Like Israel, Saudi Arabia wants a formalised security agreement, even if that accord may not target Iran as explicitly as Israel’s request does.
Nato’s spat over Turkish opposition to Swedish and Finnish membership is about more than expanding the North Atlantic military alliance.
Rather than push for an immediate improvement of strained relations with the United States, Saudi Arabia appears to be looking forward to a
The Russian Orthodox Church blesses rather than fire weapons. In doing so, it has emerged as a powerful weapon in its own right in President Vladimir Putin’s civilisationalist arsenal.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have drawn praise for social reforms that have domestically reduced the role of religion in public life.
Long banned, Christmas has finally—at least tacitly—arrived in Saudi Arabia; just don’t use the name in marketing or be ostentatious about your tree.
Just in case there were any doubts, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu demonstrated with his visit to Lebanon last week that improved relations between Middle-Eastern rivals would not bury hatchets.
Two separate developments involving improved relations between Sunni and Shia Muslims and women’s sporting rights demonstrate major shifts in how rivalry for the leadership of the Muslim world and competition to define Islam in the 21st century are playing out in a world where the Middle Eastern states can no longer depend on the United States coming to their defence.
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 recent anti-government protests.
Rarely is out-of-the-box thinking needed more than in this era of geopolitical, political and economic turmoil.
Mass anti-government protests in several Arab countries are turning into competitions to determine who has the longer breath, the protesters or the government.
These are uncertain times with trade wars, regional conflicts and increased abuse of human and minority rights pockmarking the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world.
If there is one theme, beyond corruption and a host of economic and social grievances, that have driven protests—large and small, local, sectoral and national—across the globe, it has been a call for dignity.
Protests in Lebanon have evolved into more than a fight against failed and corrupt government that has long stymied development in the Middle East and North Africa.
Pakistan, long viewed as an incubator of religious militancy, is gearing up for a battle over the future of the country’s notorious madrassas, religious seminaries accused of breeding radicalism.
Turkey’s ambass-ador to China, Emin Onen, didn’t mince his words this week when he took his Chinese hosts to task for failing to support Turkey’s military campaign against a Kurdish militia in Syria.
Turkey, like much of the Middle East, is discovering that what goes around comes around.
For the better part of a century, the United States could claim the moral high ground despite allegations of hypocrisy because its policies continuously contradicted its proclaimed propagation of democracy and human rights. Under President Donald J Trump the US has lost that moral high ground.
