Oman’s independent and creative foreign policy has been a boost to a region fraught with instability, but the combination of a new sultan and an adverse regional environment means Muscat’s trademark foreign policy may be diminished.
Soldiers refuse to stand with protesters amid growing criticism from Hezbollah.
“God has opened the door to unprecedented wealth for us,” said an enthusiastic Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he announced that Turkey had made its biggest-ever discovery of natural gas on Aug. 21. He promised that gas from the 320-billion-cubic-meter deep-sea find would reach consumers in 2023, but industry experts are skeptical and have raised questions about the feasibility of the discovery.
As the people of Iran and the region rise up against the regime in Tehran, it is time to prepare for what comes next and imagine what could lead to the region’s next renaissance: a Middle Eastern cooperative organization.
The relationship between the Middle East and the Horn of Africa is centuries-old and complex. While the world’s attention is focused mainly on the “great power competition” in the region, primarily between the U.S. and China, the Horn of Africa has also become a central battleground for influence among competing regional players, principally Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Qatar, Iran, and Egypt. As they pursue their interests in the region, from Ethiopia and Sudan to Somalia and Djibouti, these competing states are the main drivers of tension and instability in the Horn of Africa.
In recent weeks, reports of a potential 25-year, $400-billion deal between Iran and China have dominated the conversation about Tehran’s options for freeing itself from the punishing U.S.-imposed sanctions regime on the country. But China is not alone in seeing an embattled Iran as a major geopolitical and commercial opportunity — Russia too has ambitions of strengthening ties with Iran.
No matter how one reads the diplomatic deal announced Thursday between Israel and the United Arab Emirates—and there will surely be many supporters and detractors given its historic nature—there is one conclusion that seems irrefutable: Israel was the biggest victor.
When the Saudi-led coalition launched military operations against the Houthi insurgents on March 26, 2015, all of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, except for Oman, joined the multinational force. As has become clear, each of the Arab Gulf sheikdoms has its own national interests and unique history of relations with Yemen and Yemeni factions, and these have shaped their changing perceptions of the war over the past five and a half years. Kuwait’s role in Yemen’s multidimensional conflict is a case in point.
Beirut will rise again from the ashes, like it always has. But the real rebuilding that must occur is not physical in nature. It is political. Nothing will truly change in Lebanon unless the country’s corrupt and incompetent leaders, who have been in power for decades, are unseated.
After months of under-reported cases and relaxed lockdown measures, the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic has gripped government-held areas. A worrying rise in daily deaths and infections, especially in Damascus, has left Syria facing what could be its biggest challenge yet.
Tunisia seems to have avoided the worst of the first phase of the global coronavirus crisis. And yet whatever the final tally of the pandemic might be, its consequences will only add to a host of existing problems that have beset the North African country in recent years, including political instability, a stalled economy, security threats, and financial woes.
The Israelis and Hezbollah are at it again. Earlier this week, they seem to have skirmished in the Shebaa Farms area. In their latest exchange of fire, or fiery statements, Israel and Hezbollah are continuing a new tradition of contained conflicts — one stretching back five years, when the Israelis stepped up efforts to interdict weapons shipments, destroy infrastructure, and kill Iranian or Iranian-supported officials and fighters in Syria (and indeed Iraq).
I don’t understand why Iran’s Revolutionary Guards insist on conducting military exercises in the Gulf waters that are as devoid of credibility as they are comical. Because if the goal of these drills is to intimidate or change the calculations of the U.S. Navy, nobody is flinching or losing any sleep in the Bahrain-headquartered U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, or NAVCENT.
If elected, Joe Biden and his administration will face a wide range of foreign policy challenges. Possibly none will be more vexing than what to do about the clerical regime in Iran.
With allies and direct lines to Beijing, Washington must do more to keep China’s presence in the region from becoming a threat.