Tag Archives: house of saud

Saudi Arabia

Why Saudi Arabia’s ‘landmark’ council elections are a joke

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An Arabian woman takes part in municipal elections in Jeddah. (Getty)
An Arabian woman takes part in municipal elections in Jeddah. (Getty)

For the increasingly beleaguered Saudi royal family, it’s been a tough year.saudi_flag_icon

Headlines have highlighted misbehaving princes, struggles over Saudi succession, the wisdom of Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen, a 20-year record in the number of the country’s executions (including the beheading of political critics and poets), the death of over 700 religious pilgrims during the Hajj in a stampede just outside Mecca and shifting US alliances in the region.

In perhaps the cruelest indignity of them all, businessman and Republican presidential contender Donald Trump slammed as ‘dopey’ Al-Waleed Bin Talal, an influential Saudi prince who runs many of the kingdom’s business and investment interests, last week on Twitter.

But for one weekend, at least, Saudi Arabia was in the news with fluffy headlines about historic municipal elections that allowed women, for the first time in Saudi history, to vote and to run for office, complete with photos (like the one above) that show a purportedly modernizing country where women are now enjoying the right to vote amid a loosening of other gender-based restrictions.

Don’t buy the hype.

Women only sparingly cast ballots in an election for only two-thirds of the members of essentially powerless municipal councils in a country that remains one of the most authoritarian regimes in the world, where an absolute monarchy, in tandem with Wahhabi clerics, have restricted the rights of women to a degree virtually unknown across the globe in the 21st century.  Continue reading Why Saudi Arabia’s ‘landmark’ council elections are a joke →

Iran, United States

One chart that explains Obama era Middle East policy

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BoA ChartChart credit to Bank of America.

Within a half-century, the most important fact of the Obama administration might well be that it presided over an energy boom that de-linked, for the first time in many decades, US dependence on Middle Eastern oil and foreign policy.USflagIran Flag Icon

No other fact more explains the deal, inked with the Islamic Republic of Iran, that brings Iran ever closer into the international community — and no other fact brings together so neatly the often contradictory aspects of US president Barack Obama’s policy in the Middle East today.

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RELATED: Winners and losers in the Iran nuclear deal

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With the exception of a small peak in the mid-1980s, when prices tanked after the oil shocks of the 1970s, US imports of foreign oil are lower than ever — and that’s a critical component to understanding Tuesday’s deal between the P5+1 and Iran. Thanks, in part, to the shale oil and fracking revolutions, US oil reserves are at their highest levels than at any point since 1975. Bank of America’s chart (pictured above) shows that US dependence on foreign oil — net imports as a percentage of consumption — dropped to 26.5% by the end of 2014.

Making sense of the Obama administration’s Mideast contradictions

One of the sharpest criticisms of the Obama administration is that it has no overweening strategy for the region. On the surface, the contradictions are legion. To take just three examples: Continue reading One chart that explains Obama era Middle East policy →

Saudi Arabia, United Nations

Why Saudi Arabia gave up its non-permanent Security Council seat

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Saud-Al-Faisal

On Friday, just one day after it was awarded a non-permanent, two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council, Saudi Arabia abruptly announced to the world that it was rejecting the seat, much to the bafflement and diplomatic dismay of the rest of the world.saudi_flag_iconUN

It’s unprecedented for a country to make a years-long effort to win a non-permanent seat, only to turn around a day later to renounce the seat.

The Saudis denounced the Security Council’s inability to act in the Middle East and called for reform:

The manner, the mechanisms of action and double standards existing in the Security Council prevent it from performing its duties and assuming its responsibilities toward preserving international peace and security as required,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill its people and burn them with chemical weapons in front of the entire world and without any deterrent or punishment is clear proof and evidence of the U.N. Security Council’s inability to perform its duties and shoulder its responsibilities.”

Security Council reform is long overdue, but it’s hard to see the Saudis becoming the poster child for political reform in Turtle Bay.

So what gives?

Commentators pointed to several immediate reasons.  The Saudis are angry that US president Barack Obama failed to hold steady in his threat to use military force against Syria.  The Saudis are upset that the United States recently cut off military aid to Egypt’s new, undemocratic government.  The Saudis are worried that the recent steps toward better relations with Iran could mean that the United States places less importance its longtime strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia.

But none of those really give us a full explanation — the Syria showdown was two months ago, and the Saudis would have more influence on the process to rid Syria of chemical weapons from within the Security Council than outside it.  Furthermore, they could use their vote on the Security Council for the next two years as leverage to curry favor with the United States.  And in the ‘P5 + 1’ talks with Iran, Saudi Arabia would certainly have a more central role if it were sitting on the Security Council while Iran struck a deal with the international community.

Eric Voeten, writing at The Monkey Cage, now at home at The Washington Post, argues that Saudi Arabia’s approach to diplomacy has long been a backdoor, behind-the-scenes affair, and that doesn’t fit well with the high profile of sitting on the Security Council: Continue reading Why Saudi Arabia gave up its non-permanent Security Council seat →