Saudi Arabia’s stunning sports acquisition blitz, alongside Qatari and Emirati European club purchases, may reshape the beautiful game, just not…
Author: James M. Dorsey
Taliban bans on women’s education and employment by foreign aid organisations operating in Afghanistan are having unintended consequences. The bans…
A recent survey of Iranian public opinion suggests that the lack of confidence in a Middle Eastern regime is starkest…
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has blown new life into Turkey’s vision of a Turkic world that stretches from Anatolia to…
President Joe Biden was not wrong when he declared that “justice has been served” with the killing of Al Qaeda leader…
These are heady days for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. With King Salman home after a week in…
MBZ refused to meet CENTCOM commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie in February because it had taken him 22 days to make…
Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest Over the Arab Spring and the Gulf…
Qatar has begun to cleanse its schoolbooks of supremacist, racist or derogatory references as well as celebrations of violent jihad…
Long banned, Christmas has finally, at least tacitly, arrived in Saudi Arabia; just don’t use the name in marketing or…
Pakistani efforts to exploit the Taliban victory in Afghanistan threaten to reinforce ultra-conservative inclinations in Pakistan itself, the world’s second-most…
US President Joe Biden may have little appetite for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking but seems determined to prevent some third parties from…
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In a sign of the times, Turkish schoolbooks have replaced Saudi texts as the focus of criticism of…
Recent clashes in the Iranian province of Sistan and Balochistan highlight Iran’s vulnerabilities as well as its inability to overcome…
Public opinion polling in the Arab world suggests that autocratic leaders like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his…
Israel knew the drill even before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo boarded his flight to Tel Aviv earlier this…
Populated by fluent Hebrew speakers, the Israel desk of Armenia’s foreign ministry waited back in 1991 in the wake of…
An Israeli police officer in protective gear waits to detain Ultra orthodox men as they pray in a synagogue in…
Syria’s announcement of its first COVID-19 case highlights the public health threat posed by war zones that produce millions of…
Chinese Russian military and geopolitical cooperation is flourishing – for now. If, however, the weapons industry is anything to go…
The Iranian port city of Bandar-e-Mahshahr has emerged as the scene of some of the worst violence in Iran’s brutal crackdown on…
An attack on a military parade in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz is likely to prompt Iranian retaliation against…
Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi won a second term virtually unchallenged in what is widely seen as a flawed election. The…
When Miguel Torres, scion of an iconic Spanish winemaking dynasty, described the impact of the Catalan quest for independence on…
Seventy years after its birth, Pakistan is struggling to get a grip on Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism and its militant…
Valentine’s Day in Riyadh and Islamabad as well as parts of Indonesia and Malaysia puts into sharp relief Saudi…
It’s the pot calling the kettle black. As Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of seeking to encircle it with its support…
Saudi Arabia, in an indication that it is serious about shaving off the sharp edges of its Sunni Muslim…
State Mosque of Qatar under construction, image by Omar Chatriwala via Flickr CC EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Qatar and Saudi Arabia share…
Long-standing Saudi efforts to dominate the pan-Arab media landscape appear to have moved into high gear with Crown Prince Mohammed…
Shot dead this week on a street in The Hague, Ahmad Mola Nissi may have died the violent life he lived, but…
Few paid attention to a rare protest in Saudi Arabia in late January 2011 as a wave of popular uprisings…
In the shadowy world of covert proxy wars, Iran is taking centre stage, both as a target and a player.…
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s recent disavowal of the kingdom’s founding religious ideology had a master’s voice quality to it.…
Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, the sovereign of the Malaysian state of Johor, does not mince his words. His repeated…
Saudi Arabia’s long-awaited lifting of a ban on women’s driving, widely viewed as a symbol of Saudi misogyny, will likely…
Terrorist killings at Iranian parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini bring into focus something Riyadh and Tehran have in common…
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, by breaking off not only diplomatic but also economic relations with Qatar,…
Cracks have appeared in a Saudi-led, US-backed anti-terrorist political and military alliance days after US President Donald J. Trump ended…
Increasingly caught up in the Middle East’s multiple conflicts, Pakistan is struggling to balance relations with rivals Saudi Arabia and…
Blasphemy has joined terrorism as a catchall phrase to intimidate, incarcerate and kill critics and political opponents as well…
For Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, long seen as one of the three most powerful men in international sports,…
Pakistan is emerging as an important military player in the Gulf as its struggles to balance complex relations with regional…
Iran, bowing to external pressure, has allowed women spectators to attend a premier international men’s volleyball tournament on the island…
Vladimir Putin gives Sheikh Tamim a falcom A Qatari decision to backtrack on minimal improvements of the terms of employment…
The Palestine Football Association (PFA), in a first testing of Palestine’s ability to fight its battle with Israel in international…
Two high-level meetings in recent months involving senior military commanders and intelligence officials and/or top-level government representatives spotlight Pakistan’s difficulty…
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused world soccer body FIFA of allowing FIFA-sanctioned matches to be played on occupied…
An Egyptian businessman with close ties to general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has submitted a bid for the broadcasting rights of…
Remarks at 2016 Exeter Gulf Conference This book project on Saudi public diplomacy using primarily the kingdom’s financial muscle…