The Middle East may never be the same
Hamas, the Islamist militia that controls Gaza, will likely emerge a victor regardless of how the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting ends. Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel, described by some…
Dr James M Dorsey
For the UAE and others, its business as usual with Israel
For the United Arab Emirates, it’s business as usual as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s newly formed government wastes no time in implementing hardline policies aimed at forcing Palestinians…
The Qatar World Cup: Soccer upsets, politics, and sensitive situations
Barely out of the starting blocks, the Qatar World Cup has already produced a fair share of upsets as well as politically and personally sensitive situations and incidents. Qatar's 2:0…
Is Kazakhstan Russia’s next Ukraine?
With Russian troops massing on Ukraine's borders, it's not only Ukrainians who worry about what President Vladimir Putin may have in store for them. It's Kazakhs too. For now, Kazakhs…
Christmas arrives in Saudi Arabia
Long banned, Christmas has finally, at least tacitly, arrived in Saudi Arabia; just don’t use the name in marketing or be ostentatious about your tree. Coffeeshops serving beverages in red…
Testing the waters: Russia explores reconfiguring Gulf security
Russia hopes to blow new life into a proposal for a multilateral security architecture in the Gulf, with the tacit approval of the Biden administration. If successful, the initiative would help stabilise…
Taliban and Al Qaeda: Putting a fox in charge of the chicken coop?
Abu Omar Khorasani was taken from Kabul’s Pul-i-Charkhi prison and unceremoniously shot. The first and only person to have been executed since the Taliban gained full control of Afghanistan, Mr.…
What starts in Afghanistan does not stay in Afghanistan: China, India, and Iran grapple with the fallout
Taliban advances in Afghanistan shift the Central Asian playing field on which China, India and the United States compete with rival infrastructure-driven approaches. At first glance, a Taliban takeover of…
Personality and ambition potentially fuel divide among Gulf states
Personality as well as the conflation of genuine national interest with personal ambition contribute to the widening gap between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It was only a…
Pakistani PM Imran Khan’s ultra-conservative inklings raise eyebrows
Widely seen as a populist with ultra-conservative inklings, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan increasingly appears to reinforce widespread traditionalist attitudes that reject religious tolerance as well as the rights of…
Forging a future with rather than against Iran
The rise of hardline President-elect Ebrahim Raisi has prompted someanalysts to counterintuitively suggest that it could pave the way for reduced regional tensions and potential talks on a rejiggered Middle…
Jordan is where domestic and regional fissures collide
Former Crown Prince Hamzah bin Hussein has papered over a rare public dispute in the ruling Jordanian family in a move that is unlikely to resolve long-standing fissures in society…
China signals possible greater Middle East engagement
Two initiatives send the clearest signal, yet, that China may be gearing up to play a greater political role in the Middle East. Touring the region this week, Foreign Minister Wang…
Russia Foreign Minister’s Gulf tour: A bellwether of US-Saudi relations
As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov embarks on a four-day visit to the Gulf, Middle Eastern leaders are either struggling to get a grip on Joe Biden’s recalibration of US policy in…
A little acknowledged clause may be main obstacle to revival of Iran nuclear accord
A little acknowledged provision of the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program explains jockeying by the United States and the Islamic republic over the modalities of a US…
Myanmar: Exploiting lessons learnt in the Middle East
Demonstrating for the third week their determination to force the country’s military to return to its barracks, protesters in Myanmar appear to be learning lessons from a decade of protest…
When is usury usury? Turkish fatwa casts doubt on Erdogan’s religious soft power drive
Turkey’s state-controlled top religious authority has conditionally endorsed usury in a ruling that is likely to fuel debate about concepts of Islamic finance and could weaken President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s…
Looming Large: The Middle East Braces for Fallout of US–China Divide
China would like the world to believe that the Middle East and North Africa region does not rank high on its totem pole despite its energy dependence, significant investment and…
Turkey gambles in bid to rival China as a key supply chain node
A projected sharp reduction in trade between the United States and China in the next two years coupled with moves to diversify supply chains potentially position Turkey alongside Vietnam, Mexico,…
Second Karabakh War as Cause or Consequence?
Populated at the time by fluent Hebrew speakers, the Israel desk of Armenia’s foreign ministry waited back in 1991— in the immediate wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union—for…
The Muslim world’s changing dynamics: Pakistan struggles to retain its footing
Increasing strains between Pakistan and its traditional Arab allies, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, is about more than Gulf states opportunistically targeting India’s far more lucrative market. At…
Subtly, China pressures Gulf states to reduce regional tensions
Co-Written by James M. Dorsey and Alessandro Arduino Public debates about China’s Middle East policy are as much internal Chinese discussions as they are indications of where Beijing’s thinking is…
UAE and Israeli settlers find common ground in Jerusalem
Weakened by Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of US President Donald J. Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu risks being caught between a rock and a hard place as Jordan, the…
Conflict in Ethiopia extends the Greater Middle East’s arc of crisis
Co-Written by James M. Dorsey and Alessandro Arduino Ethiopia, an African darling of the international community, is sliding towards civil war as the coronavirus pandemic hardens ethnic fault lines. The…
The Qatar World Cup: Dreaming of Bridging the Gulf Rift
With the 2022 World Cup in Qatar only two years away, and a resolution of the three-year-old Gulf rift nowhere in sight, government officials, soccer governance executives, and pundits…
The Battle for the Soul of Islam
Jordanian ruler Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein gloated in 1924 when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the visionary who carved modern Turkey out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire, abolished the Caliphate.…
War in the Caucasus: One more effort to shape a new world order
Fighting in the Caucasus between Azerbaijan and Armenia is about much more than deep-seated ethnic divisions and territorial disputes. It’s the latest clash designed, at least in part, to shape…
Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Political scientists Alan Chong and Quang Min Pham bring with their edited volume, Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020), originality as well as dimensions and perspectives to…
The Battle for Jerusalem: Turkey’s Erdogan stakes his claim
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan didn’t mince his words at this month’s opening of parliament. In his first assertion of a claim to a lost non-Turkic part of the Ottoman…
China’s Belt and Road pinpoints fundamental issues of our times
Based on remarks at the RSIS book launch of Alan Chong and Quang Minh Pham (eds), Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Palgrave MacMillan, 2020 Political scientists Alan…
Shaping Palestinian politics: The UAE has a leg up on Turkey
The United Arab Emirates may have the upper hand in its competition with Turkey in efforts to shape Palestinian politics. Similarly, the UAE’s recognition of the Jewish state gives it…
The UAE-Israel deal’s historicity is in the fine print
A close read of the agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel suggests that the Jewish state has won far more than diplomatic recognition. It won acknowledgement of its…
Controversial Israeli soccer club may be litmus test for UAE soft power ploy
An Emirati offer to invest in Israel’s most controversial soccer club could serve as a figurative litmus test of hopes that Arab recognition of the Jewish state may persuade it…
Will They or Won’t They? Saudi Recognition of Israel is the $64,000 Question
Will the Saudis formalize relations with Israel or will they not? That is the 64,000-dollar question. The odds are that Saudi Arabia is not about to formalize relations with Israel. But the kingdom,…
UAE Recognition of Israel Dents Emirati Religious Soft Power
The United Arab Emirates’ establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel is damaging its efforts to garner religious soft power by projecting itself as a model of Islamic moderation and…
UAE Geopolitical Gamble Keeps Palestinian Peace Prospects on Life Support
The decision by the UAE to establish diplomatic relations with Israel keeps a negotiated solution with Palestine on life support. There is no indication that forging relations with Israel will…
Ignore at your peril: Palestine ranks high in Arab public opinion
Rare polling of public opinion in Saudi Arabia suggests that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may be more sensitive to domestic public opinion on foreign policy issues such as Palestine…
Playing With Fire: China Fuels Middle East Arms Race
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, with Saudi King Salman during a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, March 16, 2017. (Lintao Zhang Pool Photo…
Fragile Big Power Relationships Add to Middle Eastern Uncertainty
A web of relationships between Turkey, Russia, Iran, and China have to a significant degree shaped Middle Eastern and North African geopolitics. The fragility of those relationships, however, begs the…
UAE Targets Turkey and Qatar in the Mediterranean
Europe is progressively being sucked into the Middle East and North Africa’s myriad conflicts. As if wars on its doorstep in Libya and Syria were not enough, UAE support for…
Israel-China Relations: Staring Into the Abyss of US-Chinese Decoupling
Israel knew the drill even before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo boarded his flight to Tel Aviv earlier this month four days after the death of his father. It…
US-Saudi Oil Clash Sets Stage for Future Epic Battle
The coronavirus pandemic and the global economic meltdown forced Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Russia to call time out in a war that was less…
OPEC production cut papers over cracks in US-Gulf relation but for how long?
A decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC producers like Russia to temporarily end a price war and cut production amounts to a time-out rather…
Playing for Higher Stakes: Saudi Arabia Gambles on Oil War with Russia
With stock markets crashing and economies grinding to a halt as the world struggles to get a grip on the Coronavirus, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could not have…
The Long-term Political Fallout of Coronavirus
As the coronavirus spreads, so does its likely political fallout. For authoritarians and autocrats, the fallout is likely to be a mixed bag. Some will benefit from invasive tracing and…
Eastern Mediterranean: A microcosm of regional and global battles
The Eastern Mediterranean has become a flash-point for the meshing of geopolitics, the struggle for regional hegemony, battles for control of resources, religious soft power rivalry, and blatant interference in…
Not a pretty picture: The contours of a new world order are on your tv screen
Television news summarizes daily what a new world order shaped by civilisationalists entails. Writer William Gibson’s assertion that “the future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed” is…
Why Trump Rejects the Need from Middle Eastern Oil
Oil may not be the only factor driving a reduced US commitment to guaranteeing security in the Middle East, but it certainly is one that weighs heavily in US President…
Pakistan puts press freedom at the core of struggle for new world order
Sweeping new regulations restricting social media in Pakistan put freedom of expression and the media at the heart of the struggle to counter both civilizationalist and authoritarian aspects of an…
Defending political freedoms: Incidents in Israel and Scandinavia raise alarm bells
Incidents this week in Israel and Scandinavia ring alarm bells. They highlight how the rise of civilizationalist leaders in democracies empower anti-liberal and anti-democratic forces. They also illustrate the contradictory…
Erdogan battles on multiple fronts in risky regional power bid
The optics seem evident: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is at odds with just about everybody. Mr. Erdogan is on opposite sides of Russia in Syria, with Turkish and Syrian…
Iran crisis: A high-stakes bet on who blinks first
Two sets of US government cables suggest that Iran hawks in and outside the Trump administration appear to have the upper hand as European countries give hardliners a helping hand…
US backs off support for regime change in Iran
An Iran hawk who advocated killing general Qassim Soleimani, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has ordered his diplomats to limit contacts with militant Iranian exile and opposition groups that…
Iran plays chess, the US plays backgammon
Iranians play chess, Americans play backgammon when it comes to warfare, military strategy and conflict management. That is becoming increasingly obvious in the US-Iranian tit-for-tat on an Iraqi gameboard.…
Soleimani’s death opens a door to alternative security arrangements in the Gulf
The US killing of Iranian general Qassim Soleimani has further opened the door to a potential restructuring of the Gulf’s security architecture. In line with an Iranian plan launched at…
Killing Qassim Soleimani: rule of law or rule of the jungle?
International law may not be a major consideration in debates about the US killing of Iranian military commander Qassim Soleimani, yet the legality of the assassination could prove to…
The killing of Qassim Soleimani: The United States misreads the tea leaves
The killing of Iranian military leader Qassim Soleimani proves the point: The United States has perfected the art of strengthening Iranian hardliners fuelled by an apparently ingrained misreading of Iranian…
US military strikes in Iraq stir regional hornet’s nest
The United States stirred a hornet’s nest that stretches far beyond Iraq when it this weekend attacked an Iranian-backed militia. The fallout of the US strikes was immediate in…
Israeli soccer club’s anti-racism echoes Israel’s political divide
Storied and crowned soccer club Beitar Jerusalem was for decades a pillar of the Israeli right-wing and an often-extreme symbol of Israel’s lurch towards the right as well as its…
Gulf security: China envisions continued US military lead
Based on remarks at The Belt and Road Initiative: China-Middle East Cooperation in an Age of Geopolitical Turbulence workshop organized by Brookings Doha Center and the Shanghai Academy of Social…
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