This week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to block President Donald Trump’s effort to bypass Congress and complete major arms deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The resolution will almost certainly be vetoed by Trump, but it nonetheless demonstrates an emerging consensus in Washington on the need to reevaluate close U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies in the wake of human rights abuses like the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. How durable might this shift be? And how else is the U.S. foreign policy consensus evolving in the Trump era? In this week’s [...]
Over the past few summers, as scorching heat meets a growing dissatisfaction with their government’s inability to provide basic services and employment, Iraqis have taken to the streets to protest. These demonstrations have occurred primarily in southern Iraq and in Baghdad, where violence has been relatively contained for several years now. To many Iraqis, protest is the only voice they have left. They view the formal political and electoral process as just reinforcing the same elites who have repeatedly failed them since the U.S. invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein. Last summer’s protests in Basra, however, altered the dynamics [...]
It might have seemed like a barely consequential item amid another torrent of breaking news. But word that President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, just attended the annual gathering of a controversial Iranian opposition group at its unlikely base in Albania should raise flags for many reasons, not least of which are concerns for Albania’s troubled and fragile democracy. If Albania is now unexpectedly drawn into one of today’s most dangerous geopolitical conflicts—the one pitting Iran against the United States, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states—the timing couldn’t be worse. The country is in the midst of a full-blown political [...]
