Another grim anniversary
The approach of an anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 always concentrates my mind. It was, astonishingly, 16 Septembers ago that a team of foreign terrorists hijacked three American pas...
Mecca
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Saudi Arabia Still Hostile To Israel
Before visiting Jerusalem in several days, President Trump will stop in Saudi Arabia for meetings with Islamic leaders to discuss joint efforts against extremism. He may wish to start with Saudi...
Op-eds
A Turkish TV blockbuster reveals Erdogan’s conspiratorial, anti-Semitic worldview
“The Last Emperor” is Turkey’s newest television blockbuster, consistently rating among Turkey’s ...
Op-eds
Saudi Arabia’s Charm Offensive with New U.S. President
Saudi Arabia’s most powerful prince, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, became the first Arab leader to meet in the White House on Tuesday with President Donald Trump, who was accompa...
Policy Briefs
Mohsen Qomi: A Revolutionary Diplomat on the Rise
FDD Research
Memos
The West isn’t worse than the rest
Intellectuals of the left and those influenced by them judge the United States and certain European nations as uniquely guilty of imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, homop...
Op-eds
The kingdom, the power and the petroleum
Saudi Arabia is changing. When government officials here tell you that, you take it with an oversized grain of salt. But when Saudi human rights activists say the same, you pay attenti...
Op-eds
The Face-Off
Donald Trump has promised a foreign policy of muscular retrenchment, in which a better-resourced U.S. military intimidates our enemies without serving as a global cop. More than any pr...
Op-eds
The Death of Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a Machiavellian Prince
Co-written by Ali Alfoneh. Last week Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the principal architect of the Islamic Republic, died of a heart attack at 82. The former parliamentary speake...
Op-eds
Rizvi’s Reformation
The Atheist Muslim opens with snow in Saudi Arabia. The author, Ali Rizvi, is in fifth grade at the American school in Riyadh, where students are folding glittery snowflakes out of construction p...
Op-eds
Attacks Highlight Terrorists’ Goals in Saudi Arabia, but Also Limits
Suicide bombers struck three Saudi cities on Monday, detonating themselves near the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, a U.S. diplomatic facility in Jeddah, and a Shiite mosque in the eastern city...
Policy Briefs
Analysis: Attacks show radicals retain foothold in Saudi Arabia
A wave of suicide attacks Monday in Saudi Arabia, especially one near the burial site of the prophet Mohammed, shows that radicals are increasingly challenging the Al Saud royal family and its ro...
Op-eds
What it’s like to be a Muslim in the CIA
It was the day after the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. I was working as a CIA analyst. I sat in a room with the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, along with several other a...
Op-eds
The Mr. Rogers Doctrine
Barack Obama last week visited Saudi Arabia, an unusual nation with which the United States has had a relationship that can be accurately characterized as both strategic and strange — and o...
Op-eds
Saudi Clerics’ Rhetoric — and Implications for Global Security
President Barack Obama’s meeting Wednesday with King Salman of Saudi Arabia...
Op-eds
Ten Years of Hamas Rule: The Palestinians Must Solve Their Divide Before Peace With Israel
Ten years ago today, Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative electi...
Op-eds
Iran is Complicit in Attacks on Saudi Missions
Saudi Arabia executed a prominent anti-government Shiite cleric on Saturday, prompting angry mobs in Iran to storm the Saudi consulate in Mashhad and set ablaze Riyadh’s embassy in Tehran....
Policy Briefs
A Suggestion for the Islamic State Book Club
After a long week of slitting throats, smashing antiquities and raping infidel slave girls, how do the Islamic State’s barbarians unwind? Some, apparently, discuss the finer points of histo...
Op-eds
Victory Without Soldiers?
With the war in Syria becoming ever more complex and murderous, it’s worthwhile to revisit a guiding principle of Barack Obama: The use of American military power is likely to do more harm...
Op-eds
It’s Time for the United States to Start Worrying About a Saudi Collapse
As if there weren’t already enough problems to worry about in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia might be headed for trouble. From plummeting oil prices, to foreign policy missteps, to growing t...