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131. Building a Better US-Gulf Partnership

Author:
Richard LeBaron
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Tension between the United States and its partners in the Gulf flared up visibly in the last several months, notably with Saudi Arabia's public displays of displeasure with the US approach to the Syria conflict, nervousness about an interim nuclear deal with Iran, and sharp differences over Egypt. Gulf distrust of US intentions and actions is nothing new, and is in no small part rooted in the Gulf states' deep frustration with how the United States executed the war in Iraq, which they perceive as placing Iraq under Iran's sphere of influence. But these latest tensions also point to a fundamental gap in expectations about the US role in the region and its commitment to security for the Gulf states.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt

132. Wahhabism vs. Wahhabism: Qatar Challenges Saudi Arabia

Author:
James M Dorsey
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS)
Abstract:
Qatar, a tiny energy-rich state in terms of territory and population, has exploded on to the world map as a major rival to the region’s behemoth, Saudi Arabia. By projecting itself through an activist foreign policy, an acclaimed and at times controversial global broadcaster, an airline that has turned it into a transportation hub and a host of mega sporting events, Qatar has sought to develop the soft power needed to compensate for its inability to ensure its security, safety and defence militarily. In doing so, it has demonstrated that size no longer necessarily is the determining factor for a state’s ability to enhance its influence and power. Its challenge to Saudi Arabia is magnified by the fact that it alongside the kingdom is the world’s only state that adheres to Wahhabism, an austere interpretation in Islam. Qatari conservatism is however everything but a mirror image of Saudi Arabia’s stark way of life with its powerful, conservative clergy, absolute gender segregation; total ban on alcohol and houses of worship for adherents of other religions, and refusal to accommodate alternative lifestyles or religious practices. Qatar’s alternative adaptation of Wahhabism coupled with its lack of an indigenous clergy and long-standing relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, the region’s only organised opposition force, complicate its relationship with Saudi Arabia and elevate it to a potentially serious threat.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and Religion
Political Geography:
Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Persian Gulf

133. Dave Eggers' Roundtable: Arabia Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Author:
David Eggers, Mamdouh al-Harthy, Hasan Hatrash, and Haifaa al-Mansour
Publication Date:
03-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
World Policy Journal
Institution:
World Policy Institute
Abstract:
Last year, the San Francisco-based author Dave Eggers published his book, A Hologram for the King, a vision of Saudi Arabia where the Western world of holograms and the Internet comes up against the hard realities of today's Saudi Arabia. Eggers, whose novel was nominated for a National Book Award, spent weeks in the Kingdom researching, meeting an extraordinary Saudi film - maker whose first feature, Wadjda, premiered at the Venice Film Festival to considerable acclaim, and two Saudis who inspired key characters. World Policy Journal assembled Haifaa al-Mansour, Saudi Arabia's first female film director; Mamdouh al-Harthy, a brilliant journalist and documentary producer, cast in Hologram as a driver who leads the narrator into the depths of the Saudi mind and spirit; and Hasan Hatrash, journalist, filmmaker, and musician, with a similar role in the novel, who in real life produced the Portfolio in the Winter 2012- 2013 issue of World Policy Journal. Eggers served as the moderator for this 90-minute roundtable discussion on art, freedom, and politics in Saudi Arabia and the post-Arab Spring Middle East.
Political Geography:
Arabia and Saudi Arabia

134. Sectarian Politics in the Gulf: From the Iraq War to the Arab Uprisings

Author:
Frederic M. Wehrey
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and concluding with the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings, Frederic M. Wehrey investigates the roots of the Shi'a-Sunni divide now dominating the Persian Gulf's political landscape. Focusing on three Gulf states affected most by sectarian tensions—Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait—Wehrey identifies the factors that have exacerbated or tempered sectarianism, including domestic political institutions, the media, clerical establishments, and the contagion effect of external regional events, such as the Iraq war, the 2006 Lebanon conflict, the Arab uprisings, and Syria's civil war.
Topic:
Civil War, Islam, Sectarianism, Gulf Nations, and Arab Spring
Political Geography:
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, and Persian Gulf
Publication Identifier:
9780231536103
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

135. Ten minutes with...Haifaa Al Mansour

Author:
Libby Powell
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Saudi Arabia's first female film director has made an enchanting movie, Wadjda, about a girl and her bicycle. She talks to Libby Powell about changing the system from the inside
Political Geography:
Saudi Arabia

136. Sectarian violence: Pakistan's greatest security threat?

Author:
Huma Yusuf
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
Pakistan is experiencing a sharp resurgence in sectarian violence. Most frequently, such violence involves clashes between members of the two main sects of Islam – Sunnis and Shias – but violent incidents between the Barelvi and Deobandi sub-sects of Sunni Islam are also on the rise. The heightened frequency and brutality of Sunni-Shia clashes threaten national security – Pakistan's is the second-largest Shia population in the world after Iran – as well as bilateral relations with Iran and the regional power dynamic vis-à-vis Saudi Arabian influence.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Islam, Terrorism, Fragile/Failed State, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia

137. The Arab Digital Vanguard: How a Decade of Blogging Contributed to a Year of Revolution

Author:
Jillian York
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
In 1991, just four years after Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali rose to power as president, Tunisia became the first country in the Arab world to connect to the Internet. The public had access by 1996, though its vast democratizing benefits were to be short-lived. That same year, the L'Agence Tunisienne d'Internet (Tunisian Internet Agency, or ATI) was established. Among its first mandates was the introduction of censorship. Over the course of the next decade the region began to trickle online, with Saudi Arabia and Syria amongst the last to connect. Swept up by the global technology bubble, in Cairo and Beirut, Amman and Abu Dhabi, entrepreneurs, seeing the communicative potential of the pre-Web 2.0 Internet, began developing email services, job-search sites, and perhaps most importantly, web forums. Such forums became sources of unreported news, discussion, social commentary, and political debate, paving the way for the region's future bloggers. In countries where political discussion was taboo and crossing red lines—such as discussion of the ruling family, or debates about Islam—resulted in persecution of journalists, web forums created new spaces, outside of society, where political discussion was relatively safe…
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Saudi Arabia and Syria

138. Post-Asad Syria

Author:
Daniel Serwer
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The situation in Syria has gone from bad to worse. United Nations (UN) observers have been unable to do more than report on numerous violations of the UN Security Council (UNSC)–sponsored ceasefire as well as atrocities committed against civilians. The authorities restrict their movements, threaten their security, and interfere with their communications. The Syrian government continues to use artillery, helicopter gunships, and paramilitary shabiha (loosely translated as “thugs”) against peaceful protesters as well as armed insurgents. The Free Syrian Army and other insurgent forces control at least some territory and are attacking Syrian security forces and installations. Unknown assailants have committed a series of bombings against government offices and assassinated senior defense figures. Arms are flowing to the government from Russia while Saudi Arabia and Qatar are supplying the Free Syrian Army.
Political Geography:
Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Syria

139. American Democracy Promotion In The Arabian Gulf

Author:
Muhammad Azam and Sagheer Ahmad Khan
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
Institution:
Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
Abstract:
Advanced democracies, including the United States, have been championing democratic promotion around the world. In the past, American policy towards the Arab Middle East, however, had been mainly based on just paying lip-service to democracy sans concrete measures for promoting a democratic culture in the region. The events of 9/11 marked a watershed in the history of US foreign policy towards the region. Facing calls for a democratic Arab World from home and abroad in the wake of 9/11 the US government raised the ante for pushing democracy in the Arab Middle East. The rhetoric and emphasis laid on 'democracy in the Arab World' by the American leadership over the years after 9/11 was unprecedented. This study deals with the visible shift in US foreign policy vis-à-vis democracy in the region, focusing on the six GCC states, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In addition to American approach and strategy, practical measures taken in the areas of politics, economy, education, media, civil society, and human rights is also furnished. An effort is made to understand and highlight the methods and tools employed by the foreign democracy promoters, both at the levels of state and society. However, a large part of the study appertains to the activities conducted at the grass-roots level. The study is comparative in its nature, based on empirical analysis.
Topic:
Civil Society and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States, America, Middle East, Kuwait, Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman

140. The "Arab Spring" and the New Geo-Strategic Environment in the Middle East

Author:
Moshe Ma'oz
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Contrary to the evaluation of several political leaders and analysts, the new Islamic governments that have been elected in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in the aftermath of the Arab Spring do not follow the zealous Islamic Iranian model. Rather, they tilt more to the Turkish Islamic democratic system. Significantly, the new Muslim Brothers' regime under president Morsi in Egypt has adopted a balanced realistic policy in domestic, regional and international affairs. While giving Shi'i Iran a cold shoulder, Morsi is inclined to play a leading role in a new regional Sunni-Muslim coalition with Saudi Arabia and Gulf Emirates, and Turkey, the major Sunni Muslim power. Although the would-be Ankara-Cairo new axis will be cautious not to alienate Tehran, it will probably make efforts to contain Iran's attempts to create a Shi'i crescent in the region to control the oil resources in the Gulf. Turkey and Egypt will try to reduce Iran's advances in Iraq and Syria by fostering their Sunni Muslim communities and helping the Syrian Muslims to topple the Alawi regime. Finally the Ankara-Cairo strategic axis, backed by most Sunni-Muslim regimes and in coordination with Obama's new administration, is likely to induce Israel to settle the Palestinian issue.
Political Geography:
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia