Written by: Saul Brodkey Soon after the first oil prospecting expeditions seventy years ago, the Arabian peninsula was tipped on its head. Saudi Arabia went from a barren desert kingdom reliant on subsistence agriculture to a bustling oasis with a GDP per capita on par with Canada. The petroleum industry accounts for nearly all exports…
Category: Middle East
Is a Strategic Realignment Coming to the Middle East?
Written by: Cooper Stewart On December 10, 2020, Israel and Morocco agreed to formalize relations with one another in a landmark deal mediated by the United States. This makes Morocco the fourth Arab League member to open official ties with Israel in 2020, following the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, which signed the Abraham…
Counterterrorism Plus, or Intervention Under a Different Name: A Look at a Biden Administration’s Middle Eastern Policy
Written by: Cooper Stewart With the 2020 election results virtually finalized, all appears set for former vice president Joe Biden to be sworn into the oval office in January 2021. While many leaders from around the globe expressed “hope” and “relief” with his victory, the reaction from the Middle East was far more mixed regarding…
Jihadi Online: The Pandemic and Lone-Wolf Terror Attacks
Written by: Nils Peterson Since the declaration of their caliphate in 2014, ISIS has lost the majority of territory it once controlled. However, as far back as March of 2020, several jihadi groups capitalized on scaled-down African governmental military operations due to the pandemic by launching new waves of suicide attacks attacks. In a worrying…
Voting Technology: Compromising Security in the name of Modernity?
Written by: Molly Kehoe In the age of constant technological developments, digitized voting systems are a long time coming. This year two attempts to implement voting applications have failed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political party, Likud, tried to put a voting app in place for the March 2nd election. In early February an independent…
Starvation in Yemen: Aid Blockades Leave Yemeni Families In Peril
Written by: Allison Lee In the midst of the five-year Yemeni Civil War, more than 24 million civilians are in need of relief. The crisis caused worldwide concern and prompted the largest humanitarian relief effort in the world. However, major barriers due to dangerous warzones and endless political paperwork prevent current relief efforts from reaching…
Give Peace a Chance: Could Saudi Arabia Broker a Permanent Ceasefire in Yemen?
Written by: Cooper Stewart Since 2015, a civil war has been raging in Yemen between Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi’s Yemeni government and Houthi rebels. While the war began as a conflict localized within Yemen, it quickly morphed into a key theater for regional and international rivalries to play out, with Iran supporting the Houthi rebels and…
With the JCPOA Crumbling, US-Iran Relations Remain in Doubt
Written by: Riley Fink The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was agreed to in 2015 by Iran, Germany, and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This historic deal aimed to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Specifically, Iran was to dramatically…
The Turkish Invasion of Syria through the Lens of International Law
Written by: Samuel Brown The conflict in the Middle East between the Turkish government and the region’s Kurdish population, which has been ongoing since the 1970s, has reached new heights over the past few weeks. The Trump Administration’s decision to pull American troops out of northern Syria, where millions of Kurds live, and Turkey’s subsequent…
Trump’s Decision on Syria Could Cause an Adverse Butterfly Effect
Written by: Jadalyn Eagens “Bottom line: Trump tonight after one call with a foreign leader provided a gift to Russia, Iran, and ISIS,” tweeted former presidential ISIS envoy Brett McGurk, speaking of President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement on Sunday, October 6, to withdraw troops from their posts along Syria’s border with Turkey. Trump’s decision came…
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