The Saudi Arabia of today is far different from the Saudi Arabia of Sept. 11, 2001, but for countless numbers of people in the United States, Saudi Arabia will forever be associated with 9/11, the collapse of the World Trade Towers and the deaths of nearly 3,000 people. Read More Here
Iran’s full membership in the Shanghai Corporation Organization has become a perceived necessity for Tehran’s foreign policy goals. But will it actually help? Read More Here Also Read: Israel’s military chief says ‘accelerating’ Iran strike plans
The election of hardline President Ebrahim Raisi in Iran has raised fears that the country will refuse to negotiate with the West. But with Iran’s economy in tatters, and the Sunni Taliban returning to power in neighbouring Afghanistan, Iran’s leaders have every incentive to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Read More Here
Even as the United States pulls back from the Middle East, some in the U.S. foreign policy community believe that the region will be among the places where a so-called great-power competition between Washington and Beijing will play out. Read More Here
Even before Thursday’s swearing-in of Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s incoming, hard-line president, the Islamic Republic was escalating hostilities on several fronts in the Middle East. Now Tehran is only likely to get more aggressive, experts say, and that means U.S. President Joe Biden—like so many of his predecessors—may not get his wish to downgrade the region’s […]
The Persian Gulf rivals have some distance to go to mend fences, but their nascent rapprochement offers the best chance in years for a return to regional stability in the Middle East. Read More Here
The once closely coordinated and tightly knit Saudi-Emirati relationship is fraying. A cascade of policy divergences has emerged between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi over the past year, and more acutely over the past weeks. Read More Here
If Saudi Arabia and the UAE are primarily focused on competing with each other, they will both prefer to foster regional stability in order to encourage investment, potentially curbing impulses to behave aggressively towards each other or their neighbours. Read More Here
While in many ways Raisi is a stereotypical conservative politician who puts ideology before any economic concern, all signs indicate that he will be unable to treat the economy as an afterthought during his tenure. Read More Here
It was never in doubt… really. Hard-line Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi was elected president of Iran, trouncing a field handpicked by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In fact Raisi, who will replace the more moderate Hassan Rouhani, is a top contender to become Iran’s next supreme leader. Read More Here
