The great Sunni Arab implosion that began with the 2011 “Arab Spring” was unforeseen in its suddenness, violence, and extent. But some, both inside and outside the Arab world, had long suspected that, sooner or later, a day of reckoning would indeed arrive. Read Here – Mosaic
Nearly twelve months after Iran’s diplomatic victory with the JCPOA, Tehran is still embroiled in four different major regional conflicts, and a fifth may soon break out. Read Here – The National Interest
Dubbed by Newsweek a decade ago as “the most dangerous man in Iraq,” Muqtada al-Sadr, the figure at the center of Iraq’s current political storm, isn’t the man many might recall from the past. Read Here – NPR
The United States has consistently tilted toward the Saudis. Even when Washington’s ally, the Shah, ruled Iran, one could notice at least a slight bias in favor of Riyadh. Once the Islamic Revolution engulfed Iran in 1979, U.S. hostility toward Tehran became consistent, persistent, and intense. At the same time, the strategic relationship between Washington […]
The international community is watching closely as Iranians wrap up two elections today, one for the parliament, or Majlis, and the other for the Assembly of Experts. For brief profiles of the central actors in current Iranian politics, Read Here – Brookings
Though conflict has not erupted into direct confrontation, there has been no shortage of proxy battles, beginning with the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. More recently, it has shaped the course of Syria’s civil war, in which Iran backs President Bashar al-Assad, who represents the Alawite sect of Shia Islam, while the Saudis are supporting […]
There is recognition, not only inside Saudi Arabia but also in the countries surrounding it, that while the Gulf states’ responses to recent geopolitical events have been slow, change in how these countries conduct their foreign policy is under way. Read Here – The National
Critics of the Iran deal have focused on the likelihood that Tehran will cheat its way to obtaining a nuclear weapons capability. They note that Iran is already guilty of minor violations of the agreement, without promoting a reaction either by the United States or its other negotiating partners. Read Here – The National Interest
THE death of Iran’s Princess Ashraf in Dubai turned the focus on a defining cultural metaphor of our times — an unequal contest between waning riparian civilisations of which she was a part, and a noxious upstart culture that came with the advent of desalinated water, in which she perished. Read Here – Dawn
When Mohammed bin Salman was just 12 he began sitting in on meetings led by his father Salman, the then governor of Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Province. Some 17 years later, at 29 and already the world’s youngest defence minister, he plunged his country into a brutal war in Yemen with no end in sight. Read […]
looking beyond borders 