Analysis

On Sept. 14, the news that Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities had been attacked and damaged came as a shock. And yet, in the not too distant future, this attack will likely be regarded as a tactical mistake. Tehran has miscalculated the timing of such a spectacular attack and it’s unclear whether Iran will get another opportunity to strike such a surprise blow again.

After five years of indecisive war, there is a clear desire on the part of the international community to bring the conflict in Yemen to an end, and the recent UN-endorsed Houthi initiative seems predicated on the assumption that ending the fighting between Riyadh and the Houthis would achieve this. A closer look at the situation, however, suggests this assumption is flawed.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his speech at the UN General Assembly to advocate for a plan that would see the return of over one million Syrian refugees from Turkey to a strip along the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. While Turkey should not have to indefinitely host its 3.6 million Syrian refugees, the plan proposed by Erdogan would entail large-scale deportations of refugees, demographic re-engineering, and the destabilization of northeastern Syria. A better path forward would be to facilitate the return of refugees from northeastern and eastern Syria to their homes by investing in reconstruction of the area and encouraging political reforms.

Although the Houthi militia claimed the attacks on Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Saudi Arabia on September 14, experts doubt that the drones were launched from Yemen. Despite the Houthis’ affirmations and Iranian denials, investigations by the US and the Arab Coalition have demonstrated the weapons used were Iranian, and the location of the oil installations in northeastern Saudi Arabia makes them almost certainly out of range from Yemen.

Rape has been a central component of the genocidal campaign waged by Myanmar’s military and security forces against the Rohingya ethnic minority, in which Rohingya Muslim women and girls have suffered unspeakable sexual violence. Yet, there has been little accountability, as those responsible for what the UN, U.S. elected officials, the government of Canada and other governments have called genocide, have gone largely unpunished.

The military campaign in Syria marked a turning point for Russia’s reemergence as a power in the Middle East. Taking advantage of the opportunities presented by Western failures, the Kremlin’s tactical approach has seen it make gains across the region, although these may be more limited and reversible — and Moscow more vulnerable — than is often thought.

Many international commentators continue to present the war in Yemen through the lens of Saudi Arabian intervention or sectarian conflict. This narrative has even influenced the US Congress, where some members have passed legislation that rests on the assumption that the war is between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, rather than against their fellow Yemenis. While the Saudis have intervened in the conflict and the Houthis have often played the sectarian card, neither narrative accurately reflects the current conflict between the Houthis and the UN-recognized government of Abd Rabo Mansour Hadi.

The crux of today’s Libya problem in international foreign policy lies in an underappreciated UN misstep in the most important international treaty concerning Libya, the 2015 Skhirat Agreement, and the decision to vest sovereignty in the heads of independent and semi-independent sub-state institutions like the Central Bank of Libya. The negative implications of this decision must now be addressed and it is time to move onto something new, after Skhirat.

Iraq’s current public service regime is struggling to deliver on desperately needed services in part due to the issue of establishing a functioning federal state system across the country. Far more attention needs to be devoted to institutions and how those operating within them can deliver those services. One way to do this is to decentralize service provision to the governorates not incorporated into a region. However, this process has been hampered by administration, fiscal, and political issues. Identifying these and seeking solutions to resolve them will be key. This paper addresses the decentralization process, specifically focusing on the issues surrounding the governorates not incorporated into a region, as per Law 21.

In the end, it all fell apart rather quickly. Instead of a long-awaited announcement about the details of a U.S.-Afghan Taliban peace deal, on Sept. 7 President Donald Trump tweeted that the talks were off, adding shortly afterwards that the Afghan peace process was “dead.” Only days earlier, Washington’s special representative for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, had announced a draft agreement had been reached after nine rounds of gruelling negotiations.

The Sept. 14 attack on key Saudi oil facilities, which knocked out over half of the kingdom’s oil production, has signaled a significant change in approach toward regional and global security. It’s clear that things won’t be the same again. But what does it mean for Russia?

The attack reduced Saudi oil production by 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd), leading to a sharp rise in global oil prices of nearly 20%. Although this was a very important development from an energy and economic perspective, we should not underestimate the political and security ramifications either. The entire paradigm of a secure Gulf under the protection of the U.S. military umbrella has been undermined.

Over the past two years, local law enforcement in Hui communities throughout China have made efforts to remove Islamic identity from public spaces. This article shows that these restrictions are part of a broader centralizing effort by the Chinese party-state to emphasize conformity with a vision of Chineseness centered on Han culture, and scrutiny of those ethnic or religious practices that might be deemed “threatening.”

The unprecedented attack on critical Saudi oil infrastructure in Abqaiq and Khurais on Sept. 14 came just days after U.S. President Donald Trump’s dismissal of hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton had opened a narrow window of diplomacy for Iran-U.S. negotiations to deescalate spiraling tensions.

Riyadh has military options for retaliating against Iran. The Trump administration needs to persuade Saudi leaders not to use them.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Gerald Feierstein, Alex Vatanka, Eran Etzion, Gonul Tol, Amal Kandeel, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Michael Sexton and Eliza Campbell.