From Abu Dhabi to Riyadh, regional states must take steps to shape their own destinies, rather than being pawns in the Israeli-US agenda On Saturday morning, the departure board at Dubai’s main airport began to stack up with delays. Over the water, pale arcs rose, flared and vanished - interceptors, officials later said - leaving chalk traces in a sky turning white.  Similar scenes occurred in Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama and Kuwait City. Then, in the afternoon, both the Dubai air

This is a moment in which the Gulf has to balance between an Iran that has been largely passive and reactive since the 7th of October and an Israel that has been erratic, impulsive and hyper activist in pursuit of short to midterm security interests.

Donald Trump has boxed himself in by promising to ‘help’ Iran’s protesters. But he has few good options for military operations that he can control. [published on Al Jazeera originally ] Illiberal systems often look most permanent just before they change. But moments of upheaval can also produce a different illusion: That the system is one dramatic external blow away from collapse. With Iran convulsed by unprecedented protests against the country’s leadership, it is tempting

One useful way to read the recent escalation along Yemen’s southern coastline is not as a local quarrel over ports and militias, but as a signal that Riyadh now believes it has an opening to reconstitute a Saudi-centric regional order. [originally published at Amwaj ] The first phase of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud’s rise to power was defined by impulsive, often erratic moves designed to establish primacy. The second phase featured a more measured, introverted pos

UAE - Saudi competition from Yemen over the Horn of Africa and Sudan to Libya

This article was originally published with The Conversation Fighters aligned with the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a separatist group in southern Yemen, raised their flags in the provinces of Hadramout and Marah in early December. The seizures mean the STC now controls all eight of the provinces that make up the south of the country. The new status quo looks like a fait accompli for the creation of a separate southern state. It has left Yemen’s internationally recog