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George Joffé is a Research Fellow and lecturer in the M.Phil. program of the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge. He is also Visiting Professor of Geography at Kings College, London University.
For the past 50 years, Saudi Arabia has been endlessly engaged in defending and expanding its position in the Middle East. This is, in part, a function of its self-image as the guardian of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest shrines in the Islamic world, but it also reflects its dominant role as the world’s largest repository of oil and as one of its largest producers. Ironically, these two factors behind the Kingdom’s foreign policy have made, at times, uncomfortable bedfellows, particularly when set against its domestic politics and foreign attitudes towards them.
