The immensity of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reforms in Saudi Arabia have not been adequately understood by outside observers. In a state three hundred years old with a bloody history of conflict in its royal successions, he has resolved a once-a-century royal generational succession and actively marginalized the reactionary clerical class that was effectively […]

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words.  On the face of it, the recent photo of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman hosting the emir of Qatar and the national security adviser of the UAE at a Red Sea resort is unremarkable. It appears to show three youthful, physically fit leaders enjoying […]

With Afghanistan back in the hands of the Taliban as we approach the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it would be easy to conclude that the Middle East has not changed very much since that fateful day. But while much of the region continues to be convulsed by violence and extremism, the Kingdom, which […]

With the Afghanistan collapse, the time has come to revisit an ongoing obsession among Western politicians and pundits: the promotion of democracy in the Arab and Muslim world.  The fundamental flaw in Western thinking has always been the assumption that democracy is some sort of a plug-and-play program that can be rapidly and successfully activated […]