Commentary

The Cipher Brief sat down with Marcelle Wahba, President of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, to discuss internal dynamics within the Gulf Cooperation Council.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on February 13, hawkish scholar Michael Ledeen argued that “dismantling the Khamenei regime as peacefully as possible” is the best way to end what he describes as the Russian-Iranian alliance. His argument, though, contained several questionable assertions that cast doubt on the feasibility of his policy recommendations.

On December 29th, 2016 the Mitvim Institute and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung hosted Dr. Karen E. Young of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington for a briefing titled “The Interventionist Turn in Gulf Foreign Policies and the Economic Drivers of Change.” The briefing focused on local, regional and international causes for the changing dynamics of Gulf...

The biggest fault line potentially facing the incoming Trump administration in the United States has become clear: relations with Russia. On no other issue is president-elect Donald Trump so isolated or baffling. During the campaign he repeatedly expressed inexplicable admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin, and this has only intensified since. Mr Trump has issued...

The sudden flurry of diplomatic activity on issues regarding Israel and the Palestinians has been full of high-minded, and entirely correct, principles. Unfortunately, its practical consequences are unlikely to do anybody any good. United States secretary of state John Kerry’s speech on Wednesday was, perhaps, the most incisive, honest and serious speech ever on this...

Since winning the greatest political upset in modern American history, Donald Trump has since taken on the US defense industry by publicly questioning whether Boeing was overcharging the American taxpayer for its government contract to build the next version of Air Force One, the presidential jet.

This week’s terrorist attacks in Ankara, Berlin and Zurich underscore once again that Syria’s entrenched conflict extends well beyond Syria’s borders and that the failure to pursue a comprehensive political solution, which is required to bring the war to an end, is bound to increase the flow of refugees seeking a better future in Europe.

Hopes that an end to Yemen’s punishing civil war might be within reach were briefly ignited last month. They faded almost as quickly as they came, when the government of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi rejected a plan put forward by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.