Current Analysis

Onwards and Upwards with Women in the Gulf

An examination of women’s struggles to gain the right to vote in Kuwait, and ongoing efforts to promote women’s football in Qatar, provide useful in-depth case studies. They cannot predict the future course of change in Saudi Arabia, but they illustrate the need for ongoing political engagement and

Charlotte Lysa, Andrew Leber • 16 min read

Current Analysis

An Open Letter by Senior Middle East Scholars to the New York Times Regarding its Thomas Friedman's column, "Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring, At Last."

We write as scholars of the Middle East and the Muslim world with long, collective experience on Gulf and Arabian Peninsula policy issues to express our amazement, concern and anger that the New York Times would publish Thomas Friedman's recent essay "Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring,

(Author not identified) • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Letter to UN Secretary-General Regarding Saudi Arabia's Removal from List of Armies Charged with War Crimes

"The ruling Saudi regime obviously knows how to use its wealth to manipulate dysfunctional international bodies such as the UN. However, in the eyes of the global community it stands charged with overwhelming evidence of war crimes and of fundamental human indecency."

(Author not identified) • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Arabia Incognita

A new anthology from MERIP and Just World Books explores the Arabian Peninsula as "a distinct political unit" whose upheavals reverberate regionally and globally.

The Editors • 2 min read

Current Analysis

Open Letter from Scholars of Yemen

Scholars write for the third time to condemn the actions of the US-Saudi-French alliance violating international humanitarian law in the southern Arabian Peninsula.

(Author not identified) • 2 min read

Current Analysis

Notes on Low Oil Prices and Their Implications

After about three years of hovering around $110 per barrel, with highs of $125 and lows of $90, oil prices began a precipitous decline in the summer of 2014, reaching a low of $48 per barrel in mid-August 2015 before plummeting to just under $30 per barrel five months later. While investors are no d

Miriam R. Lowi • 5 min read

Current Analysis

Saudi Arabia's Dangerous Sectarian Game

When Saudi Arabia executed the Shiite cleric and political dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday, the country’s leaders were aware that doing so would upset their long-time rivals in Iran. In fact, the royal court in Riyadh was probably counting on it. It got what it wanted. The deterioration of

Toby Jones • 3 min read

Current Analysis

The GCC Needs a Successful Strategy for Yemen, Not Failed Tactics

For the last 45 years, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has tried to mitigate its Yemen problem through short-term tactics, rather than construct and give resources to a strategy for solving it. That policy has failed repeatedly. A bold and lasting transformation is needed, not the same ineffectua

James Spencer • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Yemen Is Starving, and We're Partly to Blame

Twenty million people in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, are at risk of dying from hunger or thirst. That’s 80 percent of the country’s population, which according to UN agencies badly needs emergency supplies of food and water, along with fuel and medicine. This almost unimaginable c

Chris Toensing • 2 min read

Current Analysis

Breaking Even, Breaking Down or Going for Broke?

As of mid-May 2015, crude oil prices had fallen to the lowest level in recent years, under $60 a barrel for US domestic benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and about $66 a barrel for the international Brent benchmark [http://www.oil-price.net/]. These market prices are compared to several types

Karen Pfeifer • 6 min read

Current Analysis

Two Resolutions, a Draft Constitution and Late Developments

On April 14, three weeks into the Saudi-led air campaign called Operation Decisive Storm, the UN Security Council approved Resolution 2216 [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/14/world/middleeast/document-draft-resolution-on-yemen.html]. This legally binding resolution, put forward by Jordan,

Sheila Carapico • 8 min read

Current Analysis

Operation Decisive Storm and the Expanding Counter-Revolution

On the night of March 25 one hundred Saudi warplanes bombed strategic targets inside Yemen under the control of the Houthi rebels. A number of countries—the other Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) members minus Oman, as well as Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Morocco and Pakistan—joined the effort either directl

John M. Willis • 4 min read