Fahad Nazer
Contributor
Fahad Nazer is a former non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington as well as a political analyst with intelligence consultants JTG, Inc., where he focuses on political, social, and economic developments in Saudi Arabia. He also examines militant Islamist groups in the Arabian Peninsula, with a special focus on Saudi Arabia. Prior to this position, Nazer worked as a political analyst at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC. His publications have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, CNN, Foreign Policy, YaleGlobal Online, The National Interest, Al-Monitor, and The Kingdom: Saudi Arabia and the Challenge of the 21st Century (Columbia University Press, 2009).
Analysis
Saudi Arabia: Quietly Does It
Media coverage of Saudi Arabia over the past year has largely focused on its new, more assertive foreign policy, as demonstrated by its military campaign in Yemen. More recently, a blueprint for economic reform known as “Vision 2030” aimed at reducing the country’s dependence on oil has attracted the attention of economists and energy analysts...
Will US-Saudi ‘special relationship’ last?
Much has been written and said in recent months about what some — myself included — have described as a “strain” in US-Saudi relations. Those who subscribe to this view have focused on what appears to be a philosophical difference between the administration of President Barack Obama and the Saudi leadership. While one of the pillars of the “Obama doctrine”...
Clinton, Trump, and Riyadh: How Saudi Arabia Sees the U.S. Presidential Election
The White House recently announced that U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Saudi Arabia in April as part of an overseas trip, with additional stops in Germany and the United Kingdom. The statement came as no surprise; the United States and the countries that constitute the Gulf Cooperation Council—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—had agreed...
It’s Open Season on Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has come under intense scrutiny in recent months. Much of it centers on its more assertive and less accommodating foreign policy, as manifested in its unprecedented military campaign in Yemen. The shift in Saudi regional policy has spawned the sudden popularity of two narratives in the Western press, think tanks and even some...
Saudi Arabia Throws Down the Gauntlet
At a press conference in Riyadh on Jan. 3, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia announced that Saudi Arabia was severing diplomatic relations with Iran. The decision was triggered by the scathing statements that Iran’s highest political and religious authorities issued following Saudi Arabia’s execution of forty seven people it had accused of committing terrorism-related...
Sep 9, 2016
A More Assertive Regional Role
Saudi Arabia has a long and mixed track record of involvement in Yemen’s numerous political conflicts, dating back to the early 1960s. Until last year, the kingdom’s inclination was to either use its extensive contacts with political and tribal elements to forge negotiated settlements or to choose a side in the conflict, assist it financially—occasionally...
3 min read