The Middle East: winners and losers

Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia went well, because Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman has been seeking friends elsewhere after Donald Trump did nothing in response to the recent drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oilfields. But MbS’s position at home is hardly secure either.

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, a painted portrait. The death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi serves as a symbolic full stop to the many civil wars that have engulfed Syria in the past eight years, although Baghdadi was not personally in charge of anything by the time he died. The outcome of all those wars was already becoming clear, and it is the Russians and Bashar al-Assad who have won.Photograph courtesy of Flickr

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

November 4, 2019

LONDON—The death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi serves as a symbolic full stop to the many civil wars that have engulfed Syria in the past eight years, although Baghdadi was not personally in charge of anything by the time he died. The outcome of all those wars was already becoming clear, an...

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