by Giorgio Cafiero and Theodore Karasik For decades, Qatar has carefully navigated the geopolitical dynamics shaping relations among its three larger neighbors: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. Qataris have usually perceived one of these three Persian Gulf powers as the… Continue Reading
by Thomas W. Lippman Military analysts and political commentators have deluged their readers over the past week with their views about the U.S. missile strike on Syria ordered by President Donald Trump. Some of the assessments were more useful than… Continue Reading
by Shireen T. Hunter Recently, the chief mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh, said that Iranians are Majus. This is the Arab name for Iran’s Zoroastrians, who were the majority of the people at the time of the… Continue Reading
by Mansour Farhang A semi-irony of the 37-year-old animosity between Iran and the United States is the repeated convergence of short-term interests between hard-liners in the Iranian theocracy and right-wing political forces in America. The latest example is the dispute over… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Many variables are involved in the messy predicaments in the Middle East, but one way of framing the history and issues of U.S. policy toward the region is in terms of the approaches that have been… Continue Reading