
Muhammad Hussein
Muhammad Hussein is an International Politics graduate and political analyst on Middle Eastern affairs, primarily focusing on the regions of the Gulf, Iran, Syria and Turkey, as well as their relation to Western foreign policy.
Items by Muhammad Hussein
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- February 2, 2021 Muhammad Hussein
Turkey is leading the way in the fight against big tech dictatorship
In recent months, the public’s eyes have been opened to the growing threat that technology and social media companies pose, realising with shock the extent to which the companies would go to invade users’ privacy and limit their expression. The messaging app WhatsApp struck first, updating its privacy policy and...
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- January 14, 2021 Muhammad Hussein
Orientalism still runs deep within the Western subconscious, Capitol Hill has shown
When supporters of the soon-to-be ex-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol Building in Washington DC last week, many things were revealed that day. We saw the lengths that Trump supporters would go to keep him in office, the fragility of American democracy, the shockingly limited security employed by the...
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- January 6, 2021 Muhammad Hussein
The Axis of Torture was taught by a Nazi and is likely to grow
Torture is an evil as old as conflict, and there is much more to it than the sort of thing usually seen in the movies. It is, sadly, a skill that appears to be passed down from generation to generation, and is widespread. Individuals with such skills are not only...
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- December 23, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
In offering its militias as security contractors, Iran is exporting its revolution
Afghanistan has long had a security problem, despite the many who have sought to guarantee its safety. The latest of those revealed themselves this week when Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif offered the Afghan government the help of Afghan Shia militants to fight against Daesh. “In Afghanistan, we are...
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- December 11, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
Middle East nuclear proliferation may be on the way, but the immediate threat is cyberwarfare
Nuclear weapons have long been a dream of Middle Eastern states wishing to expand their influence or outdo their rivals, and they have never been closer to that dream than they are now. Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, although seemingly bad...
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- November 30, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
‘Mankind’s greatest peace project needs Turkey,’ says Ambassador
Of all Turkey’s strained relations in recent years – its disputes with the United States, conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean and military confrontations in Syria and Libya – the most significant and impactful has probably been its link with the European Union. Relations between Turkey and Europe will be...
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- November 19, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
Iran’s mistake in its Nagorno-Karabakh policy sees Turkey reaping the rewards
It is unusual for Iran to have a sudden change of heart in its foreign policy. Indeed, it can be said to be one of the firmest and most blatant when it comes to its projection of regional influence, and its rhetoric is just as bold. This has changed...
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- November 9, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
A post-colonial united Libya looks increasingly like wishful thinking
Not many people have seen or even heard of, the black flag of Cyrenaica with its white crescent and star; a black version of the Turkish flag, perhaps. Events since the uprisings in Libya against former dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, however, are making it even more visible. Following the...
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- October 27, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
France is curbing freedom in the name of freedom
France under President Emmanuel Macron has been making more than a few international waves over the past few months. It has involved itself in the dispute between Greece and Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean, for example, and given tacit support to the rogue Libyan Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar against...
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- October 18, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
Remembering the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal
On this day nine years ago, the historic prisoner exchange deal between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas took place, with its long-lasting effects still impacting on the present day....
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- October 12, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance
Rashid Khalidi’s telling of the story of the loss of his homeland and its gradual invasion is a deeply personal one, and is unlike other more detached accounts I have read. The author hails from a prominent family in the traditional Palestinian elite in the city of Jerusalem. He...
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- October 7, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
MEMO in conversation with Dana Nawzar
Our interview with UK-based Kurdish writer Dana Nawzar...
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- September 16, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
Will Turkey join the Axis of Resistance?
The past few years have demonstrated to the Axis of Resistance – the motley alliance of “anti-imperialist” imperialists – that its efforts in the Middle East have not gone unrewarded. Russia and Iran’s military intervention into Syria has allowed Bashar Al-Assad to survive years of onslaught by opposition groups...
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- September 5, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
Macron’s ‘red lines’ against Turkey reveals France’s neo-Napoleonic mission
Not since Napoleon stepped foot on the shores of Alexandria in July 1798, embarking on his short-lived invasion of Egypt, has a Frenchman so imperiously sought to topple a native regional power in the eastern Mediterranean while still appealing to the local population. Under the name of “God, on whom...
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- September 2, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
Remembering Alan Kurdi
In search of a better life in Europe... ...
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- August 25, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
How long will Lebanon and Iraq tolerate militias which undermine national sovereignty?
A week ago, justice of sorts was meted out to those suspected of being behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005; one member of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia was charged with the crime and three others were acquitted. Although the result of that UN...
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- August 17, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
The Gulf’s recognition of Israel opens new doors, but will kill the dream of an Arab Jerusalem
While the US’ Deal of the Century ran out of traction earlier this year before it even took off, Israel’s own version took effect last week when it reached a historic peace deal with the United Arab Emirates. In return for delaying its annexation plans in the West Bank,...
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- August 4, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
State-imposed secularism will never work in the Middle East
Almost a month after the Turkish government overturned the 1934 ruling that converted the Hagia Sophia into a museum, the response from the international community to it becoming a mosque again was telling. Condemnation from the likes of Greece and the Vatican was expected, as was the praise by...
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- July 23, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
Remembering the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
What: The dissolution and division of the Ottoman Empire and its former territories through the Treaty of Lausanne, leading to the establishment of the modern Republic of Turkey When: 24 July, 1923 Where: Turkey What happened? By the early 1900s, the Ottoman Empire had long been decaying and declining from decades – over...
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- July 16, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
Remembering Israel’s killing of four children on the beach in Gaza
On 16 July 2014, Israeli missile killed four children of the same family on a beach in Gaza...
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- July 9, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
‘We will not let anybody harm Turkey’s interests’
An interview with former Deputy Prime Minister Cevdet Yilmaz...
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- July 8, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
France directs EU foreign policy against Turkey, and the bloc is too weak to stop it
It is rare to see a government throw a sustained tantrum against another due to differences over foreign policy, especially without first attempting to solve it through diplomatic means. That, though, is exactly what France has been doing for months against Turkey over its influence in the Mediterranean and...
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- June 27, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
Are the Idlib civil war and HTS domination the end of the Syrian revolution?
The remainder of the rebel-held province of Idlib is proving to be the greatest experiment in nation-building that the modern world is witnessing, even if the world has largely neglected the Syrian revolution. Consisting of displaced Syrians, refugee camps and an assortment of independent and Turkish-backed groups, the province has...
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- June 22, 2020 Muhammad Hussein
The US Caesar sanctions are a punishment not a solution for Syria
Seeing is believing, as the saying goes. And after seeing the 53,275 photographs proving the torture and arbitrary killings committed by the Syrian regime which were smuggled out by a former police photographer named “Caesar” in 2014, the US has finally decided to impose maximum pressure on the regime...