All Policy Analysis by Simon Henderson

On March 27, the official Saudi Press Agency issued a brief, surprise statement announcing that Interior Minister Prince Nayef had been appointed second deputy prime minister. This intriguing development has prompted widespread speculation that the conservative Prince Nayef will become crown prince when the incumbent -- the ailing Prince Sultan

On February 14, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia announced a range of new ministerial, legal, and bureaucratic appointments. Surprising in scope and timing, the changes include the appointment of the kingdom's first woman as a deputy minister and were made, according to Labor Minister Ghazi al-Ghusaibi, "to speed up implementation

On January 15, outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a nuclear cooperation accord with her United Arab Emirates (UAE) counterpart Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan. The treaty, which to become law needs to be presented to the U.S. Congress, would help the Persian Gulf state become the first Arab

Speaking last week in Qatar, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal thanked Qatar for its support and declared that Palestinian fighters had "won the war [in the Gaza Strip] by defeating Israeli plans." Mashal also lauded controversial Islamic scholar Yousef al-Qaradawi as the "shaikh of resistance." By tolerating such an event, Qatar

Arab support for the Palestinians has been the bedrock of Arab diplomacy for decades, but the recent Israeli military action against Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip has divided those backing Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party and those supporting its Hamas rival. A series of meetings before

After months of speculation about the health of the designated successor to King Abdullah, Crown Prince Sultan, Saudi officials are now openly talking about Sultan's ill health. The kingdom -- a close U.S. ally, the self-professed leader of the Islamic world, the world's largest oil exporter, and most recently the

Nearly twenty years ago, on December 21, 1988, PanAm Flight 103 from London to New York exploded in midair over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board. Last weekend, according to an unconfirmed report in the International Herald Tribune, Musa Kusa, the Libyan intelligence chief widely

Saudi king Abdullah is in the United States this week to discuss issues of considerable interest to both countries. Tomorrow and Thursday, he is in New York City for an interfaith meeting he is sponsoring and which President Bush will be attending. On Friday and Saturday, the Saudi monarch will

Today, oil ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meet in Vienna to discuss a possible production cut. Originally planned for November, the meeting was brought forward because of falling oil prices. With the perilous state of world financial markets, seldom has an OPEC meeting been so

Last month, Tehran announced it was building maritime offices on the Persian Gulf island of Abu Musa, reigniting the long-standing territorial dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Since 1970, the disagreement over the island and the neighboring Greater and Lesser Tunbs has been mired in legal uncertainty

Today's resignation of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf creates a power vacuum in the most crucial country in the fight against al-Qaeda and Islamic extremism. For the foreseeable future, political power in Pakistan will not be in the hands of lackluster prime minister Yousef Raza Gilani, but in those of the