By James M Dorsey Widely seen as a populist with ultra-conservative inklings, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan increasingly appears to reinforce widespread traditionalist attitudes that reject religious tolerance as well as the rights of women and minorities. In doing so, Mr. Khan is aligning Pakistan in religious and social terms closer to Turkey than his country’s traditional allies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Turkish President […]
By James M Dorsey When Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid recently sparked a war of words with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki he was doing more than resisting Central European attempts at rewriting the history and legacy of the Holocaust and right-wing nationalistic flirting with anti-Semitic tropes. The war centred on a bill debated in the Polish parliament that makes it essentially impossible for Jews to claim property they […]
James M Dorsey Recent announcements by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of plans to turn the kingdom into a transportation and logistics hub that connects continents take to a new level Saudi efforts to replace the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as the Middle East’s go-to addresses. Prince Mohammed’s plans, which include the creation of a new national carrier alongside Saudia, currently the kingdom’s aviation flagship and construction of a new airport for […]
James M Dorsey The rise of hardline President-elect Ebrahim Raisi has prompted someanalysts to counterintuitively suggest that it could pave the way for reduced regional tensions and potential talks on a rejiggered Middle Eastern security architecture but getting from A to B is likely to prove easier said than done. Hopes that a hardline endorsement of a return to the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program will […]
James M Dorsey Education is emerging as a major flashpoint in competing visions of a future Muslim world. Rival concepts being instilled in a next generation are likely to shape what amounts to a battle for the soul of Islam. Reports earlier this year published by the Israel-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE) chart the divergence in educational approaches. At one end of […]
By James M Dorsey The Middle East has a knack for sucking external powers into its conflicts. China’s ventures into the region have shown how difficult it is to maintain its principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. China’s abandonment of non-interference is manifested by its (largely ineffective) efforts to mediate conflicts in South Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan as well as between Israel and Palestine and even between Saudi […]
By James M. Dorsey Ukraine is about much more than the security of one sovereign nation. The battle for Ukraine is a battle for the new world order. In that battle, Russian President Vladimir Putin is living up to the worst expectations of Western policymakers and analysts. Unlike Chinese President Xi Jinping, Putin is seeking […]
The post Putin Pushing For A New World Order Through Ukraine first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M. Dorsey Iran recently scored not one but two soccer successes. Fans celebrated after the country’s national team qualified for the third consecutive time for the World Cup after beating Iraq 1:0 last week. It wasn’t just men celebrating. It was men and women mingling freely in a Tehran square. That was after men and women, albeit segregated, egged on their team in Tehran’s Azadi or Freedom Stadium. Although […]
By James Dorsey A cursory look at Saudi Arabia and Iran suggests that emphasizing human rights in US foreign policy may complicate relations but has little impact on regional stability or the willingness of protagonists to reduce tension and manage conflicts when it is in their interest. A post 9/11 US emphasis on human rights was not what inspired homegrown popular Arab revolts over the past decade […]
By James M. Dorsey The times they are a changin’. Iranian leaders may not be Bob Dylan fans, but his words are likely to resonate as they contemplate their next steps in Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Lebanon, and Azerbaijan. The same is true for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The president’s shine as a fierce defender of Muslim causes, except for when there is an economic price tag […]
By James M. Dorsey “It’s the economy, stupid.” That is the message of a just-published survey of Iranian public opinion. However, the substance of the message differs for newly elected hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the Biden administration as Mr. Raisi toughens his negotiating position and the United States grapples with alternative ways of curbing the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme should the parties fail to agree on terms […]
By James M. Dorsey Two separate developments involving improved relations between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and women’s sporting rights demonstrate major shifts in how rivalry for leadership of the Muslim world and competition to define Islam in the 21st century is playing out in a world in which Middle Eastern states can no longer depend on the United States coming to their defence. The developments fit into […]
James M. Dorsey Saudi and Emirati efforts to define ‘moderate’ Islam as socially more liberal while being subservient to an autocratic ruler is as much an endeavour to ensure regime survival and bolster aspirations to lead the Muslim world as it is an attempt to fend off challenges rooted in diverse strands of religious ultra-conservatism. The Saudi and Emirati efforts to garner religious soft power have much […]
By James M. Dorsey A paradigm shift in jihadist thinking suggests that the US invasion of Afghanistan may prove to have achieved more than many counterterrorism experts would want policymakers and military strategists to believe. Similarly, the paradigm shift also hints at the possibility that the presence in a Taliban-governed Afghanistan of various militant Islamist and jihadist groups could turn out to be an advantage in efforts […]
James Dorsey Recent attacks on Kabul’s international airport by the Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate raise multiple questions as well as the spectre of paradigm shifts in the drivers and expanding geography of political violence. The attacks have called into question the Taliban’s ability to maintain security and keep a lid on the activities of multiple militant groups in Afghanistan. Long at war with the Islamic State (IS), […]
James Dorsey Boasting an almost 1,000-kilometer border with Iran and a history of troubled relations between the Iranians and Sunni Muslim militants, including the Taliban, Afghanistan could become a bellwether for the future of the rivalry between the Islamic Republic and Saudi Arabia. Had the United States withdrawn from Afghanistan several years earlier, chances would have been that Saudi Arabia would have sought to exploit military advances […]
James M. Dorsey The United States and Iran seem to be hardening their positions in advance of a resumption of negotiations to revive a 2015 international nuclear agreement once Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi takes office in early August. Concern among supporters of the agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program which former US President Donald J. Trump abandoned in 2018 may be premature but do raise questions about […]
James M. Dorsey A recent analysis of Middle Eastern states’ interventionist policies suggests that misguided big power approaches have fueled a vicious cycle of interference and instability over the last decade. Those approaches are abetted, if not encouraged by US and Chinese strategies that are similar, if not essentially the same, just labelled differently. The United States has long opted for regime stability in the Middle East rather than […]
James Dorsey China may have no short-term interest in contributing to guaranteeing security in parts of a swath of land stretching from Central Asia to the East coast of Africa, but that does not prevent the People’s Republic from preparing for a time when it may wish to build on long-standing political and military relationships in various parts of the world to project power and maintain an […]
by James M. Dorsey Personality as well as the conflation of genuine national interest with personal ambition contribute to the widening gap between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It was only a matter of time before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would want to come out on his own and no longer be seen as the protégé of his erstwhile mentor and Emirati counterpart, […]
By James M. Dorsey US President Joe Biden may have little appetite for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking but seems determined to prevent some third parties from exploiting the regional stalemate to their advantage. That seems to be one message contained in ensuring that King Abdullah of Jordan will be the first Arab leader to visit the White House since Mr. Biden took office. The message takes on added significance with the […]
James M. Dorsey Pakistan’s place in a new world order is anybody’s guess. Recent policy moves suggest options that run the gamut from a state that emphasizes religion above all else to a country that forges a more balanced relationship with China and the United States. The options need not be mutually exclusive but a populous, nuclear-armed country whose education system is partially anchored in rote learning […]
James M. Dorsey Eager to enhance its negotiating leverage with the United States and Europe, Iran is projecting imminent membership of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in much the same way it pushed the signing of a much-touted 25-year cooperation agreement with the People’s Republic that has yet to have any real legs. Converting Iran’s SCO observer status into full membership is likely to be a […]
Dr. James M. Dorsey Saudi Arabia has stepped up efforts to outflank the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as the Gulf’s commercial, cultural, and/or geostrategic hub. The kingdom has recently expanded its challenge to the smaller Gulf states by seeking to position Saudi Arabia as the region’s foremost sport destination once Qatar has had its moment in the sun with the 2022 World Cup as well as […]
James M. Dorsey The clashes sparked by a crackdown on cross border fuel smuggling to neighbouring Pakistan achieved what past US and Saudi machinations failed to accomplish: ethnic unrest in a strategic, impoverished and long restive majority Sunni province in predominantly Shiite Iran.Recent clashes in the Iranian province of Sistan and Balochistan highlight Iran’s vulnerabilities as well as its inability to overcome trauma and control its demons. The […]
By James M. Dorsey Demonstrating for the third week their determination to force the country’s military to return to its barracks, protesters in Myanmar appear to be learning lessons from a decade of protest in the Middle East and North Africa. By the same token, Myanmar’s protesters, in stark contrast to public silence about the military’s brutal repression of the Rohingya minority in recent years, seem to […]
By James M. Dorsey Silent about rising sectarian violence in Pakistan, Gulf states vying for religious soft power risk exposing the limitations of their concepts of an undefined ‘moderate’ Islam that is tolerant and endorses pluralism. Countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have so far turned a blind eye to mounting sectarian sentiment in Karachi and Punjab province against Shiites and Ahmadis, sects […]
By James M. Dorsey Saudi Arabia has taken multiple steps to polish its tarnished image in advance of this weekend’s hosting of the virtual summit of the G20 that groups the world’s foremost economies and in anticipation of an incoming Biden administration in the United States that is expected to be critical of Riyadh and potentially more conciliatory towards Iran and non-violent Islamists. The initiatives target US and European […]
By James M. Dorsey and Alessandro Arduino Public debates about China’s Middle East policy are as much internal Chinese discussions as they are indications of where Beijing’s thinking is going and efforts to nudge countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to accommodate potential policy changes. Relying on scholars rather than officials, China is signalling to Gulf states adjustments they would have to make to […]
By James M. Dorsey Weakened by Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of US President Donald J. Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu risks being caught between a rock and a hard place as Jordan, the Palestine Authority and the United Arab Emirates manoeuvre for control of what is to Jews the Temple Mount and to Muslims the Haram ash-Sharif, the third most holy site in Islam. The rivalry […]
