The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) policies toward Yemen, Syria, Qatar, and Iran are failing. But the policy toward Iran shows the kingdom’s desperate attempt to lessen the Islamic republic’s growing power. The KSA is trying to choke Iran’s economy by steeply cutting its own oil output, hoping to halt Iran’s overtures to international businesses. Oops, too late!
Qatar made a series of secret agreements with its Gulf neighbours in 2013 and 2014 barring support for opposition and hostile groups in those nations, as well as in Egypt and Yemen. The existence of the agreements has been known, but both the content and the documents themselves were kept secret due to the sensitivity of the issues involved and the fact that they were agreed in private by heads of state,.
It is the business of the counterfactual historian to yearn for the former Ottoman Empire when reflecting on the recent incessant regional instability. However, the fact that the empire was in free fall from 1798 onward makes a mockery of this view. Nevertheless, from Libya to Yemen, and Syria to Iraq, conflict typifies the ruptures that are still haemorrhaging from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East just under a century ago.
King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud’s decision to remove Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and promote his favorite son, Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, has been long anticipated. It raises profound questions about the future stability of America’s oldest ally in the Middle East.
The Trump administration made headlines last week when it announced a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, signed with pomp and circumstance during the president’s first international trip. But even though Donald Trump’s team was thrilled, this record-setting deal is in fact another sign that the American arms sales process is broken.
The attempt by Saudi Arabia and Gulf oil states to achieve hegemony in the Arab and Sunni Muslim worlds has proved disastrous for almost everybody. The capture of east Aleppo by the Syrian Army and the likely fall of Mosul to the Iraqi Army means defeat for that the Sunni Arabs in a great swathe of territory stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean.
It is not that the U.S. shouldn’t walk away from Saudi Arabia because it is a major oil producer and a partner in the fight against terrorism, or because the bilateral relationship has benefited Washington. The larger issue is that if Saudi Arabia is left to its own devices, it will sow more chaos in the Middle East. That is something no one needs.
For the last two months, mystery and confusion has shrouded Gen. Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s retired army chief, over whether he will be the supreme commander of the Saudi-led “Islamic military alliance” created by Riyadh in 2015. News of Sharif’s appointment has been widely criticized in Pakistan, and the drama underscores the friction in the Saudi-Pakistani relationship.
The Sultanate has always preferred to tackle disagreements through engagement, rather than brinksmanship, posturing, or provoking—the strategies that define Saudi-Iran relations today.
Produced annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) analyses and studies the direct and indirect impact of terrorism on 163 countries. This year’s results present a juxtaposition of the dynamics of terrorism in modern society. On one hand, they show a 10% fall (since last year) in the number of deaths attributed to terrorist incidents – the first decline since 2010. On the other hand, the overall score on this year’s index has deteriorated by 6%, due to many countries experiencing record levels of terrorism.
Read Here – World Economic Forum
