Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
As welcome as recent moves toward Iranian-Gulf détente have been, extensive obstacles continue to stand in the way of a real and sustained relaxation of tensions, cause by what international relations scholars call the “security dilemma.”
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
The Saudi-Iran dialogue continues, but has produced little progress. As James Jeffrey of the Wilson Center and Bilal Saab of the Middle East Institute argue, part of the reason is that the two powers have fundamentally different objectives for the negotiations and that the power imbalance in Iran’s favor is profound. They suggest ways that Saudi Arabia might improve its bargaining power and argue that the United States can help strengthen Riyadh’s position.
Since seizing the capital of Sana’a in September 2014, the Houthis have been transforming the portions of Yemen under their control in line with a radical political and religious ideology. The Houthis’ war is complicated and may not be resolved quickly. But for now, the main obstacles to peace are ones that only Yemenis can resolve, which are rooted in rival concerns over the distribution of political power and equitable delivery of public services.
Under current, highly unpredictable market conditions, it is unreasonable for OPEC to make sharp movements to saturate the oil market or withdraw a significant number of barrels from it to meet divergent Western interests of lowering prices and punishing Russia.
The Houthis have a poor track record in negotiations. But giving up on negotiating with them isn’t an option.
Technology represents one potentially fruitful area where the I2U2 member states — Israel, India, the U.S. and the UAE — could cooperate together, expand their format to include more countries, deliver tangible results, and avoid agitating other global and regional powers.
Two years after the signing of the Abraham Accords, progress in developing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors has achieved mixed results, opening up some greater cooperation in the security sphere but failing to change Arab publics’ minds due to the lack of movement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Now in the fifth month of a ceasefire, what are the prospects for a negotiated end to the Yemeni Civil War, and the beginning of a sustained peace? MEI Distinguished Sr. Fellow on U.S. Diplomacy and Director of the Arabian Peninsula program Gerald Feierstein discusses these questions with two outstanding scholars who have followed and written extensively about Yemen over the years. Fatima Abo Alasrar is a nonresident scholar at MEI and a Senior Analyst for the Washington Center for Yemeni Studies.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
When acclaimed Saudi artist Abdulnasser Gharem opened his first solo show in New York City last week, it closed the circle on a story that began more than two decades ago on Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars and chaos that followed. The 49-year-old Gharem, a seminal figure in and pioneer of Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art scene, hopes his exhibition Hospitable Thoughts, at the Marc Straus Gallery through Oct. 16, will spark a “new cultural dialogue.”
The battle for control of the Yemeni heartland and its energy resources has reached a turning point. Yemen’s internationally recognized institutions are, once again, in crisis. In fact, the current infighting within the “government camp” threatens both the long-stalled implementation of the 2019 Riyadh Agreement and the political legitimacy of the newly-established Presidential Leadership Council.
The announcements in mid-August that both the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait will be returning their ambassadors to Tehran after six years provided the latest indication that the diplomatic ice has started to break in the Gulf region.
The United States and its Gulf Arab partners need a new security arrangement that effectively shares the burden of defending against Iranian hostility and goes beyond deterrence.