Category Archives: Saudi Arabia
Listen: Saudi and Gulf relations and influence in the Arab world
Dr James Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, journalist and two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, analyses the relations between the Persian/Arab Gulf states and their influence on other Arab countries. He also explains the motives behind the United Arab Emirates’ normalisation of relations with Israel.
His syndicated column and other podcasts can be found at www.jamesmdorsey.net Read more [...]
Trailer: Five Minutes to Midnight – a new podcast covering current international issues
Mohamed El-Doufani* writes:
Five Read more [...]
Saudis’ Yemeni headache won’t go away if and when the guns fall silent
James Dorsey says once the Saudi war on Yemen ends, the risk is of the emergence of a generation that has nothing to look forward to and nothing to lose – one that is likely to deeply resent what it perceives Saudi Arabia has done to its country. Read more [...]
Prince Muhammad’s Khashoggi bullet: An insight into Saudi strategic thinking
James Dorsey views Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s murderous strategy towards critics and highlights his efforts to use ties with Russia as leverage to ward off potential US pressure following the murder of writer Jamal Khashoggi. Read more [...]
Saudi Arabia and the West’s right wing: A dubious alliance
James Dorsey highlights Saudi Arabia’s courting of European far-right groups, including Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, the Danish People’s Party, the Swedish Democrats, and Europe of Nations and Freedom, a bloc of far-right parties in the European parliament. Read more [...]
Whither Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism?
James Dorsey analyses the structural societal and political obstacles to Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s professed desire to reform and modernise Saudi Arabia and place it on the path of an undefined “moderate Islam”. Read more [...]
Saudi religious diplomacy targets Jerusalem
James Dorsey analyses Saudi-UAE efforts to seize control of Israeli-occupied Jerusalem’s Islamic sites from Jordan, which include overtures to Israel and coopting Palestinian collaborators, foremost disgraced former security official Muhammad Dahlan. Read more [...]
Saudi-Moroccan spat: Competing for the mantle of “moderate Islam”
James Dorsey says Morocco’s attempt to portray itself as a promoter of so-called “moderate Islam” so far appears more convincing than the efforts of Saudi Arabia to that end, especially in light of recent Saudi concessions to ultra-conservatives. Read more [...]
Saudi export of ultra-conservatism in the era of Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman
James Dorsey examines the extent to which the self-styled reformist de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, is disengaging from extremist Sunni Islamist groups, or whether the Saudis’ anti-Shia obsession is making the extremists too useful a tool to drop. Read more [...]
The Saudi-Israeli liaison
Lawrence Davidson examines the common underpinnings of Israel and Saudi Arabia, two countries run like restricted clubs, one demanding that you be Jewish to have membership rights, and the other wants you to be a Sunni Muslim of the Wahhabi tradition. Read more [...]
