الخليج وسياسة الطاقة

With the world focused on the UN-Iraqi standoff, the fourth annual Middle East/North Africa (MENA) Economic Conference concluded quietly in Qatar earlier this week. As Arab world heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia officially boycotted the proceedings, the MENA summit ended on an ambivalent note: Though viewed as a general success

Yemen is a very traditional country and society, and to some extent it is characterized by traditional politics. Yemen's past-including its long traditions of trade and diplomacy with surrounding countries-influences its current actions. This century has been a particularly difficult one for Yemen. The North and South were divided, and

Today's announcement of the deal between U.S. law enforcement officials and Hani al-Sayigh, an alleged member of the clandestine Shi`i organization "Saudi Hizballah" with links to the al-Khobar Towers bombing, has strategic, not just legal, implications for the investigation of that terrorist act. The decision to seek al-Sayigh's deportation to

Summarizes assessments of various Middle East economic experts in order to provide an overview and forecast of regional prospects for 1998. The author focuses on issues affecting all Middle Eastern economies, including oil dependence, economic centralization, massive subsidization, and other long- and short-term factors.

Peace in the Persian Gulf is crucial for international stability, including in East Asia. Moreover, a stable supply of crude oil and natural gas is essential to the United States, the European Union and the Asian countries. Nearly 80 percent of Japan's crude oil imports come from the Gulf region

In the latter half of the 1990s, the Iranian economy faces horrendous problems: economic mismanagement, high inflation, declining living standards, a growing gap (much of it fueled by pervasive corruption) between a wealthy minority and vast impoverished majority, high rates of unemployment, an inability to significantly increase oil production (concurrent

Saudi Arabia has gotten a lot of negative attention in recent months. The Saudis have been blamed for failing to pay sufficient attention to homegrown dissidents, contributing to American deaths in terrorist attacks in Riyadh and Dhahran. King Fahd's stroke in late 1995 prompted speculation that a succession crisis loomed

For the United States, supporting UN Security Council Resolution 986 is a gamble. Washington hopes that the "oil-for-food" deal will be a trap that will reduce pressure to lift the rest of Iraqi sanctions, thereby thwarting Saddam Hussein's strategy to win the end of sanctions by playing on international sympathy

With the dust clearing on the public relations "spin" suggested by competing Arab, Israeli and American observers of the Middle East/North Africa Economic Conference held in Cairo two weeks ago, a detached assessment of that now-annual event would underscore the surprising durability of new regional institutions at times of political