With close to 90% of the votes tallied in Iraq's parliamentary elections, the coalition headed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has taken a slim lead over the bloc led by his main challenger, Iyad Allawi. A day ago, it was the latter.

Since March 7, Iraqis have been glued to their television screens looking for clues for the direction their seven-year-war ravaged country might be heading in the next few years. Similarly, residents in neighboring countries have been closely monitoring the Iraqi elections through the many satellite television networks operating in the region. After all, elections are not a daily happening in the Arab world, and a number of those countries, such as Jordan and Syria, permitted Iraqi refugees to cast votes in their territories.

Meanwhile, one does not have to spend a lot of time watching Iran's Arabic-speaking Al Alam TV or the Saudi-financed Al Arabia TV in order to figure out who are the regional stake holders in the Iraqi elections. At times the Iraqi elections seem to take the shape of a battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as both countries have been overtly and covertly supporting the two heavyweight contenders. Iran supports Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, while Saudi Arabia has been rooting for former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Both al-Maliki and Allawi are Shiites, so why does Saudi Arabia want Allawi to win?

Al-Maliki's "cozying up" to Iran has been alarming many Arab countries. The Iraqi Prime Minister, whose Dawa Party is backed by Iran, has been flashing the sectarian card during his election campaign. With more than 500 candidates accused of links with the Ba'ath Party banned from running in the March elections, Al-Maliki's government has been accused of using the hated former regime to intimidate Sunnis in particular and opposition in general.

Iyad Allawi, although a Shiite, leads the al-Iraqiyya list, which proposes a secular agenda for the country. Many of its leading members are Sunnis or Arab nationalists who share the goal of bringing Iraq back to its Arab roots. Allawi's campaign ads have been airing on several Arab television stations, some say courtesy of Saudi Arabia.

But does this really matter to the average Iraqi citizen?

Not according to Kazem al-Dari, an Iraqi social scientist.

"What we need is stability," he says. "We've had elections before, we've tried Allawi before and now al-Maliki. Neither one brought stability and security to Iraq."

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. In 2003, the architects of the war envisioned that the toppling of Saddam Hussein would lead to the birth of a democratic Iraq. They told us that elections in Iraq would help spread democracy and liberalism across the Middle East, but this could not have been further from the truth.

The Middle East is more chaotic than ever, and the vast majority of its citizens are leaning politically towards Islamic theocracy and not liberal democracy. Iraqis are still searching for stability.

Article first published on the Huffington Post

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Not much has been left to the imagination in the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on January 19. The entire operation has unfolded on closed circuit television cameras in front of millions of viewers across the globe, just like an episode from a reality show. Pictures of the perpetrators, all 27 of them, have been plastered all over the web. Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfan Tamim has on more than one occasion declared to the media that he was all but 100% certain that the hit on al-Mabhouh had all the markings of the Mossad on it. He recently said that his men had obtained the DNA of part of the members of the hit squad and vowed to resign from his post if this claim proves to be false.

"I challenge Israel to bring the suspects there in order to undergo a DNA test and compare them with the samples we have," he said in an interview to the UAE-based al-Khaleej newspaper.

"If it turns out that the results do not match, I will resign. You can lie about anything, but not about DNA," he added.

The Bayonet

The assassination of al-Mabhouh has thrown an unwanted spotlight on the workings of Mossad and its specially trained assassination team, known as a kidon, the Hebrew word for bayonet, something that the Israeli government had not bargained for when the approval to conduct such an operation came directly from the top: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Incidentally, it was also during Mr. Netanyahu's first term as prime minister in 1997 when a kidon unit of the Mossad bungled the attempted assassination of Khalid Mish'al, the current leader of Hamas, in the streets of Amman in Jordan by injecting a mysterious poison into his ear.

The Helpers

The use of forged European passports by Mossad agents entering Dubai to assassinate al-Mabhouh has kicked up a diplomatic storm in recent days. The EU issued a strong condemnation of the stolen IDs, indirectly criticizing Israel. Israeli ambassadors in Britain, Ireland, France, Australia and Germany have been called in to discuss the issue, and Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has been given an earful by many of his counterparts. But were the Israeli dual nationals whose foreign passports were allegedly forged unaware that their identities were stolen by the Mossad? Or were they acting as sayanim, the Hebrew word for helpers, whom the Mossad relies on across the globe to provide shelter, money, and logistical support... in this case identity. A sayan, singular for sayanim, must be 100% Jewish, and in many cases a dual national.

The CIA

Also, why was not a single agent out of the 27 identified to be holders of foreign passports a US passport holder?

Israel has a large number of dual-national Jewish-Americans living in the country, many of whom serve in the Israeli military and various government related jobs. Was this deliberate so as not to draw the wrath of the United States? Or was it simply that this operation was coordinated with the CIA?

The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and numerous foreign press outlets have reported that two men linked to the assassination of al-Mabhouh entered the U.S. on specific dates after the killing. According to the reports, someone using an Irish passport with the name Evan Dennings entered the U.S. on Jan. 21, and someone using a British passport with the name Roy Allan Cannon entered the U.S. on Feb. 14.

A sayan in the US?

According to Dubai's Chief of Police, the MasterCards used by some of the assassins were branded by US-based Meta Bank, but issued by another small company called Payoneer. The company specializes in prepaid debit cards that can be used as credit card alternatives for online shoppers. Payoneer, which is registered in the US, has most of its employees based in Petah Tikva, Israel and is headed by Yuval Tal, who in a 2006 Fox News interview was identified as a former member of the Israeli Special Forces. Is there a relationship between Mr. Tal and the Mossad?

Many of these questions can be easily answered by the US government, but then again the term sayan has a much broader meaning when it comes to Israel and the United States.

Article first published on the Huffington Post

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