Riyadh‘s frustration with Russia and China now extends to the United States, not only over Syria, but also over Washington’s acquiescence in the fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and its new quest for a nuclear deal with Iran. Read Here – Reuters
The House of Saud‘s nightmare is amplified by paranoia. After all those warnings by King Abdullah for Washington to cut “the head of the snake” (Iran), as immortalized on WikiLeaks cables; after all those supplications for the US to bomb Syria, install a no-fly zone and/or weaponize the “rebels” to kingdom come, this is what […]
Is the Muslim Brotherhood dying? In Egypt and throughout the Arab world, Brotherhood-affiliated parties are suffering an unprecedented series of setbacks that cast real doubt on the long-term viability of that version of Islamist politics. Read Here – The National, Abu Dhabi
A different map of the Middle East would be a strategic game changer for just about everybody, potentially reconfiguring alliances, security challenges, trade and energy flows for much of the world, too, writes Robin Wright Read Here – The New York Times
Erdogan is now setting one side of Turkey against the other in a bid for greater power, although the AKP was founded on pragmatism and inclusivity. Its initial landslide on 3 November 2002 — with almost two thirds of the seats in parliament (363 out of 550) — included votes from middle-class Turks unemployed after […]
The twin suicide bombings of a church congregation in Peshawar on Sunday have brutally dispelled the naive optimism of Pakistan, a country that believed Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister, when he campaigned to “give peace a chance” in May’s general election. Read Here – The National, Abu Dhabi
Last year, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb did something no other modern terrorist group has: conquered a broad swath of a sovereign country—Mali. Since then, despite French intervention, northern Mali has become a jihadist front, with Islamist militants flowing in from around the world. Read Here – The Atlantic Terrorist kill 59, holed up with […]
Saudi Arabia appears resolute: It wants Bashar al-Assad out of Damascus. The Saudis view the fighting in Syria with the same intensity that they did the civil war in Yemen that raged in the 1960s — as a conflict with wide and serious repercussions that will shape the political trajectory of the Middle East for […]
The White House said it was possible that President Barack Obama would meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in New York next week if Tehran signaled it was serious about giving up its nuclear program. No U.S. President has met an Iranian leader since the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi more than 34 years ago. […]
Turkish-Iranian posturing on Syria, with Ankara arguing for more than limited strikes against the regime and Tehran saying that whoever strikes President Bashar al-Assad must bear the consequences, serves as a harbinger for the birth of a new Middle East order. Read Here – CNN
looking beyond borders 