Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have formed a new military and trade partnership separate from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The move came on the eve of the GCC summit in Kuwait, which opened on Dec.5. The top-level meeting was supposed to last for two days but was closed in a few hours to end…
It is tempting, and not entirely inaccurate, to dismiss the escalating crisis between Qatar and a number of its neighbors as a petulant princely playground spat. Extending this tempting logic, one could conclude that decisive victory by each of the protagonists would be the optimal outcome. Yet the dispute also reflects deeper dynamics in Arab…
Like Mikhail Gorbachev, Trump helms a fading empire. But while the former Soviet leader supported democratization in his wake, Trump’s sowing the seeds of autocracy all over the globe. Back in the late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev had a magic touch internationally. Traveling outside the Soviet Union, he often received the adulation that was so frequently…
One of the key agenda items during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s July 23-24 visits to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar is Turkey’s continued military presence in Qatar. A Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries that cut ties with Qatar in early June is demanding, among a dozen other things, that Turkey close its base there. Doha…
It’s been a bad week for the Saudi rulers in the US media. A slew of embarrassing stories got wide coverage, with the seeming intention of undermining Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies. Not coincidentally, the Saudi-led bloc then capitulated in its standoff with Qatar. The row between Qatar and the other Gulf states of…
The saga of the Saudi-Qatar dispute continues. This week saw some important developments, which might provide pointers to what is likely to happen in the coming weeks and months, and possibly years. As expected, the US stepped in to ensure that the Saudis, UAE, and Bahrain did not escalate their actions against Qatar. In particular,…
