By Alistair Lyon Arriving in Amman the other day, I boarded an airport taxi into town and began chatting with the driver. I’ll call him Yusuf. He told me he used to work as an engineer, calibrating ground instruments for the Jordanian air force. I mentioned that...
Rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, aspirants for leadership of the Islamic world, is at the crux of conflict across the Mideast, with deadly results. An Iranian woman in Tehran holds up a poster showing Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent opposition Saudi Shiite...
We originally published this article in February after Donald Trump took office as U.S. president and said he was not committed to a two-state solution in Palestine. We are publishing it again because of the continuing importance of the issue, which was the focus of a...
The region is energy-rich, torn by conflict and at the center of a struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. All reasons why the blockade of Qatar matters. A container ship in Doha, Qatar, 14 June 2017. (EPA/Noushad thekkayil) The region holds about half of the...
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have punished Qatar. The real target is not the small, gas-rich emirate but the regional powerhouse that is Iran. The “crisis” enveloping the tiny Gulf state of Qatar is a classic case of that regional diplomatic specialty:...