Little suggests that fabulously wealthy Gulf states and their Middle Eastern and North African beneficiaries have recognized what is perhaps the most important lesson of this year’s popular uprisings in Algeria and Sudan and the 2011 Arab revolts: All that glitters is not gold. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and to a lesser extent…
Recent diametrically opposed responses to repression of Muslims by China, India and other Asian countries highlight deep differences among Gulf states that ripple across Asia. The different responses were evident in Gulf reactions to India’s unilateral withdrawal of Kashmir’s autonomy and Qatar’s reversal of its support of China’s brutal clampdown on Turkic Muslims in its…
The recent visit of the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to the United States and the contracts and agreements signed there allow one to assess, more or less accurately, the present situation in the US-Qatar relations and policy of Washington in the Persian Gulf region. First of all, Qatar is undoubtedly…
America’s top General Joseph Dunford this week announced plans for a US-led naval coalition to patrol the Persian Gulf in order to “protect shipping” from alleged Iranian sabotage. The move is but the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to mobilize Arab allies into a more aggressive military stance towards Iran….
For a small peninsular nation surrounded by hostile neighbors, Qatar is holding its own against an economic, military, and diplomatic axis led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Initially, Qatar was once a valued member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), formally called the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf,…
The June 25-26, 2019 “peace conference” scheduled for Manama, Bahrain and attended by the United States, Israel, a few Palestinian quislings, and sell-out Arab states is nothing more than a rubber stamp on the future virtual annexation of the West Bank by Israel. The so-called “peace plan,” which has been dubbed the “deal of the…
