Gulf States Archive

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit last week to Kuwait and Oman was the latest sign of an improvement in the tone of Tehran’s relations with the Persian Gulf states, and in particular Saudi Arabia, this year. Perhaps the uncertainties around U.S. President Donald Trump’s intentions, as well as the recent thaw between Turkey and Russia, are factors. In any event, it underscores the strategic trend of greater regional ownership of local problems. Rouhani’s stopovers in Kuwait and Oman followed a number of developments in the Persian Gulf region since January that suggest that regional powers are seeking to step back […]

As the Chinese government has worked to raise its profile in the Middle East, it has sometimes struggled to promote Chinese culture in the region. Despite its emphasis on cultural engagement since then-President Hu Jintao called for China to increase its global soft power in 2007, Beijing has found it difficult even to eclipse its Asian rivals. A young Arab man or woman might buy Chinese-made goods or even study abroad at a Chinese university, but he or she would be more likely to watch a Japanese film or listen to a Korean pop song than to consume China’s cultural […]

The emergence of a brash and little-known 31-year-old as the public face of a dynamic new style of leadership in Saudi Arabia has caught international attention over the past two years. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, whose rise began in 2015, has promoted his so-called Saudi Vision 2030 initiative as an instrument of economic transformation in an era of plummeting oil prices. Against the backdrop of emergency spending cuts in 2015 that stove off financial ruin, the project aims to balance the Saudi budget by 2020, wean the country off of energy subsidies, and reduce the role […]

Last month, Saudi Arabia signed a military cooperation agreement with Mauritania that calls for joint training, logistical exchanges and improved cooperation. In an email interview, Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem, a professor of political science at the University of Nouakchott, discusses Mauritania’s relations with Saudi Arabia. WPR: How extensive are relations between Mauritania and Saudi Arabia, and what are the main areas of cooperation? Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem: Diplomatic ties between Mauritania and Saudi Arabia are historically good, but not as solid as Mauritania would like. Saudi Arabia, one of the wealthiest countries in the Arab world, has never seriously supported […]