Largely dependent on the kingdom since Saudi troops helped quash mass anti-government protests in 2011, Bahrain, a majority Shi'ite Muslim nation, would not have agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel without Saudi consent.

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The Bahraini move followed several other Saudi gestures intended to signal the kingdom's endorsement of Arab normalization of Israel even if it was not going to lead the pack.

The gestures included the opening of Saudi airspace to Israeli commercial flights, as well as publication of a Saudi think tank report praising Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's stewardship in modernizing the kingdom's religious education system and encouraging the religious establishment to replace "extremist narratives" in school textbooks with "a moderate interpretation of Islamic rhetoric."

They also involved a sermon by Abdulrahman Sudais, imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca – the world's largest mosque, which surrounds the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site. The sermon highlighted the Prophet Muhammad's friendly relations with Jews.

Sudais noted that the prophet had "performed ablution from a polytheistic water bottle and died while his shield was mortgaged to a Jew," forged a peace agreement with Jewish inhabitants of the Khaybar region and dealt so well with a Jewish neighbor that he eventually converted to Islam.

The imam's comments, a day before President Donald Trump was believed to have failed to persuade King Salman to follow the UAE's example, were widely seen as part of an effort to prepare Saudi public opinion for eventual recognition of Israel.

Criticism on social media of the comments constituted one indication that public opinion in Gulf states is divided.

Expression of Emirati dissent was restricted to Emirati exiles given that the UAE does not tolerate the expression of dissenting views.

However, small-scale protests erupted in Bahrain, another country that curtails freedom of expression and assembly. Bahraini political and civil society associations, including the Bahrain Bar Association, issued a statement rejecting the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel.

"What results from normalization will not enjoy popular backing, in line with what generations of Bahrainis have been brought up on in terms of adherence to the Palestinian cause," the statement said.

Bahrain has long been home to a Jewish community. It was the first and, so far, the only Arab state to appoint a Jew as its ambassador to the United States.

The criticism echoes recent polls in various Gulf states that suggest that Palestine remains a major public foreign policy concern.

Polling by David Pollock of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that Palestine ranked second to Iran.

Earlier polls by James Zogby, a Washington-based pollster with a track record that goes back more than a decade, showed Palestine ranking in 2018 as the foremost foreign policy issue followed by Iran in Emirati and Saudi public opinion.

The same year's Arab Opinion Index suggested that 80 percent of Saudis see Palestine as an Arab rather than a purely Palestinian issue.

Pollock said in an interview that with regard to Palestine, Saudi officials "believe that they have to be a little cautious. They want to move bit by bit in the direction of normalizing at least the existence of Israel or the discussion of Israel, the possibility of peace, but they don't think that the public is ready for the full embrace or anything like that."

Gulf scholar Giorgio Cafiero noted in a tweet that "Israel formalizing relations [with] unelected Arab [governments] is not the same as Israel making 'peace' [with] Arab people. Look at, for example, what Egypt's citizenry thinks of Israel. Iran and Turkey will capitalize on this reality as more US-friendly Arab [governments] sign accords [with] Israel."

This year's Arab Opinion Index suggests that in Kuwait, the one country that has not engaged with Israel publicly, Turkey – the Muslim country that has taken a lead in supporting the Palestinians – ranked highest in public esteem compared to China, Russia and Iran.

A rift in a UAE-backed Muslim group created to counter Qatari support for political Islam and promote a state-controlled version of Islam that preaches absolute obedience to the ruler serves as a further indication that Palestine remains an emotive public issue.

In Sudais's case, analysts suggest that the criticism is as much about Palestine as it is a signal that religious leaders who become subservient to the whims of government may be losing credibility.

Sudais's sermon contrasted starkly with past talks in which he described Jews as "killers of prophets and the scum of the earth" as well as "monkeys and pigs" and defended Saudi Arabia's conflict with Iran as a war between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims.

The criticism, coupled with indications earlier this year that Saudi Arabia's religious establishment was not happy with Prince Mohammed's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, may be one reason why Saudi Arabia is gesturing rather than formalizing already existing relations with Israel.

Authorities reportedly arrested in March Sheikh Abdullah Saad, an Islamic scholar, after he posted online an audio clip criticizing the government for banning Friday prayers. Saad argued that worshippers should be able to ask God for mercy.

An imam in Mecca was fired shortly after he expressed concern about the spread of the coronavirus in Saudi prisons.

Scholars Genevieve Abdo and Nourhan Elnahla reported that the kingdom's Council of Senior Clerics had initially drafted a fatwa, or religious opinion, describing the closing of mosques as a violation of Islamic principles. They said government pressure had persuaded the council not to issue the opinion.

Concern among the kingdom's ultra-conservative religious scholars that the ruling Saud family may break the power-sharing agreement with the clergy concluded at the birth of the kingdom predates the rise of King Salman and Prince Mohammed.

Indeed, the clerics' concern stretches back to the reign of King Abdullah and has focused on attitudes expressed by both senior members of the ruling family who have since been sidelined or detained by Prince Mohammed and princes who continue to wield influence.

The scholars feared that the ruling family contemplated separating state and religion. This concern has likely been reinforced since Prince Mohammed whipped the kingdom's religious establishment into submission and downplayed religion by emphasizing nationalism.

Ultra-conservative Saudi religious scholars are also certain to have taken note of post-revolt Sudan's recent decision to legally remove religion from the realm of the state.

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Ultra-conservative sentiment does not pose an imminent threat to Prince Mohammed's iron grip on a country in which many welcomed social reforms that have lifted some of the debilitating restrictions on women, liberalized gender segregation and the as-yet unfulfilled promise of greater opportunity for a majority youthful population.

It does, however, suggest one reason why Prince Mohammed, who is believed to favor formal relations with Israel, may want to tread carefully on an issue that continues to evoke passions.

Dr. James M. Dorsey, a non-resident senior associate at the BESA Center, is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University and co-director of the University of Wurzburg's Institute for Fan Culture.

This article was featured on JNS.org and was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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The question is whether they are getting the message: neither containing and controlling the virus nor economic recovery is a straight shot. Both are likely to involve a process of two steps forward, one step back, and no state can successfully tackle the multiple crises on its own.

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The Middle East is a region in which conflicts and problems are not just complex but inherently interconnected. The pandemic poses not only political, economic, and social challenges, but also calls into question regional security arrangements that reinforce fault lines rather than create an environment that allows rivals to collectively manage disputes as well as diseases whose spread is not halted by physical or other boundaries.

At stake is not just regional but also global security. Focused on their own health care and economic crises, Western nations ignore Middle Eastern and North African instability at their peril. They risk waking up to threats that could have been anticipated.

Suspected Russian hopes that an end to the Libyan war would allow for the creation of a Russian military base on the southern shore of the Mediterranean that would complement facilities in Syria would be one such impending threat.

"Russia wants a foothold in Libya, and that's a fact," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a Russian military analyst at the Jamestown Foundation. US officials warn that a permanent Russian presence would enhance Russia's efforts to weaken the already strained trans-Atlantic alliance.

The prospect of increased Russian influence in the Mediterranean coupled with China's expanding sway over ports in the Eastern Mediterranean could further embolden Turkey, which is aggressively seeking to grow its control over energy-rich waters in the region in violation of international law.

"To avoid the worst outcomes for an already fraught region, there is no substitute and frankly no alternative to some form of cooperation among regional actors. … With the Middle East likely to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis more fragile and potentially explosive than before, a cooperative architecture that can build regional resilience is an imperative," said strategist Steven Kenney and international relations scholar Ross Harrison in a recently released Middle East Institute report.

The economic part of the message is already evident: ending the pandemic and achieving economic recovery will be a long and painful process.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon, and Israel are witnessing first signs of the pandemic's second wave.

Increasing the likelihood of a cancellation of this year's Hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca), scheduled for late July, Saudi Arabia reimposed a lockdown in the Red Sea port of Jeddah, the Hajj's major gateway, after a spike in coronavirus infections. The lockdown involves a two-week, 15-hour curfew from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.

A dramatic surge in infections in Iran, averaging 3,000 new cases a day, has rekindled the Middle East's largest outbreak, weeks after the country appeared to have tamed the virus.

Israel closed dozens of schools and ordered any school reporting a virus case to shut down following a surge in coronavirus cases that swept through classrooms two weeks after they were allowed to reopen.

Mass social and economic protests in Lebanon, a country on the brink of financial collapse, have heightened the risk of a second wave of the pandemic. The surge bodes ill for economic recovery.

Based on a survey of 1,228 CEOs, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce warned that a staggering 70 percent of businesses in the emirate expects to close their doors within the next six months.

The warning came as the United Arab Emirates government extended a nightly curfew following a doubling of infections after it eased lockdown restrictions.

Government-backed UAE carriers Emirates and Etihad Airways have since extended reduced pay for staff until September as they try to preserve cash.

Austerity measures threaten to bring the social unrest that has roiled the Middle East and North Africa for the past decade closer to the Gulf.

"If it's temporary, one or two years, I can adapt. My concern is that more taxes will be permanent – and that will be an issue," said Muhammad, a Saudi government worker, after his $266 monthly cost of living allowance was canceled and sales taxes tripled as part of painful austerity measures announced by Saudi Foreign Minister Muhammad Al Jadaan.

The government worker's words were echoed in a rare pushback against the government by columnist Khalid Sulaiman, writing in the Okaz daily, one of the kingdom's tightly controlled media outlets. "I was hoping [the minister] would say [the tax hike] would be reviewed after the coronavirus crisis is gone or contained, or when oil prices improve, but he did not say that. Citizens are feeling concerned that pressure on their living standards will last longer than the current crisis," said Sulaiman.

The challenges Gulf States face – an ongoing healthcare crisis and a painful, protracted and complex road toward economic recovery – coupled with debilitating regional conflicts that not only fester but appear to be expanding are almost insurmountable obstacles.

Kuwaiti efforts to resolve the rift in the Gulf and pressure by US President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain to lift their three-year air embargo of Qatar have raised the hope of an end to that conflict. These hopes may be premature, as there has been no public indication that the parties are willing to seriously engage.

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The proxy war in Libya, in which the UAE-backed forces of rebel commander Khalifa Haftar are on the defensive, is extending into the Eastern Mediterranean as Turkey claims rights to energy-rich territorial waters in violation of international law.

Middle Eastern leaders are confronting the worst set of crises since independence.

Addressing these predicaments requires regional and global leadership that looks beyond immediate survival and ideological and geopolitical rivalries: a leadership that recognizes that stability and solutions to shared threats must be vested in longer-term management and cooperation in tackling common challenges rather than maintaining conflict.

The problem is that few leaders seem willing or able to step up to the plate.

Dr. James M. Dorsey, a non-resident senior associate at the  Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, and co-director of the University of Würzburg's Institute for Fan Culture.

This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute in Washington and a former head of the National Iranian American Council, recently drew that harsh conclusion. No doubt, Parsi may be correct in his ultimate analysis. US-Iranian tensions could easily spin out of control into an all-out war that neither Iran nor the United States wants.

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There are, however, shades of grey that separate longstanding tit-for-tat attacks on US targets – primarily in Iraq, occasional Iranian harassment of US naval vessels in the Gulf and sporadic US responses – from all-out war.

The United States and Iran have been engaged in tit-for-tats with varying degrees of intensity for years, and so far have avoided an uncontrolled escalation despite incidents such as the 1988 downing of Iran Air flight 655, which killed 274 people, and the assassination by the United States earlier this year of Iranian Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani.

Leaving aside potential black swans, a likely scenario is that a US desire to reduce its commitment to the Gulf States, increased Gulf doubts about US reliability as a regional security guarantor and a new world in which Gulf and Western states struggle to come to grips with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic combine to create an environment more conducive to a multilateral security arrangement – one that would reduce the risk of war, even if multilateralism seems to be on the retreat around the world.

US President Donald Trump's threat in early April to cut off military sales to Saudi Arabia if the kingdom did not bury the hatchet in its oil price war with Russia, sparking the collapse of the oil markets, is an inevitable epic battle for market share.

More immediately, it drove the message home in Riyadh that US security guarantees were conditional and reinforced Saudi perceptions that the United States was getting disproportionately more out of its close ties to the kingdom than the other way around.

The Trump administration, in a little-noticed sign of the times, put Saudi Arabia in late April on a priority watch list for violations of intellectual property rights because of its pirating of sports broadcasting rights owned by Qatar's beIN television franchise. The listing threatened to complicate Riyadh's already controversial bid to acquire English soccer club Newcastle United.

It is still too early to assess the geopolitical impact of the global economic downturn. Depressed demand and pricing for oil and gas could enable China to diversify its sourcing and potentially reduce its dependence on the Middle East, a volatile region with heightened security risks. China imported 31% more oil from Russia last month while its intake of Saudi crude slipped by 1.8% compared to March 2019.

At the same time, low oil prices that make US production commercially less viable could temporarily increase Washington's interest in Gulf security.

Fundamentally, and irrespective of what scenario plays out, little will change. The United States will still want to reduce its exposure to the Middle East. For its part, China will still need to secure oil and gas supplies as well as its investments and significant diaspora community in the region while seeking to avoid being sucked into intractable regional conflicts.

By the same token, the gradual revival of economic life, including the probable phased revitalization of supply chains and international travel, combined with a need to rethink migrant worker housing and create local employment, could alter Middle Eastern perspectives of China's way of doing business.

China's Belt and Road Initiative projects often have a China-wins-twice aspect to them which, while they have always been problematic, will be even more so in a post-pandemic economic environment. China-funded projects rely by and large on Chinese labor and materials supply rather than local sourcing.

The People's Republic's "China First" approach extends beyond economics and commerce. In an environment in which the United States is an irreplaceable but unreliable partner, Gulf States may look differently at Chinese hesitancy to co-shoulder responsibility for regional security with the risk of having to involve itself in multiple conflicts from which it has managed so far to remain aloof.

The coronavirus pandemic is a watershed that will color Middle Eastern attitudes towards all the region's foremost external players: the United States, China and Russia. Prior to the crisis, Russia – the weakest of the three – was playing a weak economic hand well, but it may now find that more difficult.

Gulf States are likely to conclude that assertive go-it-alone policies are risky and only work in circumstances where big powers are either part of the ploy or look the other way – though they were easier to pursue in a stable economic environment in which their oil and gas revenue base appeared secure.

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The UAE appears to have read the writing on the wall. It began a year ago to hedge its bets by reaching out to Iran in a bid to ensure that it would not become a theater of war if US-Iranian tensions were to spin out of control. Still, that has not stopped its support for rebel forces in Libya led by renegade Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in violation of an international arms embargo.

Trump's threat to cut off military sales to Saudi Arabia should have driven the point home. Yet the kingdom and other Gulf States, which are financially and economically weakened, less able to play big powers off against one another and deprived of any viable alternative options, may find that a multilateral security arrangement that incorporates rather than replaces the US regional defense umbrella is the only security straw they can hold on to.

But in eventually attempting to negotiate a new arrangement, they may find they no longer have the kind of leverage they had prior to a pandemic that in many ways has pulled the rug from beneath them.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Unlike Western democracies, which themselves have little to boast about in their handling of the crisis, countries like Pakistan and Egypt lack checks and balances, robust civil societies and independent media, and have gone out of their way to keep it that way.

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Egypt, apparently taking a leaf out of China's playbook, reprimanded foreign correspondents from The Guardian and The New York Times in Cairo for reporting that the number of cases in the country was far higher than the 495 confirmed by authorities as of March 29. The coverage was based on conclusions by infectious disease specialists at the University of Toronto who had analyzed flight and traveler data as well as infection rates. The scientists estimated that "Egypt likely has a large burden of COVID-2019 [coronavirus] cases that are unreported." They put the number of Egyptian cases as high as 19,130 as of March 15.

In response, authorities withdrew the press permit of the Guardian's Ruth Michaelson and expelled her from the country while The New York Times's Declan Walsh was forced to delete a tweet. Several Egyptians have also been detained on charges of spreading false rumors.

Egypt did impose strict measures, including the closure of all educational institutions and the suspension of flights, on March 15, the day the scientists published their findings. The government also announced a $6.38 billion fund to fight the virus.

A World Health Organization (WHO) official in Cairo said the group could not verify the scientists' methodology but added that "it is possible that there are many other cases with mild symptoms which did not result in hospital visits, and therefore are not detected or reported."

Independent reporting is a crucial node in an effective early warning system. It creates pressure for a timely response. The effort to suppress it was in line with Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Sisi's initial reaction to the virus. Rather than focusing on early preventive measures at home, Sisi sought to benefit from China's predicament.

With only one officially confirmed case of a Chinese national arriving in February at Cairo Airport, an individual who was hospitalized and who recovered, Sisi sent his health minister, Hala Zayed, to China to praise it for preventing a far worse global outbreak by taking very strong precautionary measures. This was done despite Beijing's costly failure to confront the disease firmly from the outset.

Pakistan's approach in recent months was no less negligent than that of Egypt.

Like Egypt, a country in which the power of the military is thinly camouflaged by hollowed-out institutions, Pakistan waffled until last week in its response to the pandemic. In a bid to earn brownie points in Beijing, the Pakistani government refused early on to evacuate some 800 students from Wuhan. It also failed to manage the return of potentially infected pilgrims from Iran. And finally, it catered to ultra-conservative groups.

As a result, Pakistan, a deeply religious country that borders on both China and Iran, allowed Tablighi Jamaat, a proselytizing group with a huge global following in some 80 countries that is banned in Saudi Arabia, to continue organizing mass events. The group organized a 16,000-person mass gathering in early March in Malaysia where scores were infected with the coronavirus.

Hundreds of Tablighi gathered from March 21 to 23 in the Mardan District of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to pray, listen to speeches, and eat and sleep in congested quarters. One participant, professing his belief that God would protect the Tablighi, described spending almost six weeks together with thousands of others at Tablighi headquarters near Lahore, a city of 11 million, just before traveling to Mardan.

Pakistan Religious Affairs Minister Noor-ul-Haq Qadri caved into demands by the clergy to keep mosques open but capped the maximum number of people at prayers at five. The minister's concession reinforced a popular perception that the Pakistani government viewed the virus crisis as less grave than what was being projected by health authorities across the globe.

"If the pandemic was serious, the government would've shut down all the mosques," said Sadiq Bhutt, speaking through an interpreter, as he entered a mosque in Islamabad for Friday prayers.

Ultimately, the Pakistan military overrode government policy and intervened to impose a lockdown like those currently underway in much of the rest of the world. But as in Egypt, it may be too late for Pakistan, which is both the world's most populous Muslim nation (207 million) and ill-equipped for a pandemic.

Ultimately, the lesson of Egypt's, Pakistan's and China's initial handling of coronavirus is that neither self-serving autocrats nor authoritarians have the wherewithal to confront a crisis like a pandemic in a timely fashion. Their much-delayed responses failed to take the public's interests to heart, focusing instead on the interests of elites that prioritize geopolitical or political advantage.

Western democracies have not performed much better, with U.S. President Donald Trump seemingly more concerned about the economic impact in an election year than about public health and people's lives.

The difference is that Western democracies have the ability to hold leaders to account and implement lessons learned from the costly mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic.

It's hard to hold out a similar hope for Arab autocracies or countries like Pakistan whose democratic facade is at best skin deep.

This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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The risks are magnified by the deliberate targeting during conflict of hospitals and other medical facilities and the mass dislocation of millions who are forced into bare-knuckle, unhygienic refugee camps with hardly any services and rampant malnutrition.

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Protesters in countries like Iraq and Thailand, who demand an overhaul of the political system, and Hong Kong, where reform is the driver, have dashed government hopes that fear of contagion would take the wind out of the demonstrators' sails.

Protesters in Iraq, which has so far reported 124 cases and 10 deaths, have refused to abandon mass public gatherings, calling instead for the virus to take its toll on the country's leadership.

"Listen to us Corona, come and visit the thieves who stole our wealth, come and take revenge from those who stole our dreams, we only loved our homeland, but they killed us," protesters chanted.

"The government uses coronavirus as an excuse to end the protests. They tried everything – snipers, live bullets, tear gas, abduction, and so on and on – but they failed. They are now finding another way to stop us, but they will fail again," said Yasamin Mustafa, a teenage protester from Basra, referring to government warnings about the virus.

Similarly, students in Thailand have ignored calls by military-backed Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha to end the protests because of the outbreak. The students are demanding Prayuth's resignation and political reforms after the country's Constitutional Court disbanded Future Forward, a popular pro-democracy party.

In Hong Kong, with Chief Executive Carrie Lam's approval rating sinking to a record low of just 9.1 percent after her government faced criticism over its handling of the outbreak, protests have moved from the street to online public gatherings in support of longstanding demands for reform.

At the same time, Lam's backers in Beijing are confronting demands for greater freedom of speech at a moment when the government of Chinese President Xi Jinping has imposed absolute media conformity.

Xi's critics claim that greater transparency and freedom could have prevented the virus from turning China into the world's most affected country, with economic consequences the severity of which have yet to be fully appreciated.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg's former China bureau chief Dexter Roberts warned that the long-term fallout of the virus could be fundamental, with hundreds of millions of domestic migrant workers "still facing unprecedented virus-related disruptions in their lives and work" as incomes have dried up, aggravated by enforced quarantines and "a skewed health care system [that] relegates [them] to understaffed and underfunded clinics."

As occurred in the wake of the SARS crisis in 2003, the government will likely benefit in the short term from middle- and upper-class support for increased political and social controls enabled by its rollout of a 21st-century Orwellian surveillance state, argued Roberts.

"The coronavirus may eventually fade as a threat, but it has exposed the deep inequities that divide Chinese into two classes. … That split remains the biggest obstacle to China's development," with disadvantaged migrant workers posing "the biggest threat to its economic and political future," said Roberts.

As for Iran, the virus crisis is not the last nail in the government's coffin, but it has significantly widened an already yawning gap in public trust ripped open by widespread corruption, repressive policies, lack of transparency, and the government's mishandling of the downing in January of a Ukrainian airliner.

"The relationship between the government and the public is severely damaged. The government is suffering a massive loss of confidence. And this shows in critical situations like now. Due to this distrust, society ignores information given out by the government. In recent weeks, the government has too often had to correct its own statements," said sociologist Saeed Paivandi.

Paivandi was referring to faltering efforts by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the government to persuade Iranians to observe disruptive health precautions at a time when the country is struggling to cope with the devastating economic impact of harsh U.S. sanctions that have complicated its access to medical products.

Initial government failure to confront the crisis head-on by, for example, quarantining the holy city of Qom, the Iranian hub of the virus, has turned Iran into a source of the virus elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond. The extent of the health crisis at home combined with the impact of the U.S. sanctions threatens to put the Islamic Republic in the same risk category as Syria, Yemen and Libya.

This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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Haftar's refusal thwarted, at least temporarily, an effort by Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to structure the ceasefire so it would align opposing Russian and Turkish interests, allow the two parties to cooperate in the exploitation of Libya's energy resources and protect a Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement creating an Exclusive Economic Zone that strengthens Russian-backed Turkish maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Putin-Erdoğan maneuvers are designed to thwart a Greek-Cypriot-Israeli agreement to build a pipeline that would supply gas to Europe, reducing European dependence on Russian gas in the process.

Critics charge that the Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement, which would limit Greek-Cypriot-Israeli access to hydrocarbons in the eastern Mediterranean, violates the Law of the Sea.

Greece has warned that it will block EU backing for any Libyan peace deal as long as the Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement is in place. Haftar visited Greece, as well as other countries, following his rejection of the ceasefire and ahead of a conference on Libya hosted by Germany in Berlin on January 19.

Haftar's rejection came as Turkish troops arrived in Libya to bolster forces of the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, which are defending the capital, Tripoli, against an eight-month assault by Haftar's rebel Libyan National Army (LNA), which is backed by Russian mercenaries with close ties to the Kremlin, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Prince Muhammad's presence at the inauguration of the Egyptian naval base underlined the UAE's influence in Egypt. The UAE backed el-Sissi's 2013 military coup, which toppled the country's first and only democratically elected president, and is determined to counter Islamist forces as well as Turkish influence in Libya and the Horn of Africa.

UAE and Egyptian backing of Haftar is not just about countering jihadist and non-jihadist Islamists and Turkey but also Qatar, Turkey's ally, which also supports the Libyan rebels.

The UAE-Turkish-Qatari proxy war in Libya is also increasingly colored by Prince Muhammad and el-Sissi's opposition to efforts to resolve divisions among the Gulf states that spilled into the open with the declaration of a Saudi-UAE-led diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar in 2017.

Saudi Arabia has hinted in recent months that it might be amenable to an easing of the boycott, a move that is believed to be opposed by the UAE as long as Qatar does not make significant concessions on issues like freewheeling broadcaster Al Jazeera and support for political Islam.

The new naval base's location symbolizes Egypt's conundrum, which is also a problem for the UAE, at a time when Egypt is at odds with Ethiopia over the operation of a giant dam Ethiopia is building on the Nile.

Stepping up its involvement in Libya puts Egypt at risk of becoming embroiled in two conflicts at the same time.

Egypt claims the dam puts a million Egyptian jobs, $1.8 billion in annual economic output and electricity valued at $300 million at risk.

The base is aimed at "securing the country's southern coasts, protecting economic investments and natural resources and facing security threats in the Red Sea," according to a spokesman for el-Sissi.

The president has warned that Egypt would take all necessary measures to protect its rights to Nile waters.

So far, Egypt is banking on mediation to help it avoid being trapped between a rock and a hard place by achieving a ceasefire in Libya that would keep Egypt's hands free to deal with Ethiopia should a conflict erupt.

The question is whether Haftar – who, without signing the ceasefire agreement, reportedly told German officials that he would adhere to its terms – and the UAE are willing to play ball.

The proof will be in the pudding. German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the stakes by insisting in advance of the Berlin talks that they ensure "that the weapons embargo is adhered to again."

The United Nations has accused the UAE, together with several other countries, including Turkey, of violating the UN embargo.

As a result, it may be the UAE rather than Haftar that has a decisive voice in Berlin.

Said North Africa expert Ben Fishman: "Until Abu Dhabi pulls back its drones, operators and other crucial military support, the prospects for Libya's stability will remain dim. Besides the fact that they provide the greatest advantage to Haftar's forces, focusing on the Emiratis also makes sense because the other foreign players currently have reasons to de-escalate on their own."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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What is clear is that protesters have learned not to surrender the streets when a leader agrees to resign but to keep up the pressure until a process of transition has been agreed upon that will lead to a more transparent, accountable and open political system.

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Protesters in Algeria, Lebanon, and Iraq, demanding appointment of a leader untainted by association with the old regime, have stood their ground as governments and vested interests have sought to salvage what they can by attempting to replace one leader with another with close ties to the ruling elites.

Repression buys embattled regimes time at best. More often than not it reinforces the protesters' resolve.

Harsh repression enabled the government of Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, one of the Middle East and North Africa's most brutal leaders, to quash last year's protests. The question is for how long.

That question is all the more pressing given that protesters in the Middle East and North Africa, as in Hong Kong, are driven by a sense of "now or never" – a sense of having nothing more to lose.

The killing of more than 100 protesters in Sudan did not stop people from protesting until a transition process was put in place. The deaths of hundreds of protesters in Iraq and the injuring of thousands more failed to weaken their resolve.

Their resilience suggests a fundamental shift in attitude that goes beyond the sense of desperation associated with having nothing left to lose.

It reflects the evolution of a new assertiveness, sense of empowerment, and rejection of submissive adherence to authority that first emerged in the 2011 popular Arab uprisings that toppled the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen.

Vested interests backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE rolled back the achievements of those revolts, with the exception of Tunisia, leading to the rise of el-Sisi in Egypt and to brutal civil wars in Libya and Yemen.

In some ways, the counter-revolution has backfired. The war in Yemen has severely tarnished Saudi Arabia's image, focused attention on the dark side of UAE rulers and fueled the resolve of the 2019 protesters.

The last decade's change in attitudes is also evident in Lebanon and Iraq, where protesters are demanding political and social structures that emphasize national, rather than ethnic or sectarian religious identities, in a world in which leaders advocate some form of racial, ethnic or religious supremacy.

Last weekend's US military strikes against Iraqi militias associated with Iran suggest that world leaders ignore the protests at their peril.

If protesters focused their demand for a withdrawal of foreign forces primarily on Iranian influence prior to the strikes, they now focus equally on the presence of US forces.

The strikes also put at risk a stalling effort by Saudi Arabia to dial down tensions with Iran in the wake of attacks in September on two key Saudi oil facilities and US reluctance to respond.

Reduced Saudi-Iranian tensions, coupled with changing youth attitudes toward religion, facilitate moving away from debilitating sectarian politics that have long served to keep autocratic leaders and ruling elites in power.

Even so, fragile protest outcomes are likely to shape the Middle East and North Africa in the coming decade.

Successful uprisings like that of Sudan as well as stalemated ones like those in Algeria, Lebanon, and Iraq all run the continuous risk of being thwarted by power grabs by militaries and other vested interests that can produce harsh repression and even civil war.

The lesson of the past decade for the coming one is that waves of protest are not a matter of days, months, or even a year. They are long, drawn-out processes that often play out over decades.

2011 ushered in a global era of defiance and dissent with the Arab uprisings as its most dramatic centerpiece.

The decade of the 2020s is likely to be one in which protests produce uncertain and fragile outcomes at best, irrespective of whether protesters or vested interests gain the immediate upper hand.

Fragility at best, instability at worst, is likely to be the norm. To change that, protesters and governments would have to agree on economic, political and social systems that are truly inclusive and ensure that all have a stake. That is a tall order.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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In what may be marching orders for his national security adviser, John Bolton, US President Donald Trump tweeted last week: "Hearing word that Russia, Syria and, to a lesser extent, Iran, are bombing the hell out of Idlib Province in Syria, and indiscriminately killing many innocent civilians. The World is watching this butchery. What is the purpose, what will it get you? STOP!"

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While few expect the advisors' meeting this month in Jerusalem to produce immediate results, American and Israeli officials hope that it could prepare the ground for a deal that would further weaken Russian ties to Iran and reduce, if not terminate, Iran's presence in Syria.

Among multiple scenarios being bounced around, some analysts believe a possible deal could involve Russia pushing Iran out of Syria, a key US and Israeli demand, in exchange for the lifting of at least some American and European sanctions against Russia and US acceptance of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a similar Russian proposal last November.

"The fact that the Russians see value in these conversations, that they're willing to do it publicly, I think is in and of itself quite significant. And so we are hopeful that they're coming to the meeting with some fresh proposals that will allow us to make progress," said a senior Trump administration official.

The officials suggest that a recent Russian refusal to sell Iran its most advanced S-400 missile defense system because it could fuel regional tensions, as well as tacit Russian acquiescence to Israeli military strikes against Iranian and Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah targets in Syria, could open the door to a potential deal.

Iran has denied wanting to acquire the Russian system, while Russia has officially demanded that Israel halt its attacks and respect Syrian sovereignty.

Bolton's discussions with Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia's Security Council, could not come at a worse moment for Iran. The Islamic Republic is struggling to dampen the effect of harsh US sanctions following the Trump administration's withdrawal last year from the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran's nuclear program.

Analysts Udi Dekel and Carmit Valensi argued in a report published last month by the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) that despite public statements to the contrary, Russia, like Israel, rejects a withdrawal of US forces from Syria.

After announcing a complete pullback in February, Trump has since agreed to keep several hundred US troops in the country.

Dekel and Valensi said a US withdrawal would strengthen Iran and force Russia to allow Iran to take control of oil fields in the east of the country.

Writing in Haaretz, columnist Zvi Bar'el suggested that Russia and Iran differ over the endgame in Syria. "Russia has no intention of simply returning Syria to Assad's control," Bar'el said. He added that Russia sees Syria as a base from which to forge closer ties to the Gulf and Egypt.

Iran, by contrast, hopes to capitalize on its massive investment in Syria to maintain its influence in Lebanon, counter Saudi regional ambitions and gain access to the Mediterranean.

Scores were killed in clashes between pro-Iranian militias and Russian forces in Aleppo and Deir az-Zor in April. Russian forces last month reportedly removed Shi'ite militias from areas close to the international airports of Aleppo and Damascus.

Ibrahim Badawi, a Syrian columnist identified with Assad's regime, reported that Russian and Syrian security forces had arrested pro-Iranian Syrian activists.

Badawi said further that a recent reshuffle of the upper echelons of the Syrian state security apparatus had been designed to weaken the position of Maher Assad, the president's brother and commander of his Republican Guard as well as the army's elite Fourth Armored Division. Maher Assad is believed to be close to Iran.

Russia and Iran are "each … striving to strengthen [their] influence in the Syrian security apparatuses and in the militias fighting on the ground, while weakening the other side's influence and presence … The [once-] concealed disagreements among Syria's allies are now out in the open. It is no longer a secret that Russia, in response to a clear demand from the Gulf, aspires to weaken Iran's influence," Badawi wrote.

A possible litmus test of the potential of the talks between the national security advisers may be whether Russia accedes to an Israeli request not to give Syria full control of the S-300 anti-missile system, the equivalent of the US Patriot batteries, which Moscow has already sold and delivered.

Israeli officials have warned their Russian counterparts that once fully controlled by Syrian forces, the S-300 would be a legitimate target.

Israel and Russia agreed four years ago to coordinate military actions over Syria in order to avoid accidentally exchanging fire.

Israel, however, last year rejected a Russian offer to ensure that Iranian forces would not move within 100 kilometers of the Golan Heights, which were recently recognized as Israeli territory by the US. Accepting the Russian offer would have amounted to tacit acceptance of an Iranian presence in Syria.

Dekel and Valensi noted in their report that Israeli forces had reduced the number of attacks on Iranian targets in Syria in a bid to improve chances of exploiting Russian-Iranian strains.

"There is a window of opportunity that allows Israel to try … with Russia and the United States … to formulate and achieve shared interests that it has with the two superpowers, most importantly increasing stability in Syria and instituting governmental reforms in Syria, along with reducing Iranian influence there," Dekel and Valensi said.

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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A 54-year-old former justice minister, Issa, one of a younger generation of Islamic scholars willing to do Prince Muhammad's bidding, has been doing the rounds internationally and making all the right moves to project the de facto Saudi leader as the spearhead of efforts to counter ultra-conservatism at home and fight political and militant Islam across the globe. Issa is doing all he can to promote the crown prince as a tolerant leader bent on fostering inter-faith dialogue.

Issa's moves also serve to strengthen ties with U.S. President Donald Trump's evangelical voter base and shape an environment that legitimizes Saudi Arabia's close cooperation with Israel.

In his latest move, Issa recently convened a four-day international conference on moderate Islam as head of the Muslim World League, once a prime vehicle for the kingdom's global promotion of anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian ultra-conservative strands of Islam, and a member of the Supreme Council of Ulema, Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority.

Breaking with Saudi religious and political tradition, Issa has reached out to Jewish and evangelical communities. He called during a speech in October at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, widely viewed as pro-Israeli, for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem to promote the cause of peace, despite the fact that Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have formal diplomatic relations.

Issa has defended Prince Muhammad's reforms, such as the curbing of the powers of the kingdom's religious police, lifting the ban on women's driving, and nurturing modern-day entertainment such as cinemas and concerts.

He has rejected the use of violence, including against Israel, acknowledged the Holocaust, denounced the efforts of Holocaust deniers, and announced that he would next January become the most senior Islamic cleric to visit Auschwitz on the 75th anniversary of its liberation.

Issa laid out his approach in an interview with Le Monde two years ago, saying, "All religious institutions must modernize their speech, to make it compatible with the times."

No doubt, Issa's moves help reshape an environment in which religious intolerance and prejudice are the norm and remain widespread. But critics charge that his efforts to project Prince Muhammad as a religious reformer do not go beyond words and symbols and reflect a public relations effort rather than true change.

It moreover remains unclear how effective Issa's efforts are. They certainly help the Trump administration defend its unconditional support for Prince Muhammad, including its willingness to shield the kingdom from accountability for its conduct during the war in Yemen and with regard to the killing last October of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the premises of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Riyadh insists that Khashoggi was murdered by rogue operatives.

Some of Issa's well-connected interlocutors during his visit to Washington said they came away from discussions with him not sure what to think. Likewise, a Saudi intellectual rhetorically asked Saudi Arabia scholar Stephane Lacroix during an interview: "How can one take Muhammad Al-Issa's statements seriously when religious bookstores in Riyadh are full of books advocating the exact opposite?"

Malaysia, one of the kingdom's associates in countering extremism, has taken a similarly critical view of its efforts. Last year, Malaysian defense minister Muhammad Sabu closed the Saudi-backed King Salman Centre for International Peace in Kuala Lumpur following criticism that the kingdom, with its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam, may not be the right partner.

In a recent article discussing the limits of Prince Muhammad's reforms, Lacroix, pointing to the arrests of Islamic thinkers critical of the kingdom's ultra-conservative Wahhabi traditions and the suppression of all debate, concluded that "this makes MbS's religious reforms look more like a public relations stunt than a genuine transformation." (Lacroix was referring to Prince Muhammad by his initials.)

Lacroix's conclusion is bolstered by the fact that there is little to suggest fundamental reform of religion involving tolerance at a practical rather than a talking heads level beyond the countering of extremism at home and abroad, a key Saudi interest. The social changes Prince Muhammad has so far introduced polish the kingdom's tarnished image and further his plan to diversify its oil-dependent economy and create badly needed jobs.

If anything, Prince Muhammad's reforms appear to be designed to shave off Wahhabism's rough edges, project a more moderate image, and promote – both at home and abroad, in countries like Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Libya – an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam that preaches absolute obedience to the ruler. Prince Muhammad's crackdown on all forms of dissent enforces the principle.

By the same token, he has done little to push reform since lifting the ban on women's driving and enhancing their professional and sporting opportunities. The kingdom's male guardianship of women has been softened but remains firmly in place.

Scores of young Saudi women have recently fled the kingdom to escape family abuse and seek asylum elsewhere. Saudi Arabia, rather than cracking down on domestic abuse and abolishing the guardianship system, has sought to prevent women from fleeing and force the return of those who made it abroad.

The kingdom also has yet to take steps that would put flesh at home on the skeleton of its notion of religious tolerance.

Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus continue to be banned from building houses of worship despite the fact that archaeologists have found evidence of the existence at the time of the Prophet Muhammad of a 7th century synod near Jubail, and the fact that older residents along the Saudi border with Yemen vividly recall interacting with a Jewish community.

After brutally cracking down on rebellious Shiites in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province, Prince Muhammad has moved quickly to rebuild the leveled town of Awamiyah. Shiites nonetheless accounted for the majority of the 37 people beheaded in April in a mass execution.

Issa's Supreme Council of Ulema has no Shiite clerics among its members. Nor do Shiite judges sit on the benches of national courts or serve in the police force or as ambassadors.

The risk for Prince Muhammad is that religious moderation, like trickle-down economic reform, could become a litmus test by which to assess his ability to deliver on his reforms.

A recent poll of Arab youth, including Saudi youth, showed that two-thirds of those surveyed felt that religion played too large a role, while 79 percent argued that religious institutions needed to be reformed. Half said that religious values are holding the Arab world back.

Said Lacroix: "If religious reform is only a push from above and not the result of genuine social debate, it is easily reversible."

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Western governments have so far uncritically supported social and economic reform efforts rather than more forcefully seeking to ensure that they bear fruit, and have been lax in pressuring regimes to curb excesses of political repression.

Critics charge that the survey, which was conducted by a Dubai-based public relations firm and focused on the 18-24 age group, was flawed because it gave a greater weighting to views in smaller Gulf states as opposed to the region's more populous countries, such as Egypt. The survey used small samples of up to 300 people and did not include Qatar, Syria, or Sudan.

The results are a mixed bag for Arab autocrats. They suggest that squaring the circle between the requirements of reform and youth expectations could prove to be regimes' Achilles' heel.

A majority of youth, weaned on decades of reliance on government for jobs and social services, say governments that are unilaterally rewriting social contracts and rolling back aspects of the cradle-to-grave welfare state have so far failed to deliver.

Even more problematic, young Arabs expect governments to provide for them at a time when reform requires streamlining of bureaucracies, reduced state control and stimulation of the private sector.

A whopping 78% of those surveyed said it was the government's responsibility to provide jobs. An equal number expected energy to be subsidized, 65% complained that governments were not doing enough to support young families and 60% expected government to supply housing.

By the same token, 78% expressed concern about the quality of education on offer, including 70% of those in the Gulf. Yet 80% of those in the Gulf said local education systems prepared them for jobs of the future, as opposed to a regional total of 49% who felt education was lagging. Nonetheless, only 38% of those surveyed in the Gulf said they would opt for local higher education.

There appeared to be a similar gap between youth aspirations and the foreign and regional policies of governments.

Assertive policies, particularly by Gulf states, which have fueled regional conflicts, including wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen, the Saudi-Iranian rivalry and the two-year-old diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar, run counter to a desire among a majority of those surveyed to see an end to the disputes. Like their Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini rulers, 67% of young Arabs see Iran as an enemy.

The survey also suggests that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, contrary to common wisdom, is an issue that resonates with many. With 79% of those surveyed saying they are concerned about the dispute, the question arises of whether the Gulf's rapprochement with Israel and support for U.S. President Donald Trump's peace plan enjoys popular support.

The suggestion that Gulf policies towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may not be wholeheartedly supported is bolstered by the fact that the number of people surveyed this year who view the United States as an enemy rose to 59% compared to 32% five years ago.

Similarly, Arab leaders' reliance on religion as a regime legitimizer and efforts to steer Islam in the direction of apolitical quietism are proving to be a double-edged sword and one probable reason why men like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have sought to reduce the role of the religious establishment by promoting hyper-nationalism.

Some two-thirds of those surveyed felt that religion played too large a role, up from 50% four years ago. Seventy-nine percent believed religious institutions need to be reformed, while half said that religious values are holding the Arab world back.

Publication of the survey coincided with the release by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) of its 2019 report. The report designated Saudi Arabia as one of the world's "worst violators" of religious freedoms, highlighting its discrimination against Shiite Muslims and Christians.

"Shi[ite] Muslims in Saudi Arabia continue to face discrimination in education, employment, and the judiciary, and lack access to senior positions in the government and military," the 234-page report said.

Leaders of the United Arab Emirates, accused by human rights groups of systematic violations, are likely to see a silver lining in the survey and a reconfirmation of their policy of economic and relative social liberalism coupled with absolute political control.

Forty-four percent of those surveyed named the UAE as their preferred country, as opposed to less than 22% opting for Canada, the U.S., Turkey, or Britain.

In a white paper accompanying the survey, Afshin Molavi, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, concluded that the survey showed that "the demands and dreams of young Arabs are neither radical nor revolutionary" and that they were unlikely to "fall for the false utopias or 'charismatic' leaders their parents fell for."

Jihad Azour, the International Monetary Fund's top Middle East person, said in his contribution to the white paper that "what is needed is a new social contract between MENA (Middle East and North Africa) governments and citizens that ensures accountability, transparency and a commitment to the principle that no one is left behind. … The latest youth survey makes clear that we have a long way to go."

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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