Closing the Strait of Hormuz has shown how the Gulf should shift from an oil-export model to a digital and distribution hub. Will this trigger the long-delayed free trade agreement with China?
[caption id="attachment_55245923" align="alignnone" width="620"] Iranians shop at the main old bazaar in Tehran on June 1, 2013. (ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]Iran’s 1979 revolution still…
[caption id="attachment_55245553" align="alignnone" width="620"] A banker carries a load of money as he walks past an image of the Syrian president, Bashar Al-Assad, at a bank in the capital,…
[caption id="attachment_55245665" align="alignnone" width="620"] A female worker prepares parts of Kalashnikov machine guns at the Kalashnikov manufacturing plant on September 18, 2013 in Izhevsk,…
[caption id="attachment_55244690" align="alignnone" width="620"] Gazprom security men stand guard in front of a drilling platform at an oilfield near the Iraqi city of Badra, south of Baghdad, on…
[caption id="attachment_55244622" align="alignnone" width="594"] Apartment blocks line the edge of a field in the fertile Egyptian Delta region of Al-Menofeya. (Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images)[…
[caption id="attachment_55244083" align="alignnone" width="620"] View of Qatar Petroleum (QP), a state-owned corporation established in 1974 and responsible for all phases of the oil and gas industry…
[caption id="attachment_55243466" align="alignnone" width="620"] A Lebanese bank employee counts money at a bank in Beirut on July 21, 2009. JOSEPH BARRAK/AFP/Getty Images[/caption]
Bankers are not…
[caption id="attachment_55243306" align="alignnone" width="620"] The sun sets behind the Moroccan flag during Throne Day Celebrations on July 30, 2006 in Rabat, Morocco. CHRIS JACKSON/Getty Images[…
[caption id="attachment_55243065" align="alignnone" width="620"] cars on the bridge, connecting the northern and the southern parts of Tunis, in La Goulette near Tunis. FETHI BELAID/AFP/Getty Images[…
[caption id="attachment_55243022" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (C) waves alongside Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Elias Jaua (C-R) outside of the…
Disruption in the Hormuz can have major implications for global trade, but it also creates opportunities for smaller nations like Iran to become global political players
The Iraq war was viewed as disastrous in retrospect, while the Iran war was unpopular from the get-go. Al Majalla highlights the similarities and differences between the two.
Pipelines have a chequered history in the Middle East, but the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has led US Tom Barrack to conclude that a new route through Syria could solve some problems.