King Salman announced two key changes in the Saudi Cabinet and ordered the formation of a super committee to combat corruption. The committee is to be headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In its first decision, the committee ordered the arrests of a number of princes and big businessmen for their involvement in corruption […]
Nearly five months on, the “crisis” between Qatar and a coalition of nine countries led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has reached a relatively stable equilibrium. The countries’ resultant blockade of Qatar – over its alleged support for terrorist groups and ties to Iran – has not significantly changed Doha’s behaviour according […]
The role of a dominant actor in an informal security alliance is to offer leadership and security aid to junior parties. To fulfill its role, Saudi Arabia needs financial resources and a committed group of leaders at home who are willing to build the alliance’s security architecture and provide additional benefits—including aid and military hardware—to […]
The first time he spoke in public, Omar Saif Ghobash spent months preparing. As the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to Russia, he had needed special permission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deliver remarks at the University College London — unheard of at the time as Emirati diplomats rarely spoke to the media. Ghobash […]
U.S. President Donald Trump declared a hardened stance toward Iran, as he refused to certify that the Islamic Republic is in compliance with the multinational accord to curb its nuclear program, though he stopped short of repudiating the pact. Read Here – Bloomberg
Iranians live in a troubled and unstable region. We cannot change geography, but our neighborhood was not always so stormy. Without delving too far back into history—although as an ancient peoples our memories are measured in millennia, not decades or even centuries—it’s safe to say that our region began to experience insecurity and instability when […]
Despite President Donald Trump’s threats to blow it up, the Iran nuclear deal still has a “better than 50” percent chance of surviving the next year, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif talks about how his country will—and won’t—respond to Trump’s extraordinary campaign against the agreement the American president calls “an embarrassment to the United […]
What’s the larger picture of Mohammed bin Salman as a reformer? The prince is trying to prepare Saudi Arabia for a post-petroleum order, in theory by unlocking competitiveness and creativity. His plan is detailed in Vision 2030. It includes reducing the number of royal family members on the government payroll. It also increases domestic tourism—based on […]
The most immediate example is the series of efforts by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to isolate, embargo, and boycott Qatar. Some 100 days have passed since they issued some 13 broad, categorical, and poorly defined demands that Qatar change its behaviour. These demands may or may not have been reduced to six […]
The monarchies of the Arabian peninsula generally emerged between the 18th and early 20th centuries (though some have deeper historical roots). In a region with so much turmoil, these regimes seem to have remarkable staying power (only Yemen’s monarchy has disappeared from the map). But if the monarchies have endured, individual monarchs are not always […]
looking beyond borders 