Predicting oil price movements is as risky as exploring for oil itself. The average price for crude fell 10.3% from the start of 2014 to the date of the Scottish independence referendum on September 18…
The sands of time will turn against the desert oil states.
iceink
Steffen Hertog, London School of Economics and Political Science
Oil prices have now almost halved in six months to below $60/barrel thanks to OPEC’s refusal to cut production. This means all the member countries are revising their government spending policies. While…
New order: Iran’s annual military parade.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
The mess in the Middle East is forcing states into actions that previously appeared unimaginable. Sworn enemies are suspending or at least compartmentalising grievances. The idea that an American secretary…
Listen up historians!
President Obama image from www.shutterstock.com
Aided and abetted by a disciplined Republican party, a common meme in the American media is the foreign policy failure of the Obama administration. The purported evidence is there for all to see. It includes…
Is trouble brewing in the North Sea?
Jo Christian Oterhals
The dramatic and unexpected 20% fall in oil prices since mid-June has caused alarm in Scotland, the UK and indeed worldwide. Why did oil prices slump to a four-year low of US$84 (£52) per barrel this week…
Troops conduct an anti-terrorist drill in front of a banner of one of the Saudi royal family. Despite the kingdom’s role in fostering extremism, the US sees Saudi Arabia as an ally against Islamic State.
EPA/Saudi Press Agency
As Australia prepares to join combat operations, the coalition of nations stitched together by the US in response to the developing threat of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS or ISIL) is overlooking the…
The decision by President Obama to launch missile and air strikes against Islamic State (IS) and the al-Qaeda affiliate “Khorasan” in Syria draws the United States ever closer to yet another prolonged…
Prince Faisal and his party (including T E Lawrence) at Versailles, 1919.
Wikimedia Commons
The sweeping advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has given rise to a lively debate about who should bear ultimate responsibility for the disintegration of Iraq and Syria. On one hand…
After destroying towns and cities, Syria’s civil war is spilling into Lebanon.
Christiaan Triebert
The second round of the Geneva II talks on Syria have ended with no agreement and without even a decision on the date of a further meeting. The highly experienced UN mediator, Lakhdar Brahimi, was clearly…
People in Arab countries are now living longer with less disability, but face a rise in problems related to chronic illness such as heart disease, according to a new paper in The Lancet. With the exception…
All smiles in Geneva: but there are some unhappy people in the Middle East.
Carolyn Kaster/AP/Press Association Images
Signed by the P5 + Germany and mediated by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton, the deal achieved with Iran on the latter’s nuclear programme has important implications for regional…
Residents inspect their damaged house after a bomb explosion in Baquba, Iraq.
EPA/Ali Mohammed
When US President Obama announced the end of America’s involvement in Iraq, he deliberately did not claim victory. But he did say, when welcoming the last contingent of combat troops home in October last…
Saudi women are still segregated from men in many walks of life, but next year they will get the right to vote.
AFP/Fayez Nureldine
While Saudi women celebrate their hard-earned right to vote in next year’s Municipal Council elections, the frenzy of international media interest highlights just how mysterious this country remains. Women…
Senior Research Fellow, Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at IUPUI and Journalist-fellow, Religion and Civic Culture Center, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences