Policy Analysis

Saudi Arabia should not pursue its perfect political arrangement in Yemen at the expense of peace.

New polling data provides a window into popular Saudi views of the Abraham Accords and other foreign policy concerns facing the kingdom.

During the first half of 2020, global markets saw a significant decline in crude oil prices as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Though the price of crude oil has since stabilized at a little less than $40 a barrel, crude oil remains at just 40 percent of what it

Vocal Saudi dissidents have taken up figures like Jamal Khashoggi and Saad al-Jabri as literal and figurative martyrs for their causes, but their depiction ignores both men’s histories working inside the Saudi state. These dissidents expose, therefore, some of the weakness in their messaging, and they may lack the robust

With the failure to implement the Riyadh Agreement, Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council calls for independence as the best means of ensuring south Yemen’s peace and stability.

Individuals and groups in the Gulf Arab countries—especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain—have repeatedly expressed interest in Israel and frustration with Palestinian leadership over the last few years. These statements reflect a growing loss of patience with the prolonged Palestinian-Israeli dispute, along with a new attribution of the conflict’s

Saudi Sunnis and Shia largely agree on issues polled—except on Qassem Soleimani

Half of Saudis now say that good ties with China are “important” for their country.

On April 25, the Southern Transitional Council (STC) announced a declaration of self-rule in Aden, breaking from the Hadi government in the most recent development in Yemen’s years long civil war. However, it is already struggling to cope with the first real challenge in managing the outbreak in COVID19 cases

Following the events of September 11, 2001, US-NATO military interventions brought the United States directly into Middle Eastern affairs while costing the country more than 7,000 lives and approximately $5.5 trillion dollars. However, the regional perspective of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in particular is that its main result was

The recent terrorist murders by a Saudi cadet at the Pensacola Naval Air Station have revived urgent questions about grassroots Saudi attitudes toward the United States. As luck would have it, new data from a confidential survey conducted inside Saudi Arabia last month provides the answers. And they are not

Since Saudi Arabia broke ties with Iran following the 2016 ransacking and torching of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, tensions have soared and the potential for a full-fledged military confrontation has become virtually unavoidable. With the September attack on Saudi’s oil fields in Abqaiq and the very real threat of

Anti-Israel mobilization and rhetoric have always been a prominent feature of official Arab discourse, regardless of political orientation. Islamist, nationalist, and secular parties have all seen vocal hatred of Israel as a cornerstone for rallying support and a vehicle to spread unrelated political messages to achieve related objectives, with unrelated

Now a two year standoff, the Gulf Crisis between the “Quartet States”—Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt—and Qatar have continued to shape Gulf foreign policy. In the wake of the declaration of a wide-scale boycott against Doha, the Quartet States have since attempted to impose land and sea “hoops”

Nearly two years have lapsed since what was supposed to be a political blitzkrieg against Qatar metastasized into economic and geo-strategic trench warfare. Through effective counter-measures—and despite considerable financial drain—Qatar has seemingly been able to withstand the harsh diplomatic and logistic constraints imposed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab

When Sudanese Defense Minister Awad Ibn Auf issued a statement on April 11, 2019 revealing that Sudan’s longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir had resigned and that a military council would undertake a two-year "transitional governing period,” a number of indicators revealed a shift in domestic and regional attitudes that were likely

Despite its relatively small size, Yemen is one of the most populous areas in the Arabian Peninsula, with a population of over 28 million. The number of people affected by the war in Yemen is correspondingly large: according to some estimates, more than 20 million people need humanitarian assistance and

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia share a long history of close bilateral ties, with bonds of religion and mutual interest dating back to the Saudi support for the independence struggle by the Muslims of the subcontinent during the 1940s. Over the years, this bilateral relationship has matured into a strategic partnership

President Donald Trump’s sudden December 19 announcement via Twitter that the United States would withdraw its troops from Syria took much of the world by surprise. As both Western and regional analysts scramble to discern how this announcement will shape future developments, including the subsequent resignation of Defense Secretary James

In the wake of the Khashoggi scandal, a rare new public opinion poll in Saudi Arabia shows wide popular concern about corruption and a number of other internal problems. At the same time, the survey data demonstrates only minority support for the official initiative of Islamic reform. Ironically, then, this