Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are each other’s wild cards. Each is the other’s out-of-region game-changer, a factor that must play into the calculations of all other players in the Middle East and South Asia alike. Think you’ve got the complex equation sorted out of Arabs vs. Persians, Sunnis vs. Shi’a, Ba’athists vs. Islamists? Well, if […]
Saudi nationalism can be defined as the idea of a single identity that acts as the social glue across the divisions within the kingdom. The Saudi historian Abd Allah Al Uthayman said it best: “In the first circle, I am a son of the Arabian peninsula. The regions of the peninsula were united under the […]
On October 11, 2014, according to Islamic State-affiliated Twitter accounts a woman going by the name Ahlam al-Nasr was married in the courthouse of Raqqa, Syria, to Abu Usama al-Gharib, a Vienna-born jihadi close to the movement’s leadership. ISIS social media rarely make marriage announcements, but al-Nasr and al-Gharib are a jihadi power couple. Al-Gharib […]
As the United States and Iran near an historic nuclear agreement there is an intense debate about whether a deal represents capitulation to Iranian interests in the Middle East or an opportunity to help stabilize the region. If the United States and its partners learn the lessons of previous nuclear negotiations with Iran, and pursue […]
A Pakistani blogger has taken on Samuel Huntington as Muslims fight what looks like a civilisational war. Under the heading “The farce called ‘The Clash of Civilisations’”, a well-regarded Pakistani journalist says that “a lion’s share” of the foreign jihadists joining the terrorist Islamic State in Syria-Iraq “have come from Europe”, meaning it is the […]
For the Pakistani man on the street, the relationship with Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam’s two holy sites, is literally an article of faith. A Pew survey in 2013 found that 95 per cent of Pakistanis had a favourable opinion of the desert kingdom, and Pakistan was the only country in the Islamic world […]
With a new king and a young, untested defense minister, Riyadh has plunged headlong into war in Yemen. At stake is nothing less than the kingdom’s position of leadership in the Arab world. Read Here – Foreign Policy
Confused about what’s happening in the Middle East? The Institute of Internet Diagrams has come up with the ultimate explainer in the shape of an interactive diagram that sums up the geopolitical alliances traversing this ancient region, which dates back to the Mesozoic Era. Read Here – The Atlantic
The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it. Read Here – The Atlantic
Just as King Abdullah pledged massive new public expenditures to push back against the Arab Spring, Salman offered an estimated $30 billion in handouts to a wide range of Saudi social groups, including military officers, public employees, students, retirees, the poor, and disabled. Read Here – National Interest
looking beyond borders 