خلیج و سیاست حوزه انرژی

As Iraqi elections rapidly approach despite an entrenched and violent insurgency, the country's economic challenges are extensive. The government is faced with the momentous task of transforming a war torn, state-dominated economy into a transparent, investment-friendly institution, all during the course of daily political violence. Problems Inherited from the Former

The formal succession has been smooth so far, but many questions remain about how the ruling family will handle major regional decisionmaking in practice.

Municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, scheduled to begin in November, have been postponed until 2005. Given that these will be the first public political elections ever to take place in the kingdom, their introduction has been keenly watched, both domestically and from abroad. The latest delay, the second since the

As everyone knows, Saudis, if not Saudi Arabia, were central to the horrific events of September 11, 2001. Fifteen out of 19 hijackers were Saudi, plus the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, (from whom the kingdom withdrew citizenship in the 1990s). What is perhaps surprising therefore is that Saudi Arabia is

On July 14, 2004, Bahraini security forces arrested seven suspected terrorists accused of planning "to carry out bombings on some government, economic, and tourist facilities to spread chaos and fear and harm the national economy and foreign investments." The arrests targeted a group of Sunni radicals of the extremist Salafi

A string of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia sent oil prices to a 21-year high in early June and prompted speculation about the future stability of the Al-Saud regime. Yet, the near-term terrorist threat presents a relatively minor risk compared to the longer-term possibility of state failure....

Three Americans murdered in Saudi capital, Riyadh, in just two weeks. Two of them beheaded, gruesomely hacked off with a knife rather than severed with an axe. There can be few surer ways of attracting the attention of the American public. But then the leader of the gang of Islamic

The implications of the assault on al-Khobar are huge. It confirms that there has been a significant shift in the pattern of terror attacks in Saudi Arabia; the battle between Osama bin Laden and the royal House of Saud is shifting gear. Although the casualties are far fewer than those

Over the past week, oil prices have exceeded $40 per barrel for the first time since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and gasoline prices in parts of the United States are now more $2 per gallon. Contributing to this increase were heightened concerns about supply, particularly in the wake