Commentary

On Friday night, the world watched the collapse of what seems an exceptionally ill-conceived and poorly planned coup attempt in Turkey. While much remains undecided, several things are already clear. The coup has failed. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, who returned to Istanbul Ataturk airport in the midst of the attempted takeover, will emerge enormously...

The highly respected and very familiar Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite U.S. presidential candidate among citizens of the Gulf Arab states.

The past 30 days have seen a string of high-profile terrorist attacks that have provided shock factors in regards to their timing, location and magnitude. Militants chose to strike the several global targets during the holy month of Ramadan, dared to detonate a suicide bomb near the Prophet’s Mosque in the holy city of Madinah,...

The recent visit to Washington, New York and Silicon Valley by Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, might, like most diplomatic missions, quickly faded into irrelevance. But this trip also has the potential to one day be recalled as a watershed moment in US-Saudi relations. That will depend entirely on the fate of...

Frustrated with the international community’s inability to prevent the Syrian government from committing mass atrocities against its own people, especially after President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against civilians, Saudi Arabia took the unusual step in 2013 to forgo its hard-won seat at the United Nations Security Council. The Saudi decision, which only could have...

On April 6, 1971, 20 United States foreign service officers led by the consul general in Dhaka, Archer Blood, issued the first formal telegram of dissent in the history of the state department. It warned that US policy “has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy” because Washington had “chosen not to intervene, even morally”,...

Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is in the United States this week for talks focusing on bilateral security cooperation and his strategy to diversify the Kingdom’s energy-dependent economy. He has so far met with US Congressional leaders, Secretary of State John Kerry and the directors of the CIA and National Intelligence. He will meet President Barack...

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...