Alastair Sloan – Middle East Monitor

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Alastair Sloan

Alastair Sloan tweets and writes on international affairs, terrorism and Westminster politics and is author of the upcoming book, "What Does Michael Gove Really Think?" You can also read his work in Al Jazeera English and Newsweek.

August 30, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Military intervention to protect the Rohingya still isn't on the Western agenda

A key UN body has ruled that genocide was committed recently by the Burmese military. The atrocities, widely reported at the time, were against the Rohingya people, an ethnic...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, International Organisations, Myanmar, Opinion, UK, UN
August 25, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Saudi Arabia really should listen to Human Rights Watch to improve its reputation

It is sometimes hard to see why the war in Syria gets so much coverage in Britain, while the war in Yemen is all but ignored; it feels like...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, HRW, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UK, Yemen
August 20, 2018

What Elon Musk doesn't get about Saudi Arabia

Step on to any plane heading to Riyadh tomorrow and you will rub shoulders with returning Saudi families, pilgrims, oilmen and a new swell of eager Western consultants, clutching...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, China, Middle East, News, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, US
August 9, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Bin Salman's attack on Canada is destroying Saudi's economy

The Canada-Saudi spat looks set to accelerate as the Kingdom's central bank ordered its fund managers to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars in equities, bonds and cash from...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Canada, Middle East, Opinion, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
July 31, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

How the Gulf crisis is destabilising Somalia

The impact of the anti-Qatar embargo continues to have strange consequences beyond the Gulf. Somalia is increasingly compromised by its schizophrenic approach to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE...

Published in: Africa, Article, Bahrain, Middle East, Opinion, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, UAE
July 18, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Russia split GCC: Next NATO and EU

As the world focuses on Vladimir Putin's attempts to break up the EU and NATO, overlooking how he has already done the same with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)...

Published in: Article, EU, Europe & Russia, GCC, International Organisations, Middle East, NATO, Opinion, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia
July 11, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

An ally of the UK, Bahrain is practicing collective punishment unabated

The start of July has been a day-by-day microcosm of the struggles of Bahraini activists against one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Only thanks to the...

Published in: Article, Bahrain, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, UK
July 2, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

The far right thrives on Europe's indifference to Muslim refugees

The connection between Europe's reticence about taking-in refugees and the dramatic rise in Islamophobia since the early 2000s cannot be decoupled. Were these refugees not largely from Muslim backgrounds,...

Published in: Africa, Article, Europe & Russia, Germany, Libya, Middle East, Opinion, Syria, Yemen
June 26, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

We need to address the UAE's appalling human rights record

The United Arab Emirates has succeeded in one of the most brilliant reputation-laundering operations of modern times. Nearly all of the outrage mustered by Western liberals, leftists and hard-working...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Qatar, UAE, UK
June 18, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Why is the UAE's Bin Zayed so close to Europe's Islamophobes?

As Islamophobia rises across Europe, one Muslim world leader seems to be totally indifferent to the phenomenon. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Shaikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, is...

Published in: Article, Middle East, Opinion, UAE
June 6, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

It's time to pay more attention to Europe's role in torture

When a Polish MP first announced that mysterious planes were landing in the night in a forest, eyebrows were raised, eyeballs swung upwards, and some MPs even broke out...

Published in: Article, EU, Europe & Russia, Opinion, Poland, Romania, UK, US
May 19, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Iran has had a good run, but it looks like its luck has changed

Has Iran reached its peak? It increasingly feels that way. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, through the war in Syria since 2012, and with the lifting of sanctions...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, EU, Europe & Russia, Iran, Middle East, Opinion, US
May 14, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

With Pompeo and Bolton at Trump's side, the wise men have left the room

Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Donald Trump are the American triumvirate who have just passed judgement on the survival of the Iran nuclear deal. There could not be three...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, US
May 1, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

How Vladimir Putin weaponised the Iraq dodgy dossier

When he first came to power the world leader Vladimir Putin most admired was Tony Blair. This fact is little known, rarely acknowledged, and frankly scary. In fact, Blair...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Iraq, Middle East, Opinion, Russia, UK, US
April 19, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Don't be fooled – Trump still loves Putin and Assad

As Iraqi regular and irregular forces gathered on the edges of Mosul in spring 2016, flanked by Kurds and assisted quietly by Special Forces from several Western countries, Donald...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Iraq, Middle East, Opinion, Russia, Syria, US
April 10, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

What the Islamic State got right — and very wrong

Ignore the theological failings of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi for a moment, and the enormous degree of violence and bigotry that his group practiced. It is time to give the...

Published in: Afghanistan, Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Iraq, Mali, Middle East, Opinion, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, Yemen
April 2, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Britain's Prevent programme is a good idea gone bad, and it was the state that ruined it

In April 2016, a UN official wrote to the British government expressing the international organisation's thanks for hosting Maina Kiai. The former Kenyan human rights activist was the special...

Published in: Africa, Article, Kenya, Middle East, Opinion, Syria, UK
March 29, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Other countries have pulled back from the war in Yemen; why hasn't Britain?

As the church bells rang in the New Year of 2018, Norway announced that it would be cutting arms sales to any country fighting in Yemen. A couple of...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, UK, US, Yemen
March 15, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

With Trump's man now in charge of foreign policy, anything is possible

The appointment of Mike Pompeo as the new US Secretary of State by Donald Trump will not signal a change in Washington's Middle East policy. It doesn't mean that...

Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Egypt, International Organisations, Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, UN, US
March 9, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Britain's relationships in the Gulf are difficult, so caution must be the watchword

It was a tale of two protests. The first was on Monday, when pro-democracy demonstrators braved a blizzard outside the Bahrain Embassy in London to salute the arrest and...

Published in: Article, Bahrain, Europe & Russia, Iran, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, UK, Yemen
March 1, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Investment in Iraq smacks of exploitation; regional big-hitters should open their coffers

Eighty per cent of Iraq's immediate humanitarian needs have been met by Iraqis themselves, as they seek to rebuild vast swathes of the country post-Daesh. The push for the...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, EU, International Organisations, Iraq, Middle East, Opinion, US
February 20, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Listen carefully Mr Netanyahu: real statesmen don't need props

Benjamin Netanyahu is at it again, waving props around to prove that Israel is under threat from Iran. This time it was the wreckage of an Iranian drone, wafted...

Published in: Article, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Opinion
February 14, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Britain's collective memory should look beyond Europe to understand the Middle East

Exactly a hundred years ago, a famine which had been growing slowly across Iran suddenly hit the whole country. The disaster would go on to claim anywhere between a...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, Inquiry, Iran, Middle East, Opinion, UK
January 30, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Netanyahu must recognise Polish suffering in the Holocaust

As a new row erupts over a proposed law in Poland criminalising use of the term "Polish death camps," the Israeli Prime Minister has naturally weighed in. Netanyahu has...

Published in: Article, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Poland
January 29, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Presidents Club link exposes Zahawi's complicated businessman-cum-diplomat-cum-politician role

Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi was briefly famed last week when it became known that he attended the now-infamous men-only charity dinner for some of the country's wealthiest CEOs, with...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, Iraq, Middle East, Opinion, UK
January 26, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

The media needs to be honest about civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq

Walk along any High Street in Britain and ask passers-by who causes more civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria, the West or Russia, and you will almost certainly hear...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Iraq, Middle East, Opinion, Syria, US
January 15, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

Britain must realise that Christians are threatened by Israeli settlers too

It too often falls between the cracks of the Palestine debate that the land squabbles in the holy land are not a two-way religious dilemma. As Patriarch Theophilos III...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, International Organisations, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Syria, UK, UN
January 2, 2018 | Alastair Sloan

As centenary commemorations draw to a close, WWI still affects the Middle East

This year will see the last of the centenary commemorations of World War One. Remarkably few of such events held since 2014 have considered the war in its "World"...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, France, Middle East, Opinion, UK
December 27, 2017 | Alastair Sloan

Trump owes Netanyahu an apology

Only a few weeks ago, Benjamin Netanyahu had it all. He had done the impossible and been able to announce that the Gulf States were on Israel's side. What...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, US
December 19, 2017 | Alastair Sloan

Everyone benefits from Israeli tech companies, except the Palestinians

In an op-ed for a special annual edition of The Economist, Benjamin Netanyahu calls his country "Innovation Nation". The Israeli Prime Minister writes that "people everywhere benefit from Israeli innovations...

Published in: Article, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine
December 15, 2017 | Alastair Sloan

The UAE is an oppressive state, so why does the Royal College of Art want a branch there?

Rumours abound that the Royal College of Art, perhaps the most prestigious art school in Britain, is contemplating the opening of a branch in Dubai. Speculation centres on a...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK
December 1, 2017 | Alastair Sloan

Pro-Israel lobbyists really must question their own morality

A new report from the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) presents itself as an "independent" critique of Jeremy Corbyn's foreign policy in the Middle East. The eleven-page...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, UK, US

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