The split within the Gulf Cooperation Council that pits regional powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against Qatar has proven surprisingly durable. Kuwaiti efforts to mediate the six-month-long dispute have failed, most recently and notably when Kuwait’s emir convened the annual GCC summit on Dec. 5 and was forced to end the proceedings early just after the closed-door opening remarks. The intra-Gulf rupture has spilled over to the region’s external relations, making it harder for security partners to insist on maintaining even and equal relations with all GCC members. From informal think tank consultations to formal intergovernmental forums, [...]
Five years ago, on a hazy summer afternoon in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, a security guard at the presidential palace led me around its mosque, which had been the site of a 2011 assassination attempt against then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh during the height of the Arab Spring protests. The shoes of the men who were killed in the bombing—a who’s who of Yemen’s ruling party—were still piled outside the mosque’s entrance. Saleh was very lucky that day. He had been standing near the mosque’s doorway, away from the center of the room that had taken the brunt of the explosion, the [...]
The drama surrounding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman continues to captivate policy communities around the world. Is MBS, as the upstart royal is known, a genuine reformer or a reckless and ambitious young leader who has more power than he has wisdom? He is strongly identified with Saudi Arabia’s costly war in neighboring Yemen, the nearly six-month diplomatic standoff with Qatar and the geopolitical struggle with Iran. At home, he has spearheaded ambitious plans to open up social space, reinvent the political system and adapt the kingdom’s economic strategies for a changing world energy landscape. The rise of MBS [...]
