by Thomas W. Lippman No one should have been surprised by the tepid response from the U.S. government to the latest arrests of prominent activists in Saudi Arabia. It has been U.S. policy since the administration of Harry S. Truman… Continue Reading
by Mitchell Plitnick Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump wanted to change US policy toward both Israel-Palestine and Iran. When Obama arrived in the Oval Office, he brought an ambitious foreign policy plan with him. He wanted to diminish the… Continue Reading
by James M. Dorsey A United Arab Emirates-backed Saudi effort to wrest control from Jordan of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem signals a sharper, more overt edge to Saudi religious diplomacy and the kingdom’s quest for regional hegemony that risks deepening… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar One of the more intriguing news reports about the rapid rise to power of the 32-year-old Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), concerns how he isolated his mother, placing her under house arrest for a… Continue Reading
by Shahed Ghoreishi At the Munich Security Conference in February, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif repeated his administration’s proposal to engage Iran’s Persian Gulf neighbors with the goal of creating a Persian Gulf Security Agreement. According to Zarif, the talks for… Continue Reading