudi Arabia is probably more important for the Huthis, given the immediate and direct benefits it would produce.
Sunday, July 19, 2026
A Modest Proposal for the Strait Dispute: A Shared Pact Among Gulf States - The New York Times
A Modest Proposal for the Strait Dispute: A Shared Pact Among Gulf States - The New York Times
FM: John Whitbeck
At a time when humanity is being held hostage by the diametrically opposed positions of Iran and the United States regarding "control" of the Strait of Hormuz, transmitted below is a report on a proposal currently being floated that offers a potentially viable alternative to a global depression and/or a nuclear-bomb-generated "win" for Donald Trump.
Of course, Israel would be fiercely opposed to any peace settlement which permitted not only Iran's survival but also correct and cooperative relations between Iran and Gulf states which Israel has been seeking, with some success, to coopt into subservience to its regional hegemony, and it would be astonishing if Donald Trump were ever to choose to put the interests of the American people and the world ahead of Israeli desires.
Nevertheless, this proposal, which would require the leaders of Gulf countries to ignore the wishes of Israel and the United States in favor of the interests of their own countries and people, does offer a glimmer of hope.
NOTE: I hope that I am not alone in finding it remarkable that the U.S. government, which launched its latest criminal war of aggression by assassinating Iran's leader and most of his family and slaughtering some 160 schoolgirls, deems the deaths during Iranian retaliation against its latest war crimes of two of its "service members", who, after all, have volunteered to serve as professional killers in an army of aggression, as an outrage justifying further "punishment" of Iran.
The deaths of soldiers in wars, even justified wars, used to be deemed an inevitable and acceptable aspect of wars.
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