Overview of the year 2019

Crescent International

As the year 2019 comes to an end, we offer our overview of crucial events that are likely to come up in 2020.

One of the key strategic occurrences of 2019 was the evident division among NATO regimes on important matters like Turkey’s role in the military alliance, Washington’s tensions with Russia, EU’s interactions with Islamic Iran and Brexit. All these have contributed greatly to the erosion of Washington’s global influence and the emergence of a multi-polar global order.

In 2020, these differences will only increase. It will contribute to the emergence of events like France’s Yellow Vest protests and a further split and greater tensions between the left and right of the Western political spectrum.

In the Muslim world, the key issue remains the Saudi dagger in the back of the Muslim Ummah in a multifaceted aspect. From infusion of regressive Wahhabi ideas into Islamic scholarship to evolving tensions among the Saudi royals and their humiliation in Yemen, this passing year turned the Saudi regime into a volcano about to burst. This is something the Muslim street is impatiently waiting for.

There are two key events of 2019 that should be kept in mind. First is the formation of the KL Summit in Malaysia, a symbolic alternative to the OIC.

The key practical proposal of the KL summit was to begin trading in gold and the barter of goods is a crucial development that will influence events in 2020.

Turkey’s offer to send in troops to Libya to assist the UN recognized government against the CIA-backed warlord Khalifa Haftar is an important last-minute development of 2019.

This policy will further escalate tensions between the UAE, the Saudi regime and the Egyptian autocracy on one side and Turkey and Qatar on the other.

In any confrontation with the despotic trio, the Muslim street will by default back the last seat of the Caliphate, due to its government having far greater popular legitimacy than the UAE, Saudi and Egyptian regimes collectively.

The people of Yemen sealed the humiliation of the Saudi regime in 2019 and the Bani Saud will gradually begin to scale down their aggression on Yemen. The attack on Aramco facilities was a mini-show of what the West’s war against Islamic Iran can do: affect the entire world on a dramatic scale.

Europe and US’s efforts to secure Western energy needs through pipelines not under direct Russian control is another key development of 2019 that will have serious ramifications on Central Asia and beyond.

Renewed pipeline politics in Central Asia is one of the great geopolitical events of 2019, whose ramifications are yet to be felt.

Islamic Iran continued to thrive in the crises thrown at it by NATO regimes in 2019 and continued to expand its regional influence.

The past year proved the sustainability of Islamic governance in Iran once again and united the Iranian society and political factions into a more cohesive force not seen in the past few years.

Overall, 2019 is surely going down as the year of resistance against the post-WWII world order. From Latin America to Indonesia, grassroots socio-political organizations are becoming relevant and can upset the powers that be.