Saudi Arabia

Does Mideast Panopticon — Urban Surveillance and Digital Identities — foretell our Dystopian Future?

By Muhammad Hussein | – ( Middle East Monitor) – It has forever been the dream of almost every state, intelligence agency, empire and totalitarian regime to oversee the doings of all of their subjects, to detect any hint of dissent, to control their movements, to influence their thinking and even to peer into their […]

Authoritarianism

How Trump helped Sportswash Saudi Arabia

Tomdispatch

By Robert Lipsyte | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Here’s the big question in Jock Culture these days: Is the Kingdom of Golf being used to sportswash the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Or is it the other way around? After all, what other major sport could use a sandstorm of Middle Eastern murder and human-rights […]

Featured

Taken for a Ride: Saudi-led OPEC+ snubs Biden with tiny Oil Increase, Despite Arms Sales, Fist Bump

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – At its meeting in Vienna yesterday, the enlarged “+” version of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States (OPEC+) decided to increase output by only 100,000 barrels per day, a vanishingly small amount that will have no impact on lowering gasoline prices and which does US President Joe Biden virtually no […]

Iran

In their Hope for a ‘Middle Eastern NATO’ against Iran, Israel and the US may end up Heartbroken

Middle East Monitor

By Muhammad Hussein | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – As Arab states the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco began establishing ties with Israel over the past few years and warmed towards their old adversary, many saw it as the beginning of a new era. And in some ways, it was: […]

Arab World

The New Middle East, Same as the old Middle East – The Meaning of Biden’s Trip

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Assessing President Biden’s Trip to the Middle East. Thanks to Margot Patterson at KKFI for having me on to discuss President Biden’s trip a couple of weeks ago to the Middle East. Listen here, beginning 2:50: The interview references this article at Informed Comment, “Bin Salman: US Whitewashed Israeli Killing […]

censorship

The Human Rights Price of Biden’s Visit to Jeddah

Human Rights Watch

Biden Should Keep Promise on Rights, Call for Release of Activists and Rights Defenders

Joe Biden

President Biden Must Commit to Ending the War in Yemen

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Farrah Hassen | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Biden once said the U.S. should never “check its principles at the door just to buy oil or sell weapons.” He should take his own advice. By Farrah Hassen | July 13, 2022 The United Nations has called the Saudi Arabia-led war in […]

Joe Biden

The Fateful Fist Bump

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – If you thought the polarization of politics in the United States was corrosive, brace yourself for the even more corrosive polarization of geopolitics. By John Feffer | July 20, 2022 The fist bump has been the default method of person-to-person contact in the COVID era. Shaking hands is […]

Featured

Bin Salman: US Whitewashed Israeli Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, so why is Biden so upset about Khashoggi?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, pulled back the curtain for the Alarabiya news channel (Saudi-owned but based in Dubai) on what transpired at the meeting between President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman: Al-Jubeir confirmed that Biden, as he had pledged, quickly […]