The Guardian: Qatar attendance at Saudi summit raises prospect of detente

King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia invited Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, to attend the emergency Gulf Cooperation Council summit on Iran’s alleged role in attacking Gulf shipping and oil installations. [...]

Qatar – unlike Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – has so far retained support for the Iran nuclear deal. Although determined to follow an independent foreign policy, it will not be seeking to alienate Donald Trump by spurning Washington’s pressure to curtail Iranian aggression in the region. Qatar has an economic interest in ensuring gas and oil installations are not the subject of attacks by Iranian proxy forces. It also acts as the host to the largest US military base in the Gulf. [...]

Washington has blown hot and cold in its demands on Iran, with Trump saying he was not seeking regime change in Tehran, merely a renegotiation of the nuclear deal. He said the deal was full of loopholes that allowed Tehran to achieve nuclear breakout too rapidly.

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Bloomberg: Qatar May Be About to Annoy Saudi Arabia Even More

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, Qatar’s former prime minister, has tweeted that OPEC “is only being used for purposes aimed at harming our national interest.” That goes double for the GCC, where two of its six members — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — are prime movers in the economic blockade of Qatar. (The blockade has been going on for 18 months and counting, and it stems from Saudi accusations that Qatar is destabilizing the region by cozying up to Iran, charges Doha contests.) [...]

But here’s the twist: Exiting OPEC, a powerful cartel with a real impact on world affairs, will cost Qatar little, being a minor-league oil producer with little influence on the group's decisions; leaving the GCC, an ineffectual grouping that has little impact on regional affairs, could cost it a lot. If Qatar were to pull out, it would reinforce the Saudi-Emirati claim that the ruling family in Doha is undermining the Arab consensus. Staying in the alliance allows Qatar to signal that it is committed to regional cooperation, putting the onus for ending the blockade on the Saudis and Emiratis.

It is always possible that the Saudis and Emiratis will try to beat Qatar to the punch and kick it out of the GCC. But that would require them to convince Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, the three other members, to go along. While Bahrain tends to follow Saudi Arabia in most matters, Kuwait and Oman have chafed at what they regard as Saudi bullying, and they have remained steadfastly neutral on the blockade. (The Kuwaitis have said they’d like to see efforts to resolve the “long-standing Gulf dispute” at the summit next week.)

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Foreign Affairs: Is Major Realignment Taking Place in the Middle East?

Alignments in the Middle East have long been shifting tectonic plates. For decades, regional powers—particularly Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—have competed to maximize power against the backdrop of interventions by Russia, the United Kingdom, and, later, the United States. Until recently, the United States and its regional allies—Israel, the majority of the Arab Gulf states, and Turkey—were aligned against Iran. In the aftermath of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, it seemed certain that these regional powers, backed by Washington, would succeed in isolating the mullahs. But myriad domestic, regional, and international factors have combined to obviate this long-standing status quo. The most significant result of these developments has been Turkey’s drift away from the United States and toward Iran and Russia.[...]

Erdogan’s beliefs shape his perception of the regional order. The Turkish president appears to see himself as a modern-day sultan, the rightful heir to Sunni leadership. He has gone so far as to claim that his “is the only country that can lead the Muslim world.” This makes the House of Saud less of an ally and more of a competitor. [...]

These developments have occurred against the backdrop of the Syrian conflict, where the United States and Saudi Arabia have remained united by a long-standing partnership, their respective enmity toward Iran, and the ongoing war in Yemen. For Turkey, the Iran-Russia nexus now seems to be a better fit than NATO. Ankara is preoccupied with stabilizing Syria, even if this means that President Bashar al-Assad remains in power. This objective aligns with Iranian and Russian goals. Moscow and Tehran have worked closely together in Syria—with Russia providing air cover to Iran’s ground troops—to secure both Assad’s grip on power and their own regional status. Both they and Turkey have an interest in preserving Syria’s territorial integrity, which could help them avoid a possible regional fragmentation and state failure that could spill over and threaten their own survival. [...]

In the morass of Middle East geopolitics, Turkey appears to be the big winner, capitalizing on this realignment to improve its image in the Muslim world as a leading nation willing to stand up to Saudi Arabia—whose closer relationship with Israel and leading role in the disastrous war in Yemen have tarnished its reputation. Ankara seems to be playing both sides of the Syrian conflict, perhaps in an attempt to maximize its leverage in future negotiations. Indeed, the success of U.S. Syria policy depends in part on Turkey. As a result, Washington should understand Ankara’s main regional objectives and assess NATO’s ability to forestall an undesired shift in the regional balance of power.

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Al Jazeera: Saving MBS from himself is the key to Saudi Arabia's stability

The return to Saudi Arabia this week of Prince Ahmad bin Abdelaziz, the last surviving full brother of King Salman, following six year of self-imposed exile, confirms the seriousness of the situation in the kingdom.[...]

As Prince Ahmed never publicly accepted MBS's appointment as crown prince, speculation is rife that he has come to replace or challenge him. However, it is much more likely that his return is part of the House of Saud trying to demonstrate unity in the face of the increasingly difficult predicament it faces.[...]

The combination of overconfidence, overambition and lack of diplomatic experience, which came to characterise MBS and his circle of advisers, is what led to the murder of Khashoggi - whether he was involved in it directly or not.[...]

Any of these moves could prove incredibly difficult, if MBS decides to resist - and he has the tools to do so. He is popular with a sizeable part of the Saudi population and has managed to build over the past three years his own deep state, which could sabotage efforts for a transfer of power.

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The Atlantic: The Arab Winter Is Coming

To go back in time, as it were, the counter-revolutionary bloc—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and their allies in Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere—believes the future must be more authoritarian than ever. Based on extensive conversations with senior Arab officials, I’ve found that the dominant outlook could be summed up as follows: a heavy-handed domestic and regional approach may well carry risks, but the alternative is worse.

If the autocrats lost control over the masses in 2011, the thinking goes, that was because they did not go far enough in their repression. Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak gave some space to the Muslim Brotherhood, political activists, and critical media. Look what happened to him.[...]

Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, for example, declared in 2017: “We will not waste 30 years trying to deal with extremist ideas; we will eradicate them here and now.” In defense of moderation, he proposed simply stomping out religious radicals. (In American terms: Shock and awe rather than hearts and minds.) And MbS was probably using the term “extremist” conveniently; the Saudis have since designated as terrorist organizations certain religious groups, such as the International Union of Muslim Scholars, broadly perceived as mainstream.[...]

For counter-revolutionary regimes, the top priority is to prevent a repeat of the 2011 uprisings, and they believe the best way to do that is to stay the repressive course. Which is why recent talk that MbS was doomed, or that he could be replaced after the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was out of touch with the broad reality of the region. MbS is seen as a key member of the pack of new leaders remaking the Middle East, and the pack will stand by him. This dynamic also informs the continuing blockade of Qatar as well as the war in Yemen; humanitarian concerns simply don’t matter next to the perceived efficacy of aggression.

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The New Yorker: In the Wake of Khashoggi’s Disappearance, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Is Pushed to the Brink

Indeed, if there is any lesson to be learned from this terrible affair, it’s how blind so much of official Washington and the American press were to M.B.S.’s true nature. When the crown prince visited the United States earlier this year, he was fêted in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, and, of course, by the Trump White House, as a messiah—in the mold of Gorbachev or Gandhi. “Historic night it was,’’ Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson, the actor, wrote, on Instagram, of a dinner with M.B.S. hosted by Rupert Murdoch at his vineyard in Bel Air.

It was the Trump White House that went the furthest, basing its entire Middle East strategy on the vision and maturity of the thirty-three-year-old monarch. As I detailed in my profile of M.B.S., earlier this year, Jared Kushner, sitting down with aides in the White House, unfurled a map of the Middle East shortly after Inauguration Day and wrung his hands at the dire state of the region. He dubbed M.B.S., still the deputy crown prince at the time, “the change agent,” the man who would save Saudi Arabia from otherwise certain doom. Kushner threw the Administration’s support behind him. Not long after, and not least because of the White House’s boost, M.B.S.’s chief rivals, including his cousin, the crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, were dispatched. It was ugly, but no one seemed to mind. President Trump’s visit to the Saudi kingdom—his first trip abroad—was an orgy of mutual admiration and monarchical excess. [...]

M.B.S. told his countrymen that, in cracking down on corruption, he was doing the dirty work on their behalf. But there was no luxury that he denied himself. In 2015, while vacationing in the South of France, he bought a yacht, the Serene, from a Russian vodka tycoon, for five hundred and fifty million dollars. He bought a château west of Paris, with a cinema and a moat with a submerged glass chamber for viewing carp. And, in 2017, he reportedly spent four hundred and fifty million dollars on “Salvator Mundi,’’ the Leonardo da Vinci portrait of Jesus Christ, which he donated to the new branch of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, the fiefdom of his fellow-prince M.B.Z. [...]

The question now confronting Saudi leaders—and American ones—is whether M.B.S. can and should become king. At a glance, it seems unlikely that King Salman would part with M.B.S., long his favorite son. The humiliation for the House of Saud might be too much to endure. Even if Salman were inclined to remove M.B.S. from the line of succession, who could replace him? Nearly all of M.B.S.’s rivals have been imprisoned or humiliated.

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Haaretz: Will the Khashoggi 'Murder' Bring Down Saudi’s Crown Prince?

The 33-year-old Mohammed bin Salman has gotten away with quite a lot since his elevation just 16 months ago to the role of heir-apparent to the throne. While praised as the reformist behind measures like allowing women to drive, he detained dozens of members of the royal family and top business leaders at the Ritz Carlton until they agreed to pay financial settlements for unspecified “violations;” has arrested and imprisoned scores of human rights and women’s rights activists; pursued a war in neighboring Yemen where routine flouting of human rights and international battlefield rules have led to the death of at least 10,000 civilians and displaced an estimated 2 million; blockaded and isolated the neighboring sultanate of Qatar, and is yet to complete contracts binding him to a commitment to $110 billion in defense purchasesfrom the United States. [...]

Riyadh certainly has never been known for its respect for human rights. But even Saudi Arabia hasn’t typically operated in such an unrestrained way. What’s changed? Part of it is a new generation of leaders trying to muscle their way into power. Still, it may be too early to predict with certainty whether this new-look leadership will revert to the royals’ more trusted old style of slow, evolutionary progress toward goals designed to preserve rather than shatter the status quo. MbS, it would seem, may simply be unready to assume the reins of power. [...]

Already, MbS has lost some key allies or supporters who should be central to his aims. His vaunted Davos in the Desert conference this month was supposed to play a key role in launching his Vision 2030 development plan. But in the days since the disappearance of Khashoggi and continued Saudi foot-dragging in uncovering the source and methods of the attack, the withdrawal of major sponsors and leading executives have left the entire enterprise in limbo.

Whether MbS is actually the individual able to take up the challenge of reforming Saudi Arabia and leading it is becoming increasingly questionable. The fact is, he rules neither alone nor unchallenged. There is a process and there are certain red lines that MbS may have crossed in the Khashoggi affair if he is to win the support of leading royals. Perhaps the most important is not to call too much unfortunate attention to yourself or the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has spent quite literally a king’s ransom donations to leading institutions in major Western nations, especially the United States, to make sure that this image is never irreparably tarnished.

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Haaretz: The Aramco Flop: Beginning of the End for the New Saudi Arabia

Aramco is the world’s largest oil producer, and heir apparent Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, or MBS, the man leading the reform drive, was confident it was worth $2 trillion, twice Apple’s valuation. The IPO would be the biggest in history and the world’s leading stock exchanges were competing for the privilege of the listing. [...]

But MBS has two problems. The short-term one is that he is trying to finance this transition at a time when oil prices are low, which has left the country’s running huge budget deficits (this year something like 7% of GDP). The Aramco IPO was supposed to help pay some of Vision 2030’s bills. Running deficits would be okay as an investment in the future if Vision 2030 was going to work, but the odds are stacked against it. [...]

Yes, MBS is letting women drive for the first time and has made some other gentle social reforms. But the modus operandi is that of the ruler bestowing gifts on his people, who'd better be grateful, rather than a process where Saudi society decides through an open process of debate. [...]

The World Economic Forum’s Human Capital Report ranks Saudi Arabia 87th in the world, a notch behind Egypt, which isn’t exactly Silicon Nile Valley. It’s not that the kingdom wants for money to educate its population, but Saudis have gotten too used to the idea that real work is performed by expatriates. The idea that they will be leading and founding innovative, transformative business is hard to imagine.

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Al Jazeera: Qatari emir vows $15bn investment in Turkey after Erdogan meeting

Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has said Qatar is standing by its "brothers in Turkey" as he announced a $15bn investment into the country's financial markets and banks. [...]

"Qatar will continue to stand by its Turkish brothers as it did during the failed coup attempt in 2016," Al Shafi said, adding Qatari people purchased millions of Turkish lira to support Ankara against the "economic operation", the country is witnessing, local media reported. [...]

Earlier on Wednesday, Erdogan spoke on the phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Turkish presidency. He is due to speak with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.

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The Intercept: Saudi Arabia Planned to Invade Qatar Last Summer. Rex Tillerson's Efforts to Stop It May Have Cost Him His Job

But in the months that followed his departure, press reports strongly suggested that the countries lobbying hardest for Tillerson’s removal were Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of which were frustrated by Tillerson’s attempts to mediate and end their blockade of Qatar. One report in the New York Times even suggested that the UAE ambassador to Washington knew that Tillerson would be forced out three months before he was fired in March. [...]

In the days and weeks after Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and closed down their land, sea, and air borders with the country, Tillerson made a series of phone calls urging Saudi officials not to take military action against the country. The flurry of calls in June 2017 has been reported, but State Department and press accounts at the time described them as part of a broad-strokes effort to resolve tensions in the Gulf, not as an attempt by Tillerson to avert a Saudi-led military operation. [...]

Pressure from Tillerson caused Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the country, to back down, concerned that the invasion would damage Saudi Arabia’s long-term relationship with the U.S. But Tillerson’s intervention enraged Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and effective ruler of that country, according to the U.S. intelligence official and a source close to the Emirati royal family, who declined to be identified, citing concerns about his safety. [...]

If the Saudis had succeeded in seizing Doha, they would potentially have been able to gain access to the country’s $320 billion sovereign wealth fund. In November of last year, months after the plan collapsed, the Saudi crown prince rounded up and detained dozens of his relatives in the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh, forcing them to sign over billions in privately held assets. The government justified the detentions as a corruption crackdown, but it allowed the state to recoup billions in assets for government use.

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Al Jazeera: Top UN court rules UAE blockade violated Qataris' rights

On Monday, judges at the ICJ ruled that Qatari families affected by the UAE's measures must be reunited, imposing a measure before The Hague-based court hears in full the discrimination case.

They also said that students should be given the opportunity to complete their studies in the UAE or to retain records of their studies to be able to continue their education elsewhere.

Finally, they ruled Qataris should be allowed access to judicial services in the UAE. [...]

"The sheer fact that the UAE, out of the four countries that imposed the blockade upon Qatar, is the only signatory to this convention means that it is duty-bound and legally-bound, to uphold all of the details within that convention," he added.

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Haaretz: How the Saudi-led Blockade of Qatar Actually Made the Tiny Emirate Stronger

As the crisis continued fears of a Saudi-led military incursion into Qatar grew - although with the U.S.’s largest military base in the Middle East located in the country that seemed unlikely. Doha turned for support to Turkey, which deployed troops to Qatar and, along with Iran, sent food and supplies. In the following months there were regular complaints of Qatari and UAE jet interceptions, reports of a missing Sheikh and even a Saudi plan to turn Qatar into an island - cutting the peninsula off with a maritime-canal, turning the border area into a military zone and nuclear waste site.

In the initial weeks after the blockade was announced, Qatar’s imports dropped nearly 40 percent from the same time a year earlier.  Today those numbers have returned to normal as Doha, the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas, responded by developing new trade routes, propping up its banks with state money and helping local firms develop domestic output of some goods - including food. Qatar has also begun to develop the world’s largest LNG field that it shares with Iran in the Persian Gulf. [...]

Human Rights Watch has praised Qatar in its World Report 2018 - entitled, “Qatar: Year of Crisis Spurred Rights Reforms.” The report credits Qatar for a range of significant human rights reforms during 2017 that if fully implemented “would usher in some of the most progressive human rights standards in the gulf region.” [...]

Qatar is one of the most heavily invested countries in the world. For such a small country, it wields an oversized influence on global politics largely because it has invested hundreds of billions of its energy wealth, through its national wealth fund, in companies and property (there is a “Qatari quarter” in London) overseas - although it is nowhere in the ballpark of countries like China or Norway.

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Haaretz: Gulf States Rebuke Israel – With Qatar Particularly Vocal. But Alliances Still Inch Closer

In March, just as the weekly Gaza protests were getting underway, the crown prince met with pro-Israel Jewish American leaders, where he was quoted by Axios, an online newsletter focused on Washington politics, as saying the Palestinians should accept the proposals or “shut up and stop complaining.” The prince later appeared to acknowledge Jewish claims to Israel, telling The Atlantic that Israelis “have the right to have their own land.” [...]

“From Israel to Jordan to Egypt to Saudi Arabia and beyond, many leaders are fighting to modernize their countries and create better lives for their people,” Kushner said. “In confronting common threats and in pursuit of common interests, previously unimaginable opportunities and alliances are emerging.” [...]

It isn’t just Saudi Arabia that has inched closer to Israel. Bahrain’s foreign minister, Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, tweeted support for Israel after an attack on Iranian targets in Syria last week. The tiny Gulf country, where the Sunni monarchy put down an uprising supported by its Shiite majority in 2011, has long viewed Iran as a threat.

Despite signs of outreach with Israel and a shared enmity for Iran, Bahrain condemned the targeting of Palestinian civilians on Monday, and reaffirmed support for an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital. The United Arab Emirates also condemned Israel’s “current escalation in the Gaza Strip.” [...]

In a sign of improved ties with Israel, the Israeli Embassy in Cairo celebrated the 70th anniversary of the country’s founding earlier this month at the Nile Ritz Carlton. Only seven years earlier, protesters in Cairo had ransacked the Israeli embassy, climbing up the high-rise tower overlooking the Nile and tearing down the Israeli flag.

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Haaretz: The Dangerous Game of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince

Mohammed bin Salman won praise worldwide when he declared that he intended to allow women to drive, and at the same time reduced the powers of the Saudi religious police, one of whose jobs was to enforce the dress code in the public space, especially for women. These were unquestionably positive steps, as were his declarations that he intended to lead Saudi Arabia to practice a less fanatic and more tolerant interpretation of Islam, in terms of its attitude towards Christians and Jews, among other things. [...]

But this is a campaign that is being waged without any relation to the law or to civil rights – for one because Saudi Arabia lacks any orderly system of laws, and the arrests are not subject to any organized judicial system. The claim that this is the way to restore to the state treasury billions of dollars that were illegally looted is of course popular, but the practical meaning of these steps is the concentration of tremendous economic power in the hands of the crown prince himself, effectively turning him into a sole and autocratic ruler, which was never the case in the kingdom. [...]

Saudi Arabia’s massive intervention in the complex civil war in Yemen has proven to be a dismal failure, causing the death of thousands and triggering a humanitarian disaster, which has exposed millions of Yemenites to the danger of starvation. The Saudi boycott and the siege imposed on Qatar – a small but wealthy emirate that is unwilling to accept Saudi dictates – were unsuccessful, and even boomeranged. Meanwhile, the brutal attempt to oust Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, with methods that are reminiscent of Cesare Borgia, ended with a resounding farce.

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Vox: Rex Tillerson has been fired. Experts say he did damage that could last “a generation.”

His push to slash “inefficiencies” in the State Department and seeming disinterest in working closely with longtime staff were even more damaging. Under Tillerson’s watch, 60 percent of State’s top-ranking career diplomats resigned and new applications to join the foreign service fell by half, according to a November count by the American Foreign Service Association.  [...]

This can’t all be blamed on Tillerson: Even a skilled and experienced diplomat would have had trouble maintaining influence in the chaotic Trump White House, a place where foreign policy is often made over Twitter. As if to underscore the point, Trump announced Tillerson’s departure in a tweet — before the secretary himself could make a statement. [...]

The US bombed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in early April — just days after Tillerson suggested the administration would be fine with Assad staying in power. On June 9, Tillerson called on Saudi Arabia and its allies to end their isolation of Qatar; less than two hours later, Trump sided with the Saudis by labeling Qatar “a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” [...]

But that excuse only goes so far. Defense Secretary Mattis hasn’t been immune to Trump’s bizarre management style — he was blindsided, most notably, by Trump’s proposal to ban transgender people from serving in the military — but on the whole, he has been far more effective at advocating for his department’s interests and gaining influence over the president’s decision-making.

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The Atlantic: America Wins the Gulf Crisis

In those eight months, Qatar relied on exactly the kind of diplomacy its neighbors loathe: It drew closer to Iran and Turkey, deepened its economic and defense relations with Russia, and embarked on a robust campaign of public diplomacy with the Trump administration. The U.S. had sent mixed signals about whom it supported in the Gulf crisis. Even as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged all sides to work out their differences, President Trump tweeted that Qatar was supporting terrorism. [...]

“I don’t think this administration really had the intention of using chaotic nature of their response as an opportunity to push Doha to do more things,” he said. “It’s more symptomatic of the fact that the complete interagency incongruence has created an environment where Doha has had to take more proactive steps to address the various competing elements of how various actors in the U.S. government view Qatar.” [...]

Ultimately, though, while Qatar’s relations with the U.S. are improving, there are few public signs its dispute with its neighbors is close to being resolved. Abu Dhabi and the Saudis had hoped to cause Qatar the kind of economic pain and diplomatic isolation that would force it to make concessions. That didn’t happen—and those countries don’t appear to have a Plan B. One way out of it, Henderson said, is if Trump convened a GCC summit and put pressure on all sides. “A deal could be reached.”

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Al Jazeera: What is going on between Egypt and Sudan?

Among these agreements was a deal to temporarily hand over the Red Sea island of Suakin to Turkey. Ankara and Khartoum said Turkish investors would rebuild the ruined, sparsely populated island to increase tourism and create a transit point for Muslim pilgrims crossing the Red Sea to reach the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The agreement over Suakin has triggered a heated debate in the region, as many saw Erdogan's move as an attempt to establish a third military base - after the ones in Qatar and Somalia - outside Turkey's borders.[...]

In 2016, it flared up again. That year, Cairo signed a controversial agreement with Riyadh to hand over two strategically important Red Sea islands - Tiran and Sanafir - to Saudi Arabia. The agreement, which redrew the maritime border between the two countries, also unilaterally recognised Egypt's sovereignty over the Hala'ib Triangle. [...]

There are indications that Khartoum is actually trying to escalate the ongoing confrontation with Egypt, in order to exploit the nationalist sentiments of the Sudanese people and divert attention from the country's grave internal problems - particularly the current protests over the new austerity budget and the increase of the price of bread and other basic goods. However, Egypt may be inclined to de-escalate until after its presidential elections later this year. [...]

Ethiopia, just like Sudan, has become closer to Qatar in its struggle to navigate the ongoing tensions in the Gulf. The Ethiopian government, which previously accused Egypt of supporting separatist movements on Ethiopian territory, understandably chose to place itself against Egypt in this conflict.  

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Quartz: The Louvre Abu Dhabi acquires Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi'

While the buyer may curiously be described as “a little known Saudi Prince” with no history as an art collector, the painting’s new home will thankfully be public to all. The Louvre Abu Dhabi announced on Twitter that“Salvator Mundi” will hang on its walls—a da Vinci in the Gulf to rival the “Mona Lisa” back at the Louvre’s Paris home base. The painting’s acquisition fits nicely with Abu Dhabi’s larger attempt to assert itself as a cultural hotspot for international tourists. What’s more, it’s helping prove that there are far more reasons to visit the UAE than luxury shopping malls and the skyscrapers of Dubai.

In addition to the Louvre franchise—which opened in November in and already features an impressive permanent collection of over 600 pieces—Abu Dhabi also has an outpost of New York University and plans to open a branch of New York’s venerable Guggenheim Museum. The UAE’s national museum, The Zayed National Museum, is also slated to open in the city (though it is fraught with delays and a recent falling out with the British Museum, who was meant to co-curate its collection). All three museums feature serious architectural bona fides: The Louvre was designed by master French architect Jean Nouvel; Frank Gehry is behind the Guggenheim; and Norman Foster is the name behind the Zayad Museum. [...]

It’s no secret that the UAE is embroiled in a simmering geopolitical conflict, having recently cut ties with neighboring Qatar as part of a plan to isolate the gas-rich nation in partnership with other Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt. While this instability may not necessarily affect daily life for Emiratis, studies show that regional instability can impact tourism numbers—particularly if tensions (or headlines about those tensions) peak during a prime booking season. According to 2015 data from the WTTC, political instability can take the largest hit on a nation’s tourism arrivals, with an average recovery time of 26.7 months, compared to just 13 months for terrorism, 21.3 months for disease outbreak, and 23.8 months for environmental disaster.

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Al Jazeera: What is behind Sudan's 'rapprochement' with Russia?

In an exclusive interview with the Russian news agency Sputnik, Bashir blamed the US for the secession of South Sudan in 2011, and claimed that Washington was now planning to split the rest of Sudan into five countries. Bashir also told Sputnik that he discussed the establishment of military bases on the Red Sea coast with President Putin and his defence minister. He also revealed that he was interested in purchasing Russia's S-300 air defence system as well as Su-30 and Su-35 jets. [...]

Bashir may have initially assumed that US President Donald Trump, who appears to have little interest in human rights and democracy, would help him to escape the ICC charges and allow him to run for office in the 2020 elections, in return for cooperation on issues such as counterterrorism efforts. [...]

Bashir was further disappointed when John Sullivan, the US Deputy Secretary of State did not meet him in person during his visit to Sudan in mid-November. Moreover, Sullivan indicated that Washington would expect the regime to accept far-reaching reforms, including the repealing of the apostasy punishment, and improvements in its human rights record in return for removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. [...]

Bashir is said to be disappointed that he has not received the financial rewards he thought he would from his Gulf allies after moving quickly to cut diplomatic ties with Iran in early 2016, and sending thousands of Sudanese soldiers to fight with the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis in Yemen. Bashir previously signalled his dissatisfaction with Riyadh when he refused to back the Saudi-led blockade against Qatar. So far, Sudan has tried to remain neutral in the ongoing crisis and has claimed to be supporting Kuwaiti attempts to mediate. [...]

Some observers, on the other hand, think that Bashir's recent rapprochement with the Russian-Iranian axis is nothing more than a tactical manoeuvre to blackmail the US and Saudi Arabia into providing political and financial support to his presidency. It is indeed possible that he is using the Russian-Iranian card merely as a way to pressure the US to support his regime and his Gulf allies to loosen their purse strings. If so, it is certainly a very high-risk gamble. His offer of a Red Sea military base to the Russians will certainly not be well received in Washington.

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The Atlantic: The Saudi Crown Prince Is Gambling Everything on Three Major Experiments

Call it shock and awe. Call it a purge. Call it a clean sweep. However it’s characterized, the mass arrest of some of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent royals, administrators, and tycoons last weekend has completely upended both the structure of the Saudi elite and the country’s way of doing business. It’s not exactly the Night of the Long Knives, as the luxurious Ritz-Carlton hotel in which the detainees are being held is hardly a nightmarish gulag. But it is the latest installment in an astonishingly rapid series of upheavals whereby all power is being concentrated in the hands of elderly King Salman and his 32-year-old son and heir, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MbS. [...]

It is the third front that is likely to be most challenging: the assertion and defense of Saudi interests throughout the Middle East, particularly with regard to an ever-more-powerful Iran. It’s instructive that last weekend also saw a Yemeni Houthi missile, possibly supplied by their Iranian backers, launched at Riyadh’s international airport and the Saudi-inspired resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Hariri. Both Yemen and Lebanon are key proxy battlegrounds between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Yemen intervention, which has been heavily associated with MbS, who was serving as defense minister when it was launched, appears to have become a politically damaging and militarily unproductive quagmire. There are reports that MbS is looking for a way out, but the missile attack has been characterized by Saudi officials as an Iranian “act of war” against the Kingdom. [...]

Some critics regard all of Saudi Arabia’s bold new foreign policy initiatives, particularly as directed by MbS, as a series of spectacular failures, including the campaign to pressure Qatar into changing its foreign policy and abandoning its support for Islamist groups. However, while the Yemen war has not gone well, the outcome remains to be determined. The Qatar project was always discussed as a long-term one rather than with any expectation of a quick resolution and there’s still every reason to suspect that, in the medium-term, Doha will find no alternative but to seek a resolution largely on Riyadh’s terms. The campaign to roll back Iranian influence in the Arab world is much more complicated, and depends on many factors beyond Riyadh’s control, not least of them the role of the United States. It is on this front that MbS appears most vulnerable to a widespread conclusion that he has consolidated power without achieving the minimum necessary results. At the very least, a sense that Saudi Arabia is putting up a spirited defense of its interests in the face of creeping Iranian hegemony would be required to avoid the perception of failure.  

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