How Western Institutions Benefit from Corrupt Islamists in Saudi Arabia

The recent revelations about Sa’ad Jabri, an Islamist and corrupt former Saudi intelligence officer, highlight the discrepancy between Western institutions' criticism of Saudi Arabia in the name of human rights and their support for the former officials most responsible for human rights abuses and security threats associated with the Kingdom. A tangled web of relations between pro-Brotherhood Muhammad bin Nayef regime apparatchiks, pro-Qatar members of US law enforcement (like Ali Soufan), and ideologically sympathetic intermediaries (like Jamal Khashoggi) are threatened by Muhammad bin Salman's reforms.

Why Did Erdoğan Convert Hagia Sophia Into a Mosque?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently converted Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque, a decision that apparently involved no consultation and was executed swiftly after a surprise announcement. What were Erdoğan’s true motivations in taking this provocative step?

Erdoğan’s Schoolboy Response to the Israel-UAE Deal

Burak Bekdil
August 27, 2020
Paper No. 1712

Turkey is protesting the UAE for establishing diplomatic relations with Israel—even though Ankara has had diplomatic relations with Israel for the past 71 years. If the UAE, as Ankara argues, has betrayed the “Palestinian cause” just by having diplomatic relations with Israel, then Turkey has been betraying the “Palestinian cause” since 1949.

Why Iran Is Turning East

US pressure might have been an immediate impetus behind the recently leaked Iran-China deal, but the two states have deep historical and ideological ties that drive them together. With that said, the Iranian regime’s ultimate goals will not allow for outsized Chinese influence. Any attempts by Beijing to thwart Iran’s progress toward those goals will not be tolerated by Tehran, meaning the success of the deal is far from guaranteed.

ISIS’s Jihad in the Coronavirus Era

In an effort to rebound from its military defeats of recent years, the Islamic State (ISIS) is exploiting the coronavirus crisis to considerably step up its terror activity. It is portraying the pandemic as “divine punishment on the Crusaders” and an opportunity to persevere in its holy war.

The Revolutionary Guards: The Anatomy of a State Terrorist Organization

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was originally intended by the Islamist regime to be an ideologically oriented militia that would compensate for the regular Iranian army’s lack of revolutionary zeal. It has since replaced the regular army as Iran’s main military force and has spent decades working doggedly to export the regime’s Islamist brand of imperialism and conquest to the rest of the region and around the world. The IRGC is responsible, either directly or indirectly, for most of the worst terrorist outrages the world has ever seen. The US declared the Guards a state terrorist organization in 2019, but it needs to be completely dismantled.

Russia and Iran’s Dangerous Energy Gambit in the Caucasus

There are signs that the current escalation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, far from being incidental to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, is driven by Russia’s and Iran’s economic warfare against a competing state and the need to return Europe to dependency on their oil and gas in light of US sanctions. Armenia benefits from the bellicose activity thanks to a sophisticated information warfare campaign in a heated US election year that has been unmatched thus far by Azerbaijan. But Baku can still turn its underdog position around by pursuing an assertive and affirmative policy against aggressors on military, political, media, and legal fronts.

Syria: The Decline of the Last Conventional Threat

Avi Jager
August 25, 2020
Paper No. 1707

Following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, the Syrian state became a breeding ground for militant groups and foreign fighters. While Assad’s allies managed to save his regime, those alliances came at a price. The declining state of Syria’s demographic and economic stability combined with its deteriorating military power in the region has eliminated the need for Israel to view the Assad regime as a central threat to its national security, at least over the short term.

Germany’s Antisemitism Allies

Many people who are not antisemites are nevertheless their allies. This can be seen clearly in Germany, which contains whitewashers and minimizers of antisemitism as well as people who want to abolish the position of national antisemitism commissioner. There are also Germans who falsely claim that the BDS movement is not antisemitic, as well as those who want the country to declare the IHRA definition of antisemitism, in particular the part about Israel, invalid.

Kabul in 1979, Minsk in 2020?

Lev Stesin
August 23, 2020
Paper No. 1705

Alexander Lukashenko’s days as the autocratic president of Belarus are clearly numbered, and Russia will likely play a key role in his exit. What is less clear is just how that exit will come about and what role the neighbor to the East will play. Recent history provides us with a few possible scenarios.

Perspectives Papers