In 1976 an investment banker turned adventure novelist, Paul Erdman, penned a best-selling thriller, The Crash of ’79. Center to the plot was the Shah of Iran making a grab for the oilfields of the Arab Middle East, with a well-armed military, thanks to rising oil prices. Of course, barely 24 months later the Shah was ousted by radical Islamists, who subsequently bled the country white in a bloody and futile eight-year war with Iraq. Oil prices crashed after Ronald Reagan took office, and all thoughts of an Iranian version of a Nazi blitzkrieg disappeared.
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In the ongoing Yemeni crisis, Pakistan is faced with a strange dilemma. On one side is Saudi Arabia which had always been forthcoming with aid to Pakistan in times of crisis.
The prolonged Syrian civil has exasperated Iran’s foreign policy. For four long years, Tehran feverishly propped up Assad’s regime through various means: extending generous credit to the government, manpower for militias, transforming a once professional army into…
Interior Minister Lt-General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa received here today the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Bahrain Centre for Strategic, International and Energy Studies (DERASAT) Major-General Khalid bin Ibrahim Al-Fadhala.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia, two nations with a long history of rivalry, are in high-level talks with the goal of forming a military alliance to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
Chinese, Russian and Saudi Arabian defense spending increased the most last year, while U.S. expenditures declined, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
At least 14 people have been killed in separate bomb attacks in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, security forces have said. Eight people died and 45 others were injured in an explosion outside a police station in El-Arish.
Sunni Arab Gulf states have great wealth, spend immense amounts on defense, and command large numbers of troops. They have nonetheless depended on foreign powers, chiefly the United States, for their security. Paradoxically, their arms purchases seek to obligate Western powers to defend their big Arab customers, as they try to build competent militaries.
Washington has welcomed the muscular role Arab militaries are playing in Yemen and Syria, but their greater participation could also create a greater risk of a wider Sunni-Shia conflict across the Middle East.
Obama administration officials are promising a major strengthening of U.S. defense commitments to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies, possibly including a nuclear commitment to their security, in an intensifying effort to win their support for the proposed nuclear deal with Iran.