In early August 2009, Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faysal visited Washington. He praised the Obama administration and then hammered nails into the coffin of its Middle East policy. There was nothing subtle about the Saudi response. For the first time, a non-radical Arab regime--that is, one nominally allied with the United States--has openly ridiculed the U.S. government’s new policy. Naturally, the prince was full of praise for the Obama administration, in general. In specific, … [Read more...]
Imperfect Alliances: Will the Gulf Monarchies Work Together?*
By July 3, 1997
Formally speaking, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a coherent alliance; but is it in fact so? The six GCC states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman) have much in common: socioeconomic and political structures, political culture, and obsessions of security and threats. Although they differ in their perceptions of threats, the GCC states define security in a very narrow, one-dimensional way: as the status-quo continuity of the political … [Read more...]
