International Politics of the Middle East

72% of Iran’s exports go to Iraq

“Iran is in dire need of Iraq, particularly at this stage; not only to market its goods, but to export them to other countries, or to facilitate the movement of Iranian funds through Baghdad to Damascus and Beirut.” He said, “Iraq is Iran’s economic outlet to the world.”

Vanishingly few modern Arab leaders have ever voluntarily stepped down, even when terminally ill, incapacitated, or deeply unpopular (none of which apply to the outgoing emir)

the emir's decision is as shocking in its own way as were the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings

Those crafting the official version of the handover have therefore been exceedingly keen to present it as a historic but normal move, one that might even be emulated by other Arab monarchs -- were they as bold and farsighted as the departing Sheikh Hamad.

The highest-ranking Soviet-bloc intelligence officer ever to defect to the West claims in a new book that anti-American Islamic terrorism had its roots in a secret 1970s-era KGB plot to harm but the United States and Israel by seeding Muslim countries with carefully targeted propaganda.

Andropov began his leadership of the KGB just months before the 1967 Six-Day War between Arabs and Israelis, in which Israel humiliated the key Soviet allies Syria and Egypt. And he decided to settle the score by training Palestinian militants to hijack El Al airplanes and bomb sites in Jerusalem.But more shocking, Andropov commissioned the first Arabic translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian-forged 1905 propaganda book that alleged Jews were plotting to take over Europe - and were being aided by the United States. The Protocols book, Pacepa claims, became 'the basis for much of Hitler's anti-Semitic philosophy.' And the KGB, he writes, disseminated 'thousands of copies' in Muslim countries during the 1970s.

In 1972, Pacepa writes, his DIE agency 'received from the KGB an Arabic translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion along with "documentary" material, also in Arabic, "proving" that the United States was a Zionist country." He was 'ordered,' he adds, 'to "discreetly" disseminate both "documents" within its targeted Islamic countries.'

"Russia shouldn't take this [spying] for granted, but shouldn't dramatise the situation either. Intelligence agencies exist to spy not only on private citizens but on top government leaders too."