Commentary

The continuing renovation of relations between Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies with Washington reached a new level this week, moving from the aspirational towards practical application.

After a virtually unbroken string of blunders since his inauguration, Donald Trump finally got a major policy decision right. Early on Friday, he launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Al Shayrat air base in central Syria, in response to Bashar Al Assad’s latest chemical weapons atrocity in which at least 80 people were murdered by...

The honeymoon between the Trump administration and the Gulf Arab countries is a welcome respite after years of mutual doubts and recriminations. However, it’s important to keep things in perspective. Unfortunate and avoidable disappointment can follow on quickly, once the glow of initial infatuation wears off.

A great deal of media attention to Russian involvement in Libya arose as a result of a March 14 Reuters report that Moscow “appears to have deployed special forces to an airbase in western Egypt near the border with Libya.” These forces, reportedly consisting of a 22-man unit, deployed to support General Khalifa Haftar, who controls much...

The year 2016 witnessed a dramatic economic transformation in Saudi Arabia that triggered unprecedented political changes. Vision 2030, released at the end of 2015, created a roadmap to wean Saudi Arabia off its oil-based economy. Empowering women and materializing their potentials was one of the main objectives of Vision 2030. In addition, a state-commissioned McKinsey report stressed...

Bernard Haykel is a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University and director of the Institute for Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. He received his doctorate in Oriental Studies in 1998 from the University of Oxford. He has described his teaching and research as lying at the...

Russia, Iran, and Turkey have taken the lead in attempting to bring about conflict resolution in Syria through the Astana talks that began in late 2016.  That these three governments are working together is quite remarkable considering how up until recently, Turkey was actively supporting anti-government forces in Syria while Russia and Iran have been...

There is a paradox in women’s achievement across the Gulf states. By most international standards, female citizens of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have good access to education systems, affordable and proficient health care and social services. Women are graduating from university in higher numbers than men, maternal health risks are low and...