The Thread That Links Protests in Belarus, Russia, and Lebanon

Sept. 1 2020

As brutal crackdowns have failed to put an end to popular unrest in Belarus and mass protests have broken out in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk, dissatisfaction with the status quo in Lebanon is at its height. Anna Borshchevskaya argues that all three pose problems for Vladimir Putin, who is invested not only in maintaining his rule over Russia, but also in propping up the current regimes in Minsk and Beirut. To Putin, the present situation in Belarus is an ucomfortable reminder of the “color revolutions” that swept through former Soviet republics in the 2000s, and removed pro-Kremlin dictators:

Putin’s fear of [democratic] revolutions always encompassed the Middle East, even though it has received less attention. Indeed, the color revolutions swept the post-Soviet space in early-to-mid 2000s also touched the Middle East, with Lebanon’s Cedar revolution.

Current events in Lebanon may seem remote compared to protests closer to Russia. But Lebanon also matters directly to Russia’s policy in Syria, where Putin’s intervention in 2015 both saved the dictator Bashar al-Assad from losing power and elevated Russia’s status—in the eyes of many Western and regional officials—of an indispensable player.

It is not just that that Moscow never labelled Hizballah as a terrorist organization (unlike Western countries), and that overall Moscow leans closer to the Iran-Hizballah-Syria axis in the Middle East. That in and of itself is enough for Moscow to support [the current] Hizballah-backed government in Beirut. But some Russian experts [have also] observed that Lebanese banks could serve as Syria’s connection to the outside world, facilitating reconstruction in a manner that keeps Assad in power.

Read more at The Hill

More about: Belarus, Hizballah, Lebanon, Russia, Vladimir Putin

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023