... International Affairs Council (RIAC) together with the Center for Political Research, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, with the support of the Embassy of Israel in Russia held a closed online seminar “Assessing the Middle East conflicts (Lebanon, Iraq and Libya). View from Russia and Israel”. The event was attended by leading experts and diplomats from Russia and Israel.
The seminar was divided into two sessions: "Political instability in Lebanon and Iraq: View from Russia and Israel" and "Libya: ...
... Republican Guard Corps to intervene when ordered.
Thus, three main focal points will prevail in 2020:
First: the impact of global economic trends on domestic politics; the influence of regional power struggles on unresolved conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya. In many ways, these dynamics are interconnected and feed into one another. However, evidence of increased contact with Russia by countries like Egypt and Jordan should be taken in the context of the US disengagement from the region, which began ...
... production levels at 1.8 million barrels per day. Even if Russia does not obtain a firm production cap commitment from Libya, an agreement to delay Libyan oil field expansions and the construction of ambitious energy-related infrastructure projects in Libya would highlight Moscow’s status as an arbiter on energy-related issues within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This agreement would also increase pressure on non-compliant states like Iraq, to adopt similar measures, even though gaining full cooperation from Baghdad is complicated by the Iraqi government’s lack of jurisdiction over Iraqi Kurdish oil contracts. In short, Russia has a major opportunity at the August 7-8 Abu Dhabi ...
... including the United States – before they were vilified and deposed. If western condemnation of murderous dictators has one rationalization, it is "better late than never."
Time has proved Russia right to counsel caution in dealing with Iraq and Libya. Certainly Saddam and Gaddafi were monsters. Certainly the people of Iraq and Libya deserved civil liberties and representative government. Certainly the United States and its western allies hoped that by toppling Saddam and Gaddafi they would bring ...
... positions of his friends, and alienate all neutrals while he was gradually winning the war, and at a time when UN chemical inspectors were in Damascus? The sceptic observer cannot help but remember the false intelligence on which the 2003 US invasion of Iraq was founded; Saddam Hussein did not in fact possess weapons of mass destruction. The parallel is inescapable. In May, Carla Del Ponte, leading member of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, asserted that there ...
