The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey

James M. Dorsey
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Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

  1. Testing Israel’s Limits

    7H AGO

    Testing Israel’s Limits

    US-mediated talks between Israel and Syria serve as a bellwether for the extent to which Israel can reshape the Middle East and impose its will on the region. They also are likely to indicate the degree to which US and Israeli interests diverge in Syria. Syrian Foreign Minister Assad al-Shaiibani and Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a confidante of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, focussed this week on security arrangements in southern Syria in a round of talks in Paris chaired by Tom Barrack, the US Ambassador to Turkey and the Trump administration's Syria envoy. The talks were the highest-level meeting between officials of the two countries in 25 years and the first since the latest clashes in the southern Syrian city of As-Suwayda between the country’s Druze minority, Bedouin militias, and Syrian security forces, and Israel’s bombing of military targets, including the defence ministry, in the capital Damascus. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the clashes’ death toll at 1,399 people, 196 of whom were summarily executed. Mr. Netanyahu dispatched Mr. Dermer to Paris following several meetings in Azerbaijan between Mr. Al-Shaibani and the prime minister’s national security advisor, Tzachi Hangebi, that fuelled Israeli and US hopes that security arrangements could be a first step toward Syrian recognition of Israel. The Paris talks are likely to establish whether Israel can dictate to President Ahmed al-Sharaa where in Syria his military can operate and the degree to which Israel can successfully project itself as the protector of Syrian minorities, such as the Druze, a secretive monotheistic group based In Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, and the Kurds in the north.

    20 min
  2. Instability Spreads As Israels Military Campaigns Escalate_BFM 23072025

    4D AGO

    Instability Spreads As Israels Military Campaigns Escalate_BFM 23072025

    Instability Spreads As Israels Military Campaigns Escalate_BFM 23072025 by James M. Dorsey

    11 min

  3. 4D AGO

    Israel-Iran war highlights Israeli dependency on US and potential US leverage

    A just-published report on Israel and the United States’ interception of Iranian missiles during the 12-day Israel-Iran war highlighted the Jewish states’ dependence on US military support. The report by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) concluded that US-operated Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence or THAAD air defence systems, produced by Lockheed Martin, accounted for almost half of all interceptions of Iranian missiles fired at Israel during the war. The US positioned a second of its seven THAAD systems and crew in Israel in April. The US deployed the first system last October. A THAAD battery, one of the United States’ most powerful anti-missile systems, typically deploys with 95 soldiers, six truck-mounted launchers, 48 interceptors (eight per launcher), and a mobile radar. The system intercepts incoming projectiles from up to 200 kilometres away with kinetic energy, in a process often referred to as “hit-to-kill,” or “kinetic kill.” The Institute’s report suggested that Israel depended on THAAD because it lacked sufficient interceptors for its Arrow anti-ballistic missile system. The United States expended more than a year’s worth of THAAD interceptor production in the Israel-Iran war at a cost of US$12.7 million per interceptor, or US$1.7 billion for the approximately 100 interceptors fired during the war. "As a result, the United States used up about 14 percent of all its THAAD interceptors, which would take three to eight years to replenish at current production rates,' the report said. The Institute's Iran Projectile Tracker reported that the United States and Israel had successfully neutralised 201 of the 574 missiles fired by Iran during the war, with 316 landing in unpopulated areas. Israel has admitted that Iranian missiles had pierced its air defence systems, striking at military targets and residential areas. In a twist of irony, Iran increased its successful hit rate by one to four per cent in incidents when they were confronted by THAAD interceptors, the Institute’s report said, based on analysis of video shot by Amman-based photographer Zaid Abbadi. Even so, the Institute argued that air defence support of Israel in the war served US interests beyond coming to the aid of an ally. "This strong support of a US partner may also reinforce US. deterrence against Russia and China," the report said. What the report did not say is that it also demonstrated the degree to which Israel depends on the United States for its defence, despite the ruthless prowess of the Israeli military and the sophistication of the country's military-industrial complex.

    18 min
  4. Will he, or won’t he-That is the question as US frustration with Netanyahu mounts

    6D AGO

    Will he, or won’t he-That is the question as US frustration with Netanyahu mounts

    Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appears determined to depopulate Gaza by hook or by crook, even if he has bowed to US pressure by agreeing to a reduced military presence in the Strip as part of a temporary ceasefire. The reduced presence, involving a withdrawal from the Morag Corridor that separates Rafah from the rest of Gaza, would complicate Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz’s plans to corral hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in a tent camp on the flattened ruins of the Strip’s southernmost city close to the Egyptian border. That hasn’t stopped Israel from seeking to depopulate Gaza by ensuring that the Strip is unliveable and uninhabitable in the hope that Palestinians will ‘voluntarily’ relocate to a third country.

    13 min
  5. Saudi Crown Prince places a calculated bet on foreign soccer club ownership

    JUL 21

    Saudi Crown Prince places a calculated bet on foreign soccer club ownership

    Soccer has long been a tightly controlled double-edged sword for Middle Eastern autocrats. On the one hand, autocrats sought to harness the sport’s popularity that evokes the kind of passion in a soccer crazy part of the world that was traditionally reserved for religion. On the other hand, soccer constituted one of the few arenas in which youth could vent frustration and anger. Soccer’s disruptive potential was evident in 2011 when militant fans played a key role in the Arab popular revolts that toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. With world soccer body FIFA disregarding violations of its rules that ban government interference in sports and restrict ownership of premier league clubs to one per owner, governments sought to control the sport’s disruptive power by owning several top clubs or ensuring that individuals with close ties to the regime controlled them. Fifteen years later, autocratic perceptions of soccer’s double-edged sword may be changing. A confluence of developments has, for the first time, prompted Middle Eastern autocrats to contemplate foreign ownership of domestic clubs.

    10 min
  6. Europe’s opportunity to break the Middle East’s cycle of violence

    JUL 19

    Europe’s opportunity to break the Middle East’s cycle of violence

    Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar celebrated this week a “diplomatic victory” by delaying European sanctions against the Jewish state. It’s a victory that could prove to be pyrrhic. That is, if EU foreign ministers, increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war, put their money where their mouth is and make good on their threat to suspend the Jewish state’s 25-year-old association agreement with the European Union because of its human rights violations.

    13 min
  7. The writing is on the wall as support for Israel shrinks

    JUL 15

    The writing is on the wall as support for Israel shrinks

    The writing is on the wall. As Gaza ceasefire talks flail, if not fail for the umpteenth time, a series of vignettes tell the story of Israel’s increasingly shrinking support base in the United States and Europe. Alarmingly for Israel, the vignettes reflect mounting criticism of the Jewish state in US President Donald J. Trump’s Make America Great Again and America First support base, as well as among European leaders. To be sure, Chirstian Zionists and pro-Israel Evangelicals remain an important segment of Mr. Trump’s base. Similarly, European leaders have yet to put their money where their mouth is. Even so, failing to do so is becoming increasingly difficult. That realisation may be registering on Israeli radars. Not that it will change Israel’s indefensible conduct of the Gaza war. Instead, Israel’s response resembles Hans Brinker, the boy in Mary Mapes Dodge’s 19th century children’s novel, who puts his finger in a Dutch dike to prevent a major breach.

    10 min
  8. Will the EU force FIFA to reform

    JUL 13

    Will the EU force FIFA to reform

    World soccer body FIFA’s more than a decade-long refusal to implement meaningful reforms and adhere to its own principles, rules, and regulations is on public display. FIFA’s response to past corruption scandals and willingness to award World Cup hosting rights to violators of the group’s human rights standards illustrate the organisation’s rejection of meaningful change that would hold the group accountable. So do FIFA’s repeated, mostly cosmetic, reforms aimed at pacifying public and commercial clamouring for change. The scandals and disregard for FIFA’s Human Rights Policy and Code of Conduct are “only the tip of football’s problem iceberg. An extended troubleshooting list includes antiquated governance structures, growing financial imbalances, and inadequate safeguards for athletes, just to name some of the most pressing issues,” said law professor Jan Zglinski in a recent 26-page academic paper. Mr. Zglinski argues that, potentially, Europe, a leader in regulating sports, and particularly soccer, as a sector of the economy, could emerge as the sport’s white knight.

    11 min
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    About

    Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

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