Analysis to pandemic follow – Corona exacerbated conflicts in the Middle East, poverty and corruption, civil unrest and wars: The pandemic increases the risk that problems will worsen, the cause for years of instability.Paul-Anton Krüger1 Kommentar1Im war with protective masks: soldiers and security forces in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.Photo: Khaled Abdullah (Reuters)
Closed mosques in the middle of the Holy month of Ramadan, the military parades in Tehran, which not missiles are paraded, but of the truck, the disinfectant spray and even a few years ago, unimaginable announcement from Riyadh that the Ölmonarchie Saudi Arabia to triple the VAT to 15 percent, tripled. There are countless documents that you can perform to ensure that the Corona pandemic has also in the Arab world and Iran in the handle, the adjacent countries like Afghanistan and Turkey, not less. The collapse of the Oil prices raised to the power of but the effects of the crisis.
unlike in Europe, the first wave of Infection has not reached in many countries is still evolving. But with all due caution of say: The already fragile regional architecture device to Slip, from the geopolitical relations of power up to the close social and economic ties. The prospect of recovery is gloomy, and the risk that problems will exacerbate the effect for years of instability.
confrontation between regional powers
These include the long-lasting wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya, but also in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Underneath, tensions along sectarian, ethnic and ideological fault lines, the blocks in the confrontation between the power of the Region, there is manifest – with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey as its leading powers, as well as interventions from the outside. And, not least, for the people, in many places, most severely, the economic duration of the misery and political unrest.
the fight against the Coronavirus: The streets of Damascus to be disinfected.Photo: Omar Sanadiki (Reuters)
With the exception of the Gulf States and Israel, the least of all States in the Region health systems, which would have increased the handling of the Corona epidemic have. In Syria, in Iraq and in Yemen, in Afghanistan or Libya, there is a lack of basic care.
In the neighborhoods of Cairo, Gaza and Baghdad to Casablanca, where the impoverished masses live, is the distance between the houses is often not even as big as he should now be between the people, to stop the spread of the Virus halted. Worse still, it hits millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, the need to live in completely overcrowded Camps or in the open air under catastrophic hygienic conditions.
Disastrous the consequences of poor governance and corruption, with the resulting crisis of political legitimacy now. Many people do not trust their governments and state institutions. You have good reasons for this, but the Virus follows its own inexorable logic. At the same time, authoritarian Regimes do not operate disease control according to political considerations, according to medical needs. And you are trying to exploit the crisis for their own purposes.
The price of Oil crumbles, and tourism is starving
Iran was to cover up the outbreak, to the Parliament election and the revolution day hold. Egypt makes every tongue differs from the official Numbers, than let the infection rate press. Some experts fear that the epidemic could cost in the Region ultimately has more people than all the wars of the past decades together.
The decline of Oil prices and the similar dependence on energy exports is not in force now, only the Gulf States to take drastic cost-saving measures, the future ability of these Petro, in turn, in the longer term, monarchies in question. They can also meet with States such as Algeria. And diminish remittances from workers in Egypt, Jordan or Lebanon, more than one-tenth of the economic output and millions of families.
Also Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, the drawing on its foreign exchange reserves will pick up the slack, hardly more so, as they have done in every crisis. And a more important currency and source of income for many countries in the Region is dried up for the foreseeable future: tourism. This is true of Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Turkey, as well as the airlines in the Gulf.
voltages instead of cooperation
There are examples of pragmatic cooperation, nurture a little hope. The Emirates and Kuwait supported Iran in the fight against the Coronavirus that Hamas is helping Israel. The crisis would provide an opportunity to open channels of dialogue to conduct quiet diplomacy. But it is outweighed by other characters.
The proxy war in Libya escalates, peace-building efforts in Yemen, lost in the Sand, the next escalation in the Syrian province of Idlib is only a matter of time. The tensions in the Gulf and in Iraq continues to be high. The terrorist militia Islamic state is trying to use of new attacks of the situation. Israel could Annex in the summer, parts of the West Bank. And the young Generation, the great frustrated majority in many countries in the Middle East, will feel more than ever before, any prospects of deprived.
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