Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may or may not be a true reformer. His record on that score is not unequivocal. But he is determined to halt the expansion of Iranian influence, which now really does manifest itself as the Shiite crescent about which Jordan’s King Abdullah II forewarned over a decade ago. Read Here – Foreign […]
With Prince Mohammed ensconced with his US and Israeli allies, the three belligerent powers in the region are squaring up for a battle to rid Israel and Saudi Arabia of any challenge to their dominance. Read Here – The Wire Also Read: Saudi Arabia’s ‘Game of Thobes’
Saudi Arabia and three of its Arab allies cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on Monday, furious with what they see as the tiny emirate’s tolerant attitude toward Iran and Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Read Here – Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain say they are severing diplomatic relations with Qatar. The Saudi kingdom said it was cutting ties to its neighbour and has pulled all Qatari troops from the ongoing war in Yemen. Read Here – Al Jazeera
For the first time since the demise of the Qajar dynasty in the early 20th century, Iran is extending its political and military reach to what it considers its rightful sphere of influence: Mesopotamia and the areas of the eastern Mediterranean and Arabian Peninsula with sizeable Shiite communities. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
The Sultanate has always preferred to tackle disagreements through engagement, rather than brinksmanship, posturing, or provoking—the strategies that define Saudi-Iran relations today. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
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
The rule of thumb in the Middle East is that diplomacy often—too often—makes progress only to be overtaken by unforeseen violence on the ground. It’s happening again. Tensions between the Islamic world’s rival powers—the Sunni monarchy of Saudi Arabia and the Shiite theocracy in Iran—that erupted over the New Year’s weekend now jeopardize a string […]
Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran and Shi’ite Muslim Iran’s top leader predicted “divine vengeance” for Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shi’ite cleric. Read Here – Reuters Who was Amir Baqir al-Nimr?
For the past eight decades Saudi Arabia has been careful. Using its vast oil wealth, it’s quietly spread its ultra-conservative brand of Islam throughout the Muslim world, secretly undermined secular regimes in its region, and prudently kept to the shadows while others did the fighting and dying. It was Saudi money that fueled the Mujahedeen in […]
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