The oil boom of the second half of the twentieth century brought modern technology to Saudi Arabia, but the aesthetic refinement of classical Islamic architecture began to disappear. Starting in the mid-seventies, the old houses were replaced with drab towers. Modern Mecca feels as if it were built by a people without history or tradition—a […]
The map of the modern Middle East, a political and economic pivot in the international order, is in tatters. Syria’s ruinous war is the turning point. But the centrifugal forces of rival beliefs, tribes and ethnicities — empowered by unintended consequences of the Arab Spring — are also pulling apart a region defined by European […]
A muscular, Hindu-dominant India is re-creating its Gods in its attempt to show the new, raw power that many Indians would want to associate with the new government that in it own way espouses a different set of social paradigm. Read Here
Iraq is really three separate geographical regions, now contested by Kurds and Arabs ethnically, Arabic and Kurdish speakers linguistically, and Sunni and Shiite Muslims religiously. Ethnically Iraqis are approximately 75 percent Arabs, 20 percent Kurds, and 5 percent Turkmen and Assyrians. Religiously they are 65 percent Shiite Muslims, 30 percent Sunni Muslims, and 5 percent […]
Iraq’s poorly led but far larger and more heavily armed government forces may eventually roll back the Sunni advance. For now they man a ragged defensive arc around the northern and western approaches to Baghdad that is 60-90km deep, writes The Economist
Ten years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq still suffers from the damage wrought in the overthrow of a dictator and the chaos that followed. Watch Here – Aljazeera
The roots of the current violence go at least as far back as Iraq’s 2006-2007 civil war, which didn’t so much end as get put on hiatus. The spate of sectarian violence pitted the Shiite-majority government against Sunni militias and al-Qaeda in Iraq (a group from which ISIS emerged). The U.S. troop “surge” halted the […]
Pakistan’s military-to-military cooperation with Saudi Arabia goes back five decades. Between the 1960s and 1980s, tens of thousands of Pakistani troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia, working under Saudi command. Pakistani fighter pilots trained their first Saudi counterparts, and in 1969 flew jets that successfully repulsed incursions by Yemeni forces. Pakistani engineers built Saudi fortifications along its […]
America’s Gulf allies are unhappy with what they see as a milquetoast response to ongoing Iranian aggression and a betrayal of a commitment to remove Iran’s strongest ally—Bashar al Assad. Gulf leaders see a declining US military presence in the Gulf and feel there is a vacuum developing. These perceptions are incorrect, writes DB Des Roches Read […]
The “Allah” crisis is masking a nuanced and historic racial debate in Malaysian politics. Read Here – The Diplomat
looking beyond borders 