Qatar, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but unlike Kuwait, cleanses its textbooks
Qatar has begun to cleanse its schoolbooks of supremacist, racist or derogatory references as well…
Author James M. Dorsey
Christmas arrives in Saudi Arabia as kingdom plays catch-up in religious soft power rivalry
Long banned, Christmas has finally, at least tacitly, arrived in Saudi Arabia; just don’t use…
Taliban victory threatens to be a double-edged sword for Pakistan and China
Pakistani efforts to exploit the Taliban victory in Afghanistan threaten to reinforce ultra-conservative inclinations in…
Maneuvering Jerusalem’s future: Upcoming DC visit puts wind in Jordanian monarch’s sails
US President Joe Biden may have little appetite for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking but seems determined to…
Turkish, not Saudi, Schoolbooks Under Scrutiny
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In a sign of the times, Turkish schoolbooks have replaced Saudi texts as…
Smugglers’ protests: Iran succumbs to trauma and demons
Recent clashes in the Iranian province of Sistan and Balochistan highlight Iran’s vulnerabilities as well…
Changing attitudes towards religiosity: A double-edged sword for Arab rulers
Public opinion polling in the Arab world suggests that autocratic leaders like Saudi Crown Prince…
Israel-China Relations: Staring Into the Abyss of US-Chinese Decoupling
Israel knew the drill even before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo boarded his flight…
Middle Eastern juxtapositions: The phone call that never came
Populated by fluent Hebrew speakers, the Israel desk of Armenia’s foreign ministry waited back in…
Stopping COVID-19 in Its Tracks: Science Gets the Upper Hand
An Israeli police officer in protective gear waits to detain Ultra orthodox men as they…
Refugees and Shantytowns in MENA and Beyond Imperil Global Public Health
Syria’s announcement of its first COVID-19 case highlights the public health threat posed by war…
A symptom of fragile anti-US alliances: Russia accuses China of technology theft
Chinese Russian military and geopolitical cooperation is flourishing – for now. If, however, the weapons…
A microcosm of Iran’s domestic problems, port city bears brunt of crackdown
The Iranian port city of Bandar-e-Mahshahr has emerged as the scene of some of the worst…
Attack in Iran raises spectre of a potentially far larger conflagration
An attack on a military parade in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz is likely…
Egyptian ultras: Down but not out
Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi won a second term virtually unchallenged in what is widely…
Make Wine Not War: Wineism’s recipe for a sustainable political future
When Miguel Torres, scion of an iconic Spanish winemaking dynasty, described the impact of the…
Pakistan struggles to get a grip on militancy and ultra-conservatism
Seventy years after its birth, Pakistan is struggling to get a grip on Sunni…
Valentine’s Day pinpoints limits of Saudi prince’s Islamic reform effort
Valentine’s Day in Riyadh and Islamabad as well as parts of Indonesia and Malaysia…
Expanding regional rivalries: Saudi Arabia and Iran battle it out in Azerbaijan
It’s the pot calling the kettle black. As Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of seeking to…
Surrendering a Brussels mosque: A Saudi break with ultra-conservatism?
Saudi Arabia, in an indication that it is serious about shaving off the sharp…
Qatari vs. Saudi Wahhabism and the Perils of Top-Down Change
State Mosque of Qatar under construction, image by Omar Chatriwala via Flickr CC EXECUTIVE…
Arab media: Saudi purge promises tighter control
Long-standing Saudi efforts to dominate the pan-Arab media landscape appear to have moved into high…
Murder in The Hague: Saudi-Iranian proxy war heats up
Shot dead this week on a street in The Hague, Ahmad Mola Nissi may have died the…
Saudi crackdown raises spectre of wider spread dissent
Few paid attention to a rare protest in Saudi Arabia in late January 2011 as…
In shadowy covert wars, Iran takes centre stage
In the shadowy world of covert proxy wars, Iran is taking centre stage, both as…
Crown Prince Mohammed’s vow to moderate Saudi Islam: Easier said than done
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s recent disavowal of the kingdom’s founding religious ideology had a…
Countering supremacy: Johor Sultan battles Muslim equivalent of Islamophobia
Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, the sovereign of the Malaysian state of Johor, does not…
Women’s driving: Saudi Prince Mohammed’s litmus test
Saudi Arabia’s long-awaited lifting of a ban on women’s driving, widely viewed as a symbol…
Pot, Kettee: why Iran blames Saudi Arabia for Islamic State attacks
Terrorist killings at Iranian parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini bring into focus something Riyadh…
Gulf crisis: Surrender or dig in for the long haul
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, by breaking off not only diplomatic but…
Policy differences emerge among Gulf states days after wooing President Trump
Cracks have appeared in a Saudi-led, US-backed anti-terrorist political and military alliance days after US…
Conflict in the Middle East threatens Pakistan and lynchpin of China’s One Belt, One Road
Increasingly caught up in the Middle East’s multiple conflicts, Pakistan is struggling to balance relations…
Blasphemy and Terrorism: Catchall Phrases to Repress Dissent
Blasphemy has joined terrorism as a catchall phrase to intimidate, incarcerate and kill critics…
Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad: The rise and fall of political corruption in international sports
For Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, long seen as one of the three most…
Pakistani military engagement: Walking a fine line between Saudi Arabia and Iran
Pakistan is emerging as an important military player in the Gulf as its struggles to…
Bowing to pressure: Iran grants women spectators access to sporting event
Iran, bowing to external pressure, has allowed women spectators to attend a premier international men’s…
Qatari backtracking on labour rights and cooperation with Russia reflects new world order
Vladimir Putin gives Sheikh Tamim a falcom A Qatari decision to backtrack on minimal improvements…
Creating a legal precedent: Palestine considers suing Israel in international sports court
The Palestine Football Association (PFA), in a first testing of Palestine’s ability to fight its…
Taking on militants: A fight for the soul of Pakistan
Two high-level meetings in recent months involving senior military commanders and intelligence officials and/or top-level…
Israeli-Palestinian struggle returns to the soccer pitch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused world soccer body FIFA of allowing FIFA-sanctioned matches…
Egypt hopes soccer will help polish its tarnished image
An Egyptian businessman with close ties to general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has submitted a bid…
Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export of Wahhabism
Remarks at 2016 Exeter Gulf Conference This book project on Saudi public diplomacy using…
With mosques under surveillance, IS turns to soccer for recruitment
Abu Otaiba, the nom du guerre of a self-taught imam and Islamic State (IS)…
Is Saudi Arabia Zion?
Kamal Salibi, one of the Arab world’s foremost contemporary historians, kicked up a storm when…
Sports: A barometer of Saudi reform
Mohammed Simsim, the president of the Saudi Arabian Weightlifting Federation, embodies existential dilemmas involved…
Jihad v. Soccer: The Islamic State’s convoluted love-hate relationship
If the Islamic State (IS) was serious about attacking Euro 2016, its plans clearly never…
Men’s hair takes centre stage in battle over legitimacy of political Islam
The Muslim world’s battle over the legitimacy of political Islam has expanded to the…
Turkish soccer brawls: The battle for the future of the Kemalist state
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dresses up his increasing authoritarianism with nationalist and religious overtones,…
Turkish stadiums: A contested political battleground
Last month’s opening of storied Istanbul soccer club Besiktas JK’s renovated Vodafone Arena stadium was…
Women: A Benchmark of Saudi and Iranian Reform
With Saudi Arabia announcing plans for a major restructuring of the kingdom’s economy and Iran…