Is there a future for the GCC?
Maybe it’s time for everyone to move on.
Maybe it’s time for everyone to move on.
Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari lobbying money is flooding Washington, and in the process American policy has been knocked down for the count.
“Mohammed bin Zayed was willing to pick up the phone and talk to Bashar al-Assad of Syria, but he isn’t willing to do the same with the Qataris.”
The U.S. has made over $11 billion in major arms offers since the beginning of March, including to repressive regimes like the Philippines, Egypt, and the UAE.
We’re fast approaching the two year anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder and the Trump administration has done nothing to hold Saudi Arabia accountable.
“The U.S. is stuck in a broken, angry, and dysfunctional Middle East. It can’t transform the region — see Iraq and Afghanistan — and it can’t extricate itself from it.”
Subject to Donald Trump’s disinterest and erratic impulses, and confronted by ambitious adversaries, the United States is treading water in the Middle East.
Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, hopes that the dangers of this disease could bring the six GCC members together have proven to be misplaced.
The US needs to state its objectives clearly so that we’re not bogged down in counterterrorism operations indefinitely.
The coronavirus pandemic’s economic fallout calls into question Gulf states’ ability to fund a brewing, costly regional arms race.
If states see the present low prices as an opportunity for reform toward more realistic economies and more limited political ambitions, the Middle East could vastly benefit in the long run.
Opinion data show that citizens in the region are highly attuned and averse to unsupervised state spending, particularly on foreign policy and investments that are not perceived to be of direct public benefit.