Russia’s gargantuan $30 billion energy deal with Iran simultaneously accomplished four objectives that are central to the grand strategic goals behind Moscow’s “Ummah Pivot”. Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin announced that his company signed a roadmap to invest the mind-numbingly large sum of $30 billion in the Iranian energy sector following his and President Putin’s…
Yesterday the ruling Salman clan in Saudi Arabia executed a Night of the Long Knives cleansing the state of all potential competition. The Saudi King Salman and his son Clown Prince Mohammad bin Salman initiated a large arrest wave and purge of high ranking princes and officials. Part of this internal coup was the confiscation…
In the dead of night, Saudi forces surrounded the compounds of several prominent princes across the Gulf kingdom, in a move to clamp down on corruption. Under the auspices of the newly formed anti-corruption committee, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, prominent Saudi princes and businessmen are now being held in the lavish Ritz…
There are approximately 1.8 billion Muslims on Earth. That is approximately 24% of the world population. They live in regions spanning North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and reaching as far as Southeast Asia. There are Muslim communities in virtually every nation – and in many – they have played a pivotal, constructive, and…
The sudden resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri raises a number of questions. To fast track the main relevant events of the last decade or so, Hariri was Saudi Arabia’s favourite kid on the Lebanese block. After all, his father was a close friend and a business partner of Prince Fahed, who later on…
It seems that matters are coming to a head in the Middle East. For many states, the coming period will likely prove to be the moment in which they determine their futures — as well as that for the region as a whole. The immediate peg for “crunch time” is Russia’s fast-track proposal of a conference…
