Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
في 23 سبتمبر الماضي، احتفلت المملكة العربية السعودية بالذكرى التسعين لتأسيسها.
The jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria has dispatched its fighters from greater Idlib eastward, taking full control of Afrin city and at least 26 towns and villages to its southwest, most without a fight. This has placed many of its jihadist opponents back under HTS’s control. The dynamics of northwestern Syria are shifting, and the consequences look likely to be extremely significant.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
Since being named crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman has launched a series of far-reaching socio-economic reforms known as Vision 2030 and introduced a new form of nationalist identity — “Neo-Saudism.” Taken together, some see these changes ushering in what essentially amounts to a fourth Saudi state.
Strains in the U.S.-Saudi relationship do not paint a full picture of the Oct. 5 decision.
Drawing comparisons to the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center will increase US-Saudi cooperation to counter two of the greatest threats emanating from Iran and its proxies — drone and missile attacks.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.