Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

A loosely knit collection of Syrian rebel fighters set up positions on March 18, 2013, and fired several barrages of rockets at targets in the heart of Damascus, Bashar al-Assad’s capital. The attack was a brazen show of force by rebels under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, targeting the presidential palace, Damascus International Airport, and a government security compound. It sent a chilling message to the regime about its increasingly shaky hold on the country, two years after an...

Two crucial things happened yesterday. The first you may have noticed – oil prices moved back up. As for the second, most so-called “experts” seemed to have missed.See, the environment we’re seeing in energy markets is very different from what we saw only a week ago, when oil prices were also rising. Because yesterday also saw – for the first time in world history – a reigning Saudi Arabian monarch in Moscow for talks with Russia’s head of state. Historically, Russia has been much...

Business is business, after all. Gotta compete. Best line: "The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region." — US State DepartmentSouthFrontUS Responds to Alleged Riyadh-Moscow S-400 Systems Deal, Approves THAAD Systems Sale to Saudi ArabiaalsoReutersU.S. approves possible $15 billion sale of THAAD missiles to Saudi Arabi

How long the Shia rebellion in eastern Saudi Arabia, home to almost all Saudi oil reserves, will be able to maintain an armed resistance to the Saudi military assault is the 10 million barrel a day question. The excuse given by the House of Saud royal family mouthpieces is they were driving the Shia from their ancient homeland for "urban renewal" purposes. Never mind the "renewing" would destroy world heritage sites such as the ancient town of al-Zara, capital of the Shia, Persian province...

This is an interesting analysis from the POV of globalization, the global economy, geopolitics, geostrategy and political economy.  I am not endorsing the analysis itself, although it is plausible and makes many good points such as the geopolitical conflict between sea-power or thalassocracy, and land-power or tellurocracy.  While the specifics are interesting, the method of analysis is much more significant. The chief reason I am posting it is to show how developing an entire...

Our guy.Angry Arab News ServiceThis is the vision of Muhammad bin Salman (those posts are not funded by Gulf embassies in DC) Assad Abu Khalil | Professor of Political Science, California State University, Stanislausalso This view is rarely represented in reports by Western correspondents in Beirut "“Israel caricatures Hizbullah as a terrorist organisation,” says Rifaat Nasrallah, the Christian militia’s leader (and no relation of Hassan). “But the resistance is not some external...