A ransom payment for a kidnapped royal hunting party. Hacking claims and “fake news.” A blockade that U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to take credit for, hours after his secretary of state called for it to be lifted. “The biggest bovine airlift in history.” The escalating rift between Qatar, the tiny Gulf state with a big foreign policy agenda, and its neighbors, led by Saudi Arabia, already had all the makings of a geopolitical soap opera. And the plot keeps thickening. On Monday, Qatari shipping lines were rerouted to Oman, bypassing their usual ports in the United Arab Emirates, which [...]
The dramatic crisis pitting tiny, oil-wealthy Qatar against regional powers Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt raises the question of the survivability of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional organization of six Gulf states. Most likely, Qatar will make some concessions to return to the fold. But the GCC will end up weaker as a result, and Riyadh’s ambition to push for deeper unity of effort among the six states will not be realized. The political assault against Qatar has seen Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other states break diplomatic ties with Doha, as well as close their [...]
In March, to mark—and taunt—the two-year anniversary of the military intervention launched by Saudi Arabia in northern Yemen, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh marched down a major thoroughfare in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, surrounded by throngs of adoring supporters. Bodyguards cleared his path as a crowd of tens of thousands cheered him on. The Sanaanis, as the capital’s residents are called, were overjoyed to catch sight of the man they consider their leader—even though he was forced to step down as president five years prior. Saleh delivered a speech to the crowd in his clipped northern accent, triumphantly declaring that [...]
