When President Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton after she clinched the required number of delegates to become the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, he stated that he thought there had never been ‘someone so qualified to hold this office [of President]’ as her. That was a big call, and I suspect a few people may disagree…
ContextThe results of Iran’s February 26, 2016, parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections could prove to be an important turning point in the history of the Islamic Republic. Coming on the heels of the implementation of the nuclear deal, the election served as a referendum in favor of President Hassan Rouhani’s moderating approach to international…
As the power contest between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran intensifies, an important factor is Iran’s advantage in the area of asymmetric warfare, particularly with regard to Yemen and Syria. A major driver in the rise of the so-called “Shi’ite Crescent” has been Iran’s ability to spread its influence…
Following Senator Ted Cruz’s much expected defeat of Donald Trump in the 5 April Wisconsin primary, Trump’s goal of winning the majority of delegates by the time the Republican Party holds its convention in July has now become even more elusive. Although the odds of becoming his party’s presidential candidate are against him, it’s still…
U.S. – Saudi relations are under intense scrutiny. Officials in Riyadh chafe at U.S. reluctance to engineer the overthrow of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. More importantly, they fear that President Barack Obama’s diplomatic opening to Iran might prove to be a portent of normalized relations between Washington and Tehran. Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers accuse the Saudis of…
Washington’s management of its wobbly and contested Middle East policy has just become whole lot more difficult and complicated with the worsening of tensions between Riyadh and Tehran following the recent Saudi execution of an elderly Shiite cleric on dubious terrorism charges. On the one hand, there’s Saudi Arabia, the uncontested leader of the Arab…
The Paris agreement on climate change is a big win for President Obama, particularly given that he’s invested a lot of political capital in this issue, especially in his second term when he no longer has to worry about having to run for re-election. The outcome of the conference seems to have vindicated his commitment…
ContextAs we approach the end of the year, the pace of unprecedented global change is in no way easing. While the Iran nuclear deal was a remarkable achievement, it was accompanied by two hypotheses: will the agreement bolster Iran to exert even more influence in the region, or would it have to adjust its behavior…
For a president who wanted to leave the Middle East behind so that he could focus on other pressing issues—such as the much-publicised ‘rebalancing’ to the Asia–Pacific—Barack Obama wasn’t dealt the best of hands. However, in the case of Syria, a country which has suffered horrendously for the last four years—over 250,000 people have died,…
This was never going to be an easy meeting between the leaders of one of the oldest democracies and the world’s largest dictatorship. The two countries have an increasingly conflicted relationship: on the one hand, they are global partners, especially but not solely in the international economic sphere, but, on the other hand, their strategic…
