Saudi Arabia
المملكة العربية السعودية
A Strong Iran Is Good for U.S. -
Iran, with its nearly 76 million people, is the second-most populous country in the Middle East after Egypt, while its level of education and bureaucratic institutionalization is h...
Saudis Overtake Qatar as Syria Sponsor -
Saudi authorities had consistently declined to meet the opposition, despite repeated requests. This was partly because the kingdom has opposed Muslim Brotherhood dominance in the...
Soccer Emerges as Outlet for Saudi Dissent -
Soccer, alongside minority Shiite Muslims and relatives of imprisoned government critics, is emerging as a focal point of dissent in Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich kingdom that despite ...
The Next Pandemic: Not if, but When -
You may have seen the news about H7N9, a new strain of avian flu claiming victims in Shanghai and other Chinese locales. Influenzas always draw notice, and always deserve it, becau...
Will Iran-Saudi Proxy War Spread to Iraq? -
Matters have been made worse in and for Iraq by the fact that, like Syria, Iraq has become a major theater of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Turkey pushed by force...
Saudi Arabia's Brutal Tribal Justice -
A Saudi court ordered Ali al-Khawahir, a 24-year-old Saudi citizen, to be surgically paralyzed as punishment for a crime he committed as a 14-year-old, that had left his victim par...
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Most Recent Articles
U.S. Caution, Arab Restraint Mark New Terror Era - Fouad Ajami, Hoover
In the decade or so that separates us from the Sept. 11 attacks, tens of thousands of Saudi students have been sent by their government to the U.S. on scholarships, so keen has bee...
The Middle East's Kings of Cowardice - Marc Lynch, Foreign Policy
Arab leaders have never been known for their sense of humor, but this is ridiculous. In troubled Bahrain, the cabinet this week backed strict new laws punishing defamation of the m...
Saudi-Yemen Ties in Need of Makeover - Faisal al Yafai, The National
Today, Saudi's GDP is 10 times that of Yemen's. Nasser died in 1970 and with him much of the pan-Arab revolutionary fervour he embodied. Political pluralism (such as it is) and uni...
The Gulf War over the War in Syria - Michael Weiss, NOW Lebanon
For the casual observer, the Syrian opposition has been, for close to two years, an overlong Monty Python joke of self-cannibalization, petty revolutionary factionalism, and outsiz...
The Woman Who Dared to Drive - Sohrab Ahmari, Wall Street Journal
'You know when you have a bird, and it's been in a cage all its life? When you open the cage door, it doesn't want to leave. It was that moment." This is how Manal al-Sharif felt ...
Saudi Arabia's Dwarf-Throwing Billionaire - William Cohan, Vanity Fair
Worth an estimated $27 billion, the enigmatic Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has very public holdings: he is the second-largest voting shareholder in News Corp., he owns Paris’s G...
Saudi Arabia's Silent Revolution - Edouard Tetreau, Les Echos/Worldcrunch
Another Arab Spring, more discreet and more promising, is happening in Saudi Arabia. In the past two years, King Abdullah has taken many revolutionary measures. In 2011, he granted...
Time for Gulf to Accept a Shia Iraq - Hassan Hassan, The National
An Iraq dominated by the pro-Iranian Shia is seen as just as threatening as an Iraq led by the Sunni Saddam Hussein.The mantra in the Gulf is that Baghdad has been handed over to...
The Execution of the Saudi Seven - Ali AlAhmed, Foreign Policy
Saudi Arabia's farcical justice system condemned seven young men to death this week, and the world remained silent....
The Saudi Oil War on Iran - Reza Sanati, The National Interest
When Prince Turki al-Faisal suggested last year that the House of Saud would join in the U.S.-led sanctions against Iranian oil, by seeking to displace Tehran’s oil exports f...
How a U.S. Citizen Got in America's Cross Hairs - New York Times
It was the culmination of years of painstaking intelligence work, intense deliberation by lawyers working for President Obama and turf fights between the Pentagon and the C.I.A., w...
The Mideast Just Became China's Problem - Robin Mills, Foreign Policy
China just passed the United States as the world's leading oil importer. America should be happy to be No. 2....
Saudi Arabia Is Luring American Talent - Susan Schmidt, National Interest
Two wealthy new Saudi research institutions focused on the kingdom's energy future are on a hiring spree in the United States, luring away the president of Cal Tech and signing up ...
A Royal Welcome for Saudi Tweeters - Brian Whitaker, Al-Bab
I'm not sure what to make of the news that Saudi Arabia's first-ever "tweeters' forum" is taking place at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh today. According to the Saudi Gazette, 5...
Can Saudis Be Trusted in Syria? - Max Boot, Contentions
It sounds, at first blush, like a throwback to the 1980s, when the Saudis worked with the CIA to acquire surplus military hardware from all over the world–including in Warsaw P...
Saudi Arabia Must Reform, Slowly - Gulf News
Saudi Arabia made the historic decision to allow women to enter the Shura Council last week. The fact, however, remains that none of those women will be driving to the council them...
Saudi Arabia: Kingdom of No Suprises - Michael Stephens, Foreign Policy
After two years of trying to steer the course of the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia is turning inward. The past year has seen the octogenarian King Abdullah usher in a new generation of...
Are U.S. Bases in Saudi Arabia OK Now? - Greg Scoblete, The Compass
It's obviously too soon to draw a firm conclusion, but it points to the underlying and probably unanswerable issue with the drone war: is it radicalizing more people than it is kil...
Saudi Money Shaping U.S. Research - Susan Schmidt, The National Interest
Saudi Arabia's oil reserves are expected to run dry in fifty years. This prospect has encouraged the Saudis to go shopping for cutting-edge science that can secure the kingdom’s ...
Should We Still Fear al-Qaeda? - Peter Bergen, CNN
If history is a guide, the jihadist militants, whether in Syria or elsewhere, are likely to repeat the mistakes and failures that their fellow militants have experienced during the...
Saudi Succession Crisis Looms - Bruce Riedel, The Daily Beast
King Abdullah has named half-brother Prince Muqrin as third in line to the throne, keeping the power in an aging, ill, and increasingly scarce royal generation....
U.S., Saudis Headed for Divorce? - Thomas Lippman, Montreal Review
Here in a nutshell is Saudi Arabia's problem: now a developed country, it consumes vast amounts of electricity, for air conditioning, household use, industry and the immense desali...
America's Saudi Arabia Problem - Marc Lynch, Foreign Policy
In Riyadh last week, where I was speaking to a small private workshop, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence and ambassador to the United States, introduced m...
Saudi Revolt Would Be Disaster for Obama - Bruce Riedel, Daily Beast
For the United States, revolution in Saudi Arabia would be a game changer. While the U.S. can live without Saudi oil, China, India, Japan, and Europe cannot. Any disruption in Saud...
Gulf Monarchs Are Beginning to Panic - The Economist
As every monarch in the Gulf knows, even geysers of oil cannot keep all your subjects happy all of the time. Still, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia may have been surprised that his r...
To Stop Iran, Get a New Saudi King - Simon Henderson, The Atlantic
On December 25, while many Americans were eating turkey or Chinese meals and otherwise distracted from the rest of the world, leaders of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf met in ...
The Dangerous Hypocrisy of the Saudis - Nina Shea, National Review
Even before the “Arab spring” revolts — indeed, ever since the 9/11 attacks on American soil by mostly Saudi terrorists — the Saudi royal family has assiduo...
Are Arab Monarchies Next? - Hicham Ben Abdallah El Alaoui, Le Monde Dip.
As the chaotic transition towards democracy continues in North Africa and Yemen, the fighting in Syria is intensifying. And, less noticed, opposition to the Arab monarchies is grow...
Saudi Arabia's Text-Message Tattling - Minky Worden, Cleveland Plain Dealer
Text messages are the ultimate convenience, used by people worldwide to communicate, often to notify friends and families of their whereabouts. In many countries, new technologies ...
The World War on Christmas - Elizabeth Ralph, Foreign Policy
Five places where Santa really does have to watch his back....
Will Saudi Arabia Ever Change? - Hugh Eakin, NY Review of Books
Indeed there are few signs that the Saudi monarchy is even contemplating serious reforms. During a recent visit to several parts of the country, I spoke to academics, journalists, ...
Social Media Cracks Open Saudi Black Box - Ayesha Almazroui, National
In a country that is known as a black box to the outside world, issues are now being brought to the public's attention as many Saudis find their voices online via Twitter. Saudis...
The Most Important Man in the Middle East - Rob Sobhani, Forbes
Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi gazed enigmatically from the cover of Time magazine recently, described as the “most important man in the Middle East.” Time got it wrong. ...
Too Many Saudi Princes - Guzansky & Goldman, The National Interest
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah appears to be in failing health. The Saudi royal house is making extraordinary efforts to project an image of business-as-usual. But the lack of ...
How the Merkel Doctrine Is Changing Germany - Der Spiegel
Germany used to be extremely careful about where it exported its weapons. In recent years, however, Chancellor Angela Merkel has shown a preference for sending high-tech armaments ...
America's Geopolitical Gusher - Frederick Kempe, Reuters
Just when it seemed America’s global influence might be ebbing, the world’s leading military and economic power was adding unconventional energy weapons to its arsenal....
Navigating the New Middle East - Elliott Abrams, Weekly Standard
The next three to six months in the Middle East will make Obama administration officials look back to 2012 with nostalgia as a quiet time when they were able to focus on the campai...
Saudi America - Wall Street Journal
Sometimes the revolution politicians seek isn't the one they get. Consider the irony—and the opportunity—in Monday's report that the U.S. is likely to surpass Saudi Arabia as t...
Saudi Arabia's Great Salafi Gamble - Susan Schmidt, The National Interest
In serving their patrons in Saudi Arabia, ultraconservative religious Salafis are stirring violent protests and flexing political muscle in North Africa and fledgling Arab democrac...
The Saudi Proxy War Against Iran - Joseph Braude, Tablet Magazine
On the evening of Oct. 23, part of a gas pipeline facility in the western Iranian city of Shush exploded—one of several recent attacks on Iranian infrastructure near the coun...
Do Afghans Want More Religion? - M.K. Bhadrakumar, Indian Punchline
Eyebrows will be raised that Saudi Arabia has resuscitated its ten-year old plan to construct a mosque and education centre in a massive 30-hectre hilltop complex overlooking Kab...
Britain Will Regret Gulf Protection Racket - Seumas Milne, The Guardian
Sooner or later the Arab despots David Cameron is selling arms to will fall, and the states that backed them will pay the price....
How America Looks from the Middle East - Riad Kahwaji, INEGMA
The U.S. Administration of President Barak Obama is about to complete its first term in office and is hoping to win another term in the upcoming elections on November 6. In previou...
U.S. May Overtake Saudi Arabia as Top Oil Producer - Jonathan Fahey, AP
U.S. oil output is surging so fast that the United States could soon overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest producer. Driven by high prices and new drilling methods, U.S. pr...
About Saudi Arabia
- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
- Population: 28,686,633 (41st)
- Area Size: 830,000 sq mi (14th)
- GDP: $577.9 billion (23rd)
- Currency: Riyal (SAR)
- Official Language: Arabic
- Capital City: Riyadh
- Largest City: Riyadh
Saudi Arabia Prosperity Rank: 49 |
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