Unlike most U.S. presidents who traditionally make their first foreign trip to Canada or Mexico, Donald Trump broke precedent in 2017 by choosing Saudi Arabia and returning again in 2019. These visits signaled a dramatic recentering of U.S. foreign policy around Riyadh, reflecting Trump’s fascination with Saudi wealth, spectacle, and geopolitical leverage. Yet, as Saudi […]
Tag: Saudi Arabia
Trump 2.0: Defining a New Era of American Power
Each generation has its “crossing the Rubicon” moment—the reelection of Donald Trump is ours. The post-Cold War order that began with the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev is no more. Populism is on the rise across the globe. America’s adversaries—Russia, China, and Iran—feel emboldened after years of American decline. Make no mistake, Trump’s reelection marks a […]
Saudi Prince Signals Frustration With Palestinian Leadership
Saudi Arabia has been a crucial ally to the Palestinian struggle for statehood, supporting with diplomacy and finance essentially since the cause commenced in the early twentieth century. It comes as some surprise then that it might weaken its commitment with such a long standing cause for justice. Saudi Arabia has yet to enter “normalization” […]
The U.S. Must End Military Aid to Saudi Arabia
On September 1, 2019, nearly 100 civilians died in Saudi Arabia’s deadliest attack of the year — an overnight offensive on Dhamar, a city in the southwestern region of Yemen. Attacks such as these contribute to regional instability, a hallmark of Saudi Arabia’s continuous commitment to the war in Yemen. The war in Yemen is […]
Jamal Khashoggi: A Veiled Political Battle Between Saudi Arabia and Turkey
Middle Eastern politics of late have shaken the rest of the world. On the 2nd of October, journalist Jamal Khashoggi reportedly entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, and never exited. Khashoggi, a Saudi national most recently living in Virginia on self-imposed exile, was a well-known critic of the Saudi regime. The Saudi […]
Saudi Arabia: A Modern Prince’s Unconventional Quest for Power
In an era where world leaders wield Twitter as their political weapon of choice, Saudi Arabia has initiated a sanctions war with Canada–culminating in the complete severing of relations between the two countries–on the basis of a single tweet. On the surface, this appears to be a bizarre overreaction by the Saudi government. Yet, in […]
Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act: The Bad and the Ugly
Advocates of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act protest President Obama’s veto outside the White House. Stephanie DeSimone was pregnant when her husband, Navy Commander Patrick Dunn was killed at the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks in 2001. 15 years later, in 2016, DeSimone filed a lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. […]
“Buyer’s Remorse”: Will Congress Regret Overriding President Obama’s Veto on Saudi Arabia Bill?
On Wednesday, Congress overrode President Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JUSTA), the first veto override of Obama’s presidency. The vote in the Senate was 97-1 in favor (with only retiring Minority Leader Harry Reid voting against it) and 348-77 in favor in the House, well surpassing the ⅔ votes needed. […]
The Reformation Conundrum
Why Ayaan Hirsi Ali is wrong. Islam does not need a reformation. The rise of ISIS has created a number of question about the nature of Islam, ranging from the state of the religion today to fundamental theological questions that arise from the justification given by individuals or groups who use the religion of Islam to […]
The Fake Liberation: Dissecting the Impact of Saudi Arabia’s “All-Women” Cities
Saudi Arabia, the country where women are not allowed to go in public without a chaperone, have individual rights in court, drive, wear clothes that show off too much skin, wear too much makeup, study engineering, architecture, or political science, interact with men outside the family, use swimming pools, compete freely in sports, try on […]