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By MICHAEL CROWLEY The crisis over Saudi Arabia’s execution of a pro-Iranian Shiite cleric has brought President Barack Obama’s long-troubled relationship with the Saudi royals to a new low. U.S. officials said Obama wants to reassure Saudi Arabia that his July nuclear deal with Iran doesn’t mean that …

The Islamic State threatened to destroy Saudi Arabian prisons holding jihadists after Riyadh’s execution of 47 people including 43 convicted al Qaeda militants, Reuters reports. The militant group, which has claimed responsibility for attacks in the kingdom and stepped up operations in neighboring Yemen, singled out the al-Ha’ir …

James Dorsey Scholars, policy pundits, policymakers, and journalists have identified any number of reasons for a crisis in the Middle East and North Africa that, starting with the 2011 popular revolts, has swept the region; toppled leaders in four countries – Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen; prompted Saudi-led …

The timetable for a Syrian political transition, which leaves President Bashar Assad in power for at least another year, will upset the United State’s traditional Arab allies, former US Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey said. In December, the UN-sponsored International Syria Support Group (ISSG) reached an agreement on a …

The ISIS leader threatened attacks on Israel and called on Muslims to join the group, but his appeal largely fell flat to hundreds online. In Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s latest purported call to violence, the leader of ISIS insisted his self-declared caliphate was strong and intact, despite the erosion …

As we step into the new year, we face a world in which geopolitical and geo-economic risks are multiplying. Most of West Asia is ablaze, stoking speculation that a long Sunni-Shia war (like Europe’s Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants) could be at hand. China’s rise is …

While markets are having a shaky start to 2016, the chatter of commentators proclaiming the ‘new normal’ at which the global economy has supposedly arrived has been steady. It is true that the economic framework for the United States, and the trajectory of the global economy, is different …

When Saudi Arabia announced Saturday that it had executed Nimr al-Nimr, a controversial Shia cleric, international criticism was sharp and swift. Al-Nimrwas a harsh critic of the Saudi leadership, and his rhetoric occasionally contained striking similarities to that of Iranian leaders. Yet the Saudis had locked him up …

With tensions ratcheting up between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the potential for conflict is growing. While Iranian forces are no match technologically for Riyadh’s lavishly equipped military, Tehran can use what equipment and troops it does have in clever ways to offset that advantage. But sanctions have done …