The UAE Israel Peace Deal Is The End Of An Era

This is a video I’ve wanted to make for a while. After looking at it intensely for at least three years now, I’ve got some very strong opinions on the history of the Arab World. I’ve been reluctant to lay them out however, because it’s impossible to talk about the Arab world in general without talking about Israel. It’s a topic that is guaranteed to alienate at least half my audience. As you can tell from today’s video, my views are capable of irritating all sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I have held off on addressing that conflict directly because of general chicken-heartedness, and a feeling that I haven’t read enough on the subject yet.

Well a week or so back Israel and the UAE took it out of my hands. The deal announced by Trump is tremendously significant, though not for the reasons that the parties or the deal-makers suspect. This really could be a turning point in Arab history more generally. Or maybe not. Anyway, I’m delighted to have been forced to get these ideas out there. Let me know what you think!

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Video Transcript after the jump…

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Trump’s Re-Election Means War With Iran | Election 2020 8

It’s frustrating when I upload a video and realize I’ve left something out. What today’s video needs is a brief description of the mechanism that makes me think Trump’s war with Iran is inevitable. It’s not like Trump will start a war with Iran. The actions that have already been taken by the Trump regime mean that there will be some sort of Iranian reprisal within the first months after his re-election. Despite his savage expansion of almost every war the US was already fighting, I do still hold the unfashionable belief that Trump knows a new war would be stupid. It doesn’t matter. The damage has already been done. Iran’s year delayed revenge for Soleimani will be too outsize to not respond to. Hundreds of dead US soldiers? A high profile assassination of a beloved US figure? Whatever. It will be something that no US president will be able to avoid responding to. And then we will be off to the races. I am convinced that the only chance for avoiding this horrific result is the election of Joe Biden.

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Video Transcript after the jump…

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Egypt’s Libya Intervention is Embarrassing | Libya 5

Man, I was really hoping to make it to Egypt one last time before I started critiquing the Sisi regime. Oh well! This regime could have as much as a decade to go, so no pyramids for me for the foreseeable. I feel like Egypt’s dictatorship forced my hand a little bit, by threatening to invade Libya to back up one of the region’s most pointless strong men, Khalifa Haftar. It’s a shame. I do hear mixed things about Egypt under Sisi. Some claim the economy has turned around, though I don’t see much proof of it. Some claim that he brings stability, but it looks to me like the sort of stability the Shah of Iran provided in the 1970s.

If your regime is based savage repression, as Sisi’s very much is, it tends to lead to bad decisions. I believe that this threatened intervention in Libya is potentially one of those very bad decisions. Today’s video lays out why Libya is a conflict that Egypt should avoid getting more involved in.

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Video Transcript after the jump…

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