Saudi Arabia

Intense geo-political upheavals are taking place in the Middle East in the wake of the Trump administration’s exit from power. The Biden administration, therefore, will inherit a Middle East that is much more complex and changed than it was during the Obama administration. However, a lot of what is happening today in the Middle East—The Abraham Accords, an apparent…

In a recently held regional security conference in Bahrain, something unusual happened: Saudi representative went on to criticize Israel and linked Saudia-Israel normalization with the resolution of the Palestinian question. This has largely been seen as a set-back to the smooth going normalization process between Israel and the Gulf states. The UAE and Bahrain…

Amid Trump’s comments regarding the fact that after the presidential election he wants to hold a ceremony of signing a peace agreement between Israel and the Saudi Arabia, with King Salman and his son present there, Yori Cohen, the head of Mossad, has already stated that “normalization of relations with Israel will be a gift from Riyadh to the new US president – regardless…

It appears as if Saudi de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is on a mission to destroy the world oil giant by one after the other ill-conceived economic decisions. Now, as MBS orders yet new desperation cuts in Saudi oil prices, his economy is imploding from all sides—from the stupid Vision 2030 plan to even the traditional oil sector, the source…

Tension related to nuclear proliferation has risen again. This is largely due to the rhetoric of leaders of certain countries hinting  that the build-up of nuclear arsenals epoch is coming back throughout the world. This has already fuelled fears of nuclear armament stock levels in the world and unpredictability of those in whose hands warheads remain. For example…

Saudi Arabia has announced plans to implement an ambitious $800 billion initiative aimed at increasing the size of Riyadh in the next decade, and at transforming the capital into an economic, social and cultural hub in the Persian Gulf region. The ambitious strategy was presented by Fahd Al-Rasheed, the President of the Royal Commission…

In March of this year Saudi Arabia launched what was clearly a catastrophic move to regain its role as the world oil superpower. What initially was a move aimed at taking markets away from Russia, after the latter declined to make further production cuts, has quickly turned into a clumsy even catastrophic repeat of the Saudi 2014 oil miscalculation…

Back in May 2017, during an official visit by Donald Trump to Riyadh, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed one of the largest agreements in the history of the American military-industrial complex to deliver to that country weapons worth 280 billion USD. At that time, the White House press secretary proclaimed that another nine contracts…

The unprecedented scale of the Coronavirus pandemic; the sudden fall in oil prices, caused by Riyadh’s incompetent policies, and the looming economic crisis have all resulted in enormous losses for Saudi Arabia’s economy, and dealt a severe blow to its state budget. These developments have also prompted the rest of the world to lose confidence in the ability…

Many questions have been asked over the years about the special relationship between Saudi Arabia and the West. Despite the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, the continued war on Yemen, and the Saudi-led blockade on neighbouring Qatar, and their many ramifications, the Kingdom has…

It is hard to say what was first to rock humankind and society as we know it — the unstoppable advance of the coronavirus or the steep drop in oil prices. And experts fear that we are now already on the brink of a global economic crisis that could dwarf the Great Depression in the United States, which started…

Legislation circulating in the US Congress threatens to withdraw military support from Saudi Arabia. This is not because Saudi Arabia is an absolute dictatorship which still severs heads off in public. It is not because Saudi Arabia arms and funds some of the worst terrorist organizations on Earth – including Al Qaeda, its Syrian franchise Tahrir al-Sham – previously known…