The Biden administration’s new Middle East strategy is forcing regional powers to reassess their geostrategic interests and act in a manner that might end several conflicts that have plagued the region Righting the wrong When Biden was running for president, he made it clear that if elected he would chart a new course in addressing…
While tens of thousands of Yemeni men, women and children are dying from starvation and disease, the world is shamelessly watching with deafening silence Righting the Wrong The bombing continues unabated. The explosions are heard in the distance. A family with seven children is cowering in fear in a corner of their shack, Daring not…
The proxy war that Saudi Arabia and Iran have been waging in Yemen for the past five years goes beyond the pale of human capacity for extreme cruelty and ruthlessness, and against the spirit and the letter of the Quran. Ironically, whereas Saudi Arabia has many reasons to end the war, which prompted its decision…
Recently, I met with a group of officials from different countries who came to the US to learn about our political system and the decision-making process regarding US foreign policy under the Trump administration. Had I been asked this question while Presidents Obama or Bush were in office, I could have answered with some specificity…
The cold-blooded killing of the journalist Khashoggi, however gruesome, pales compared to the brutality and gross human rights violations Saudi Arabia is committing in Yemen. The Saudis are deliberately preventing food and medicine from reaching areas where children are dying from starvation or disease. Their indiscriminate bombings are killing thousands of innocent men, women, and…
It is hard to imagine that along with the catastrophe that has been inflicted on Syria for the past six years, another calamity is unfolding in Yemen of damning proportions while the whole world looks on with indifference. What is happening in Yemen is not merely a violent conflict between combating forces for power, but…
The intensified public discussion about the root causes of violent extremism has focused mainly on the socio-economic and political conditions that exist in Arab countries and among Arab communities in Europe and the US, which provide a breeding ground for extremism. But to effectively counter violent extremism, we must also carefully consider how the development…
Whereas the international focus today is on how to counter violent extremism, which is behind many of the violent conflicts sweeping the Middle East, the real destabilizing power and sponsor of terrorism in the region and beyond is Iran. Unlike violent extremists and religious fanatics such as the Islamic State (IS), which can be degraded…
Yemen as a nation has gone through dramatic turmoil brought about by internal violent conflicts occurring over the last several decades. The forced resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh (replaced by Vice President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi) in February, along with the formation of a transitional unity government, has had little effect on the fundamental…