Persicus Maximus

As the Arab Spring turns tentatively to summer, pressure continues to build in those countries across North Africa and the Middle East which have already been rocked by revolution, those currently embroiled in uprisings and those which are bracing themselves for potential upheaval. At such an uncertain time in an area of such heightened instability, the creation and deployment of a large mercenary force in the Persian Gulf is akin to dropping a burning match into a puddle of petroleum. But that is exactly what Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi has done by hiring the man behind Blackwater to create a private army for him. According to a report in the New York Times, Erik Prince, the controversial former Navy SEAL who founded, then sold, the notorious private security company which now operates under the name Xe Services, has been paid $529 million (372 million euros) by the Crown Prince to form a paramilitary force of foreign mercenaries, including former members of the US ...

Given that President Obama daily authorizes the firing of hellfire missiles and the dropping of cluster bombs in places such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, it was awful odd seeing him wax eloquent this week about the "moral force of non-violence" in places like Egypt and Tunisia. But there he was, the commander-in-chief of the largest empire in history, praising the power of peaceful protest in countries with repressive leaders backed by his own administration. Were we unfamiliar with his actual policies – more than doubling the troops in Afghanistan, dramatically escalating a deadly drone war in Pakistan and unilaterally bombing for peace of Libyia – it might have been inspiring to hear a major head of state reject violence as a means to political ends. Instead, we almost choked on the hypocrisy. Cast beforehand as a major address on the Middle East, what President Obama offered with his speech on Thursday was nothing more than a reprisal of his 2009 address in Cairo...

Sharmine Narwani, a senior associate at Oxford writes; A public spat between Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the country's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the international headlines last week. Politics is rarely ever a harmonious business in any country, so why the brouhaha over this particular stand-off? To be sure, the disagreement itself was an unusual occurrence. Khamenei's very public reinstatement of Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi - citing the "greater good of the nation", no less - shortly after Ahmadinejad removed him, could only be viewed as a tough dressing down. And then Ahmadinejad unexpectedly raised the stakes further by boycotting cabinet meetings for eleven days. The whole point of a Supreme Leader as conceived by the Islamic Revolution's founders,and the constitution is that he is the ultimate arbiter over both state and religious affairs. Ahmadinejad's defiant snit was a direct challenge to the authority of the ...

Harrowing testimony of torture, intimidation and humiliation from a doctor arrested in the crackdown on medical staff in Bahrain has revealed the lengths to which the regime's security forces are prepared to go to quash pro-democracy protests. Interviews obtained by newspapers and reporters from inside Bahrain tell of ransacked hospitals and of terrified medical staff beaten, interrogated and forced into signing false confessions. Many have been detained, their fate unknown. Inspired by the pro-democracy protests which swept Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year, Bahrainis took to the streets in their thousands in February, demanding greater political rights and more equality for the overwhelming 4/5 ratio of Shia Muslim majority, ruled over for decades of a British and US supported Sunni monarchy. Saudi Arabia invaded this more or less mini aphartheid and helped the state launch a fierce counter-offensive in mid-March, swiftly and brutally crushing the uprising by killing, arresting...

When you read the different reports of the heroic and Bollywood, sorry Hollywood like killing of “bin Laden”, then one cannot help oneself but roll the eyes and scuff “yet again”. This time however, the whole episode seems to be containing the necessary elements implying certain seriousness in finally wanting to close the chapter on Bin Laden. Until now, his uncertain fate helped get very controversial laws passed in almost all elected houses. Any resistances towards sometimes draconian security amendments were considered risky and those pursuing a resistance were stamped as Bin Laden lovers and anti-Americans. A known phenomenon regarding any criticism of Israel is followed by a systematic media frenzy of calling the poor daredevil an anti-Semite. However their unbelievably clumsy handling of this affair can only be considered “militarily induced dyslexia”. As Long as we all remember, any Rebel…Outlaw or Terrorist that has ever been hunted down, arrested or killed, have without excep...