The Iraqi Kurdish government has asked the U.S. to appoint a special envoy to mediate a deepening and potentially dangerous dispute between the central government in Baghdad and the semiautonomous Kurdish region, a top Kurdish official said Monday. - Wall Street Journal
Two weeks after the crackdown began, Saudi officials and their supporters are attempting to justify the indefinite detentions as an ordinary part of a plea-bargaining process, similar to the approach Western prosecutors use with white-collar criminals. - New York Times
Riyadh’s internal crackdown and escalating tensions with Iran have barely impacted domestic markets, but have amplified troubles in smaller neighbors like Qatar and Bahrain. - Wall Street Journal
BY UWE PARPART AND PEPE ESCOBAR
In the first installment of a two-part series, Asia Times examines how the soon-to-be Saudi king's power grab was masterminded and what it portends
The Saudi desire to change its role from a behind-the-scenes player to a forefront leader pushes it to engage in the US-led Mideast peace initiative.
Saudi Arabia's policy shift toward Lebanon in trying to curb Hezbollah's power has failed miserably and made Saad Hariri the most popular Lebanese leader.
By Richard Menhinick, The Strategist (ASPI): “Yemen is a humanitarian disaster. It was a failed state even before its most recent civil war began nearly three years ago. But Saudi Arabian meddling is exacerbating the crisis and there’s no resolution in sight. Yemen is now a case study in how ends and means can diverge at the strategic level.”
With help from the United States and the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia’s blockade and airstrikes on Yemen have created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.