Worth an estimated $27 billion, the enigmatic Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has very public holdings: he is the second-largest voting shareholder in News Corp., he owns Paris’s George V hotel and part of New York City’s Plaza hotel, he is a stockholder in Apple, and he will soon own the world’s tallest building. But the […]
Something odd happened during Wednesday’s press conference between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked to address the Palestinian issue, the U.S. president on three occasions said that he would have more to say when he spoke directly to the Israeli people. The apparent takeaway is that for Obama, spending (wasting?) too much time trying […]
In the early hours of March 4, 1924, a middle-aged man and his family left the Dolmabahce Palace in central Istanbul and headed to the train station. Their destination was Switzerland and then Paris, where the man, Abdulmecid II, died 20 years later, and was buried in Medina. Abdulmecid II was the last caliph of Islam, the […]
It is still, on occasion, good to be the king. It is not necessarily good to be the king of a Middle Eastern country that is bereft of oil; nor is it necessarily so wonderful to be the king during the turmoil and uncertainty of the Arab Spring. It is certainly not good to be […]
The January 2011 revolution in Egypt changed the nature of Iran–Egypt relations. Unlike the old Egypt under Hosni Mubarak, which perceived Iran as its main threat, the new Egypt seeks close relations with Iran in the broader context of regional cooperation in solving regional issues, such as that of the Syrian crisis. This development may create […]
When Prince Turki al-Faisal suggested last year that the House of Saud would join in the U.S.-led sanctions against Iranian oil, by seeking to displace Tehran’s oil exports from the global economy, he was not referring to a novel idea. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has led two prior oil wars against Iran. Read Here – The National Interest
As Kuwait gears up to celebrate its National and Liberation days today and tomorrow respectively, a festering political crisis casts its shadow over the festive atmosphere. Faced with a popular opposition movement demanding democratic reform and an end to corruption, the Kuwaiti government has responded with repressive measures that threaten to undermine the relative openness […]
As the world looks on (or away), the country jammed between Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Israel is disintegrating. Perhaps the regime of Bashar Assad, Syria’s president, will collapse in chaos; for some time it could well fight on from a fortified enclave, the biggest militia in a land of militias. Either way, Syria looks […]
Earlier this month, Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid was shot dead outside his home. Belaid’s death has shaken Tunisia, but it also illuminates larger trends in the post-revolution Arab world. Belaid was an intrepid critic of the authoritarian ancien regime of Zine Abidine Ben Ali, which ruled Tunisia for nearly a quarter century until it […]
This hardly seems like the moment to ask what type of state will emerge in Libya. Two years on from the uprising that eventually toppled Muammar Qaddafi, the country hardly has a functioning state at all. There is still no constitution and there may not be one for months. The parliament, elected less than a […]
looking beyond borders 