Saudi-UAE relations are in free fall. Should we be alarmed? No. These monarchies have a long history of bad blood and border disputes. This time, the breakdown turns out to be good for Iran. Continue Reading
Leveraging a crash in oil revenue, the Saudi government has quickly imposed unprecedented changes to the way it raises cash, by raising taxes and slashing subsidies in ways Saudi citizens once considered unthinkable. Continue Reading
In his inaugural speech, President Trump pledged to “eradicate” radical Islamic terrorism “completely from the face of the Earth.” This suggests a redoubling of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and greater pressure on U.S.… Continue Reading
The seismic shockwaves caused by the Brexit vote on June 23 continue to reverberate across the political and economic landscape in Britain but one thing, at least, has become clear. Theresa May heads to Buckingham Palace on Wednesday afternoon to… Continue Reading
All political careers end in failure, so the mantra goes, but David Cameron’s decision in 2013 to call a referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union will go down as arguably the greatest political miscalculation in modern… Continue Reading
Whereas, based on a purely technical reading, the Sykes-Picot was just one of many wartime agreements that did not survive the immediate post-war period, it remained very much alive as a metaphor for something much wider — namely Western interference or “meddling” in regional affairs. Continue Reading
Even though Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed has been the real “power behind the throne” in Abu Dhabi for several years now, he has trodden carefully on the federal stage, mindful of the need to avoid unbalancing Al Nahyan family dynamics as well as inter-emirate relations with Dubai. What is significant is that the government reshuffle aligns with other recent developments in the past three months indicating that these constraints have now been shed. Continue Reading