A Slippery Slope? U.S., U.K. Launch Strikes on Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen

A Slippery Slope? U.S., U.K. Launch Strikes on Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen

Friday, January 12, 2024

By: Sarhang Hamasaeed

On January 12, the United States and the United Kingdom, supported by Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, launched military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the group’s attacks on civilian and military ships in the Red Sea. The U.S.-led strikes are a significant escalation and part of the growing regional impact of the Israel-Hamas war, which the United States has been actively trying to prevent from turning into a regional war.

Type: AnalysisQuestion and Answer

Conflict Analysis & PreventionGlobal Policy

Is a Saudi-Israel Normalization Agreement on the Horizon?

Is a Saudi-Israel Normalization Agreement on the Horizon?

Thursday, September 28, 2023

By: Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen;  Ambassador Hesham Youssef;  Robert Barron;  Adam Gallagher

In recent months, a drumbeat has built around the U.S. effort to negotiate a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The deal would be a tectonic shift in Middle East geopolitics, but also carries major implications for other actors beyond the three negotiating parties. Israel would, of course, benefit from normalized relations with the Saudis — long seen as the “holy grail” of potential normalization agreements for the country. The Saudis, in turn, would see their interests advanced through strengthened U.S partnership in key areas. But this deal could also have serious implications for the future of the Palestinian national movement and, further afield, for the role of China in the Middle East.

Type: Analysis

Peace Processes

What You Need to Know About China’s Saudi-Iran Deal

What You Need to Know About China’s Saudi-Iran Deal

Thursday, March 16, 2023

By: Adam Gallagher;  Sarhang Hamasaeed;  Garrett Nada

Iran and Saudi Arabia announced last Friday a Chinese-brokered deal to restore relations. After decades of enmity and a formal cutting of ties in 2016, the rapprochement has been touted as a momentous development in the region. But how it ultimately impacts the Middle East remains a very open question, as the long adversarial powers are fighting a proxy war in Yemen and continue to support opposing sides across the region. Amid perceived U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East, the deal is a diplomatic win for China as it increasingly seeks to present an alternative vision to the U.S.-led global order.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

China’s Overreliance on Gulf Oil Is a Vulnerability for Everyone

China’s Overreliance on Gulf Oil Is a Vulnerability for Everyone

Monday, December 19, 2022

By: Henry Tugendhat

Gulf states have proven to be a dependable port in a storm for China’s oil producers and traders. For the past two decades, the region has consistently supplied China — the world’s largest single crude oil importer — with roughly half of its crude oil imports from overseas. By contrast, it seems China’s oil interests in every other region of the world have been battered by gale force winds.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

After Xi’s Visit, Are the Saudis Moving on from the United States?

After Xi’s Visit, Are the Saudis Moving on from the United States?

Thursday, December 15, 2022

By: Sarhang Hamasaeed;  Joel E. Starr

Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a long-rumored trip to Saudi Arabia last week, enhancing ties between his country, the world’s top oil importer, and the leading oil exporting country. Xi and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) inked a number of deals on oil, technology, infrastructure and security, and also made an agreement to avoid interference in each other’s domestic affairs. Xi also met with leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and a broader group of Arab leaders. The China-Saudi summit comes amid frosty U.S.-Saudi ties and a perception among Arab leaders that Washington is pulling back from its traditional role in the Middle East, leading to some speculation of a larger geopolitical shift in the region amid the intensifying U.S-China rivalry.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Will Xi or Won’t Xi: Is China’s Leader Heading to Saudi Arabia?

Will Xi or Won’t Xi: Is China’s Leader Heading to Saudi Arabia?

Friday, September 9, 2022

By: Andrew Scobell, Ph.D.

Last month witnessed considerable media speculation that Chinese leader Xi Jinping would soon visit Saudi Arabia in what would be his first trip overseas in two and a half years. However, this trip has yet to materialize. As the recent visit by a senior U.S. congressional leader to Taiwan reminds us, not every high-level government visit is necessarily publicly announced ahead of time. While it appears that Xi will make his first foreign trip since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Uzbekistan on September 15, it’s worth exploring what these swirling rumors of an imminent Xi trip to Riyadh mean.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Five Messages Biden Should Take from His Middle East Trip: A Regional Perspective

Five Messages Biden Should Take from His Middle East Trip: A Regional Perspective

Thursday, August 11, 2022

By: Ambassador Hesham Youssef

Before and since President Biden took office, debates have proliferated around an American “retrenchment” from the Middle East. The administration has consistently asserted that it is not withdrawing from the region, only aligning strategy and resources — “right-sizing” in the parlance of the moment. Still, most of the region remains unconvinced.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Five Takeaways from Biden’s Visit to the Middle East

Five Takeaways from Biden’s Visit to the Middle East

Thursday, July 21, 2022

By: Robert Barron;  Sarhang Hamasaeed;  Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen;  Michael Yaffe, Ph.D.;  Ambassador Hesham Youssef

President Biden made his first trip to the Middle East last week, visiting Israel and Saudi Arabia. While the trip yielded little in the way of flashy announcements — like new normalization agreements or Saudi Arabia boosting oil production — it did demonstrate that the United States remains focused on enhancing the region’s security architecture, particularly to counter Iran. Still, there were some notable developments, like a U.S.-Saudi agreement to build 5G and 6G telecommunications networks and Riyadh opening airspace to Israeli flights. On the Israeli-Palestinian front, the president affirmed Washington’s long-standing commitment to Israel and said that now was not the time to reengage on peace talks with the Palestinians.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Biden’s Trip, and Ukraine’s War, Could Boost the Abraham Accords

Biden’s Trip, and Ukraine’s War, Could Boost the Abraham Accords

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

By: Joel E. Starr

President Biden’s Middle Eastern diplomatic mission this week contrasts with news reports and public discussion in the past year suggesting that the region has become a lesser priority for U.S. foreign and security policy. Biden’s visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian West Bank territory build on a reality that Middle Eastern states have been knitting new relations, notably via the 2020 Abraham Accords. They are doing so in ways that Biden’s visit, and overall U.S. diplomacy, can advance.

Type: Analysis

Civilian-Military RelationsGlobal Policy

Saudi-Turkish Clash Reinforces Tensions in the Maghreb

Saudi-Turkish Clash Reinforces Tensions in the Maghreb

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

By: Andrew Hanna

Morocco notched a diplomatic win this week as the United Arab Emirates opened a consulate in the Western Sahara, where Rabat has long sought international recognition of its claim over the disputed territory. It also signaled a troubling regional shift. The hostility between Turkey and the Saudi-aligned Arab states risks embroiling the Maghreb region, much as it already complicates conflicts and politics from Libya to the Red Sea region. In North Africa, as across the greater Middle East, a widening of the Turkish-Saudi confrontation is heightening the risks of destabilization and threats to U.S. regional and counterterrorism interests.

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & Prevention