saudi-arabia
  • Trump’s Full Gulf Agenda: From the Houthis to Gaza.
    And the Trump Golf Club
    Hussein Ibish 12 May 2025
    From May 13-16, President Donald J. Trump will repeat the opening gesture of his first administration by making the initial major diplomatic travel of his second term to Saudi Arabia (excluding his unanticipated visit to Rome for the funeral of the late Pope Francis) but this time also including the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. This trip comes at a highly significant moment in U.S.-Gulf Arab relations, and all parties will have specific agendas and deliverables at stake. Overall, Trump’s trip reinforces the centrality of these partnerships for all sides and signals that he continues to view Gulf Arab countries as important partners, not just for the United States but for his personal and political goals.
  • What’s Behind the Arab Alternative to Trump’s Gaza Proposal
    Hussein Ibish 24 February 2025
    Saudi Arabia hosted a meeting on February 21 with all six Gulf Cooperation Council countries plus the crucial additions of Egypt and Jordan to begin crafting a formal Arab response to President Donald J. Trump’s fantastical scheme to redevelop Gaza after removing its 2.2 million Palestinian residents. Trump’s supporters and officials claim that this sudden Arab urgency to respond with an alternative to his Gaza plan is a diplomatic achievement and the real purpose of his radical proposal. Yet whatever the Arab countries come up with at this GCC +2 meeting, or at the March 4 full convening of the Arab League, will not be practicable given Israel’s policies.
  • Boussois: “The Saudis Against Trump, But Normalization with Israel is Inevitable”
    Federica Zoja 15 February 2025
    “Every day there’s something new. Donald Trump’s political agenda is totally unpredictable: today it’s the Gaza Strip, tomorrow it will be Ukraine!” Sebastien Boussois, an analyst and researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and at Uqam in Montreal, is one of the most authoritative voices in the French-speaking world on the subject of relations between the West and the Gulf States. In the aftermath of Riyadh’s vehement opposition to the American proposal to empty Gaza and rebuild it, his first comment is unequivocal: “It’s all a show, a complete charade! I think that Saudi Arabia, through the voice of its Foreign Minister, is obliged to reject Trump’s proposal for annexation. But also that there is no lasting or solid agreement in the region as strong as the one between the United States and Saudi Arabia: let us remember, it dates back to 1945, after the end of the Second World War.”
  • Houthi Strikes: A Regional Escalation?
    An Interview with Hussein Ibish
    Giancarlo Bosetti , Alessandra Tommasi 19 January 2024
    The war in Gaza has expanded to include a new and dangerous flashpoint: the Red Sea. In recent weeks, Yemen’s Houthis have targeted “Israeli” cargo ships – and attacked others – in support of Hamas. The US and the UK have retaliated by bombing a number of Houthis’ targets in Yemen. ResetDOC interviewed Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, about the stakes for the Houthis and the risks of a wider high-intensity conflict.
  • Away from Treacherous Traps:
    Why Biden is Holding Netanyahu Back
    Siegmund Ginzberg 19 October 2023
    Why does Hamas deliberately flaunt the horrors it perpetrates? To demonstrate Israel’s lack of preparation and Hamas’s own military prowess? To spread terror? To disorient, to humiliate, to foster a sense of paralysis and powerlessness? To say: look, we can get you when and how we want? Or perhaps to say: yes, we are the beasts you say we are, come and avenge yourselves, come and get us in Gaza?
  • Saudi Arabia Plays East Against West While Smothering Dissent
    Federica Zoja 11 November 2022
    Mohammed Bin Salman is deftly playing a chess game aimed at positioning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a foreign policy leader both regionally and internationally, exploiting each of the great powers’ primary weaknesses (and desires): energy prices in the US, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and China’s desperation to assert its regional dominance. His sudden rise to the head of the desert kingdom was consolidated recently with his appointment as Prime Minister and heir apparent to his aging father, securing his untouchability and immunity when it comes to human rights violations, putting partners like the United States in the particular quandry of not being able to use their traditional soft power levers and leaving evermore domestic dissidents at risk.
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