What does 2014 have in store?

Arabic-language columnist Jihad Al Khazen looks to the future. Other topics: the Muslim Brotherhood and Russia.

Following the disaster the inappropriately named Arab Spring turned out to be, columnist Jihad Al Khazen in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat said he expected nothing for the new year but being afflicted by more of the same calamities.

Using reports in newspapers from both sides of the Atlantic, he compiled a list of reasonable scenarios and predictions for the coming 12 months throughout the Arab World.

Starting with Syria, he predicted the tragedy would continue and not a second, third or even a tenth Geneva conference could hope to stop it. “I condemn both sides, the regime and the terrorist opposition groups such as Al Qaeda and its affiliates. I hope they both fall,” he said.

“As for the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, should they even start, they would be doomed to fail because Israel’s extremist right-wing government wants nothing but to occupy, kill and destroy under US cover,” he said.

Moving on to Libya, the writer dismissed the possibility of seeing a transition to democracy this year. As for South Sudan, he expected the newly-formed state to suffer internal separation leading to a trio of Sudanese states.

The situation doesn’t look much brighter in Iraq, where he foresees a long-trudging civil conflict that the government in Baghdad can’t – or doesn’t want to – stop.

Egypt, often referred to in Arab spheres as the “mother of the world”, would soon become barren unless terrorism was uprooted and moves taken to change to a genuinely democratic regime, starting with the approval of the new constitution in the referendum on January 14.

When it comes to Iran and the P5+1, Al Khazen predicts that the preliminary nuclear deal will suffer a setback in view of the wide gap between what Iran wants out of the deal and what the Western nations, especially those negotiating on behalf of Israel, want.

Moving from the Arab World to the United States, he notes that the US has indeed overcome the worst stages of its financial crisis but the performance of president Barack Obama in his last two years in the White House hinges on the outcome of the midterm elections in November.

On the foreign affairs front, Washington is negotiating with Afghanistan to prolong US military presence there until 2024. The war in Afghanistan is the US’s longest since its independence and an ongoing role will only mean more human and financial losses for the US.

“Back to the Arab region, reason suggests that the situation isn’t about to change and it may even get worse in a number of countries. But, if I am to be hopeful, I would say if the situation were to improve in Egypt, it would reflect positively on other countries such as Libya and Tunisia, but not in Syria, which requires nothing short of a miracle,” he concluded.

Gulf states do not all agree on Brotherhood

How will the Gulf states deal with the Egyptian government’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation? Kuwaiti writer Shamlan Yousuf Al Issa said in the Abu Dhabi-based Al Ittihad that the answer is not easy because they do not all agree on the Brotherhood.

Every Gulf nation views the movements of political Islam according to its own interests. The UAE has made its views clear by trying all cells and groups linked to the Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia too has long been antagonistic towards the organisation.

Other countries such as Kuwait have been lenient with the Brotherhood in the past. Despite all the privileges it has been given, its political arm, the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM), still takes unfriendly positions against the government.

They have boycotted the latest elections that were conducted in the single-vote system instead of the four-votes-per-voter system. Kuwait’s ICM demands a parliamentary government and an elected prime minister.

Despite that, the Kuwaiti government has not been hostile to the Brotherhood because the latter has a lot of influence in the state’s public institutions.

In a nutshell, the Gulf states cannot take a clear stance on the movements of political Islam, because of political factors in each country and cultural reasons to do with the conservative nature of the Gulf that remains rooted in tribal and dynastical loyalties.

Syria’s civil war spilling into the heart of Russia

It was a great surprise when the flames of Syria’s civil war spilt into the heart of Russia, noted Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the news website Rai Al Youm.

The two suicide bombings by radical Muslims in Volgograd that killed about 50 people took president Vladimir Putin off guard after all his diplomatic achievements in the Syrian crisis.

There are three main explanations for these blasts that shed light on the reasons, timing and message behind them, he said.

First, the bombings might indicate the latest three-week visit of Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan to Moscow has failed.

The visit aimed to persuade Russia to stop supporting Syrian president Bashar Al Assad through arms deals.

Second, radicals might have sought to send a strong message to Mr Putin for supporting the Syrian president, saying it can move the battle to the heart of Russia and can hit strongly during the Winter Olympic Games to be held in Sochi in two months.

Third, the blasts probably seek to affect the Geneva 2 conference slated for January 22 and suggest that radical Islamic groups can mobilise followers in the Caucasus, where Muslim minorities are concentrated, against the Russian government.

* Digest compiled by The Translation Desk