Mohammed al-Rumaihi

Contrary to the celebratory reaction with which a considerable segment of Arab public opinion greeted the results of the US midterm elections, a political reading requires some patience. The Republicans’ loss of their majority does not mean that the United States has abandoned its interests, nor…

Why is it so hard for the Iranian regime to admit the failure of its regional project, when it is all but at war with the world and not only with its neighbors, directly or through proxies? I believe the answer lies in the fact that we are dealing with a power that has given its political…

Reading On the Edge of Empire: From Brezhnev to Putin by Salam Musafir, a journalist who spent many years living in the Soviet Union and its aftermath, prompted me to compare the Soviet Union with Iran. The similarities between the two are striking. Both can be classified as authoritarian systems…

I believe the Houthi escalation against Saudi Arabia carries an Iranian wager on the days left before the American midterm elections. Striking airports and threatening oil installations cannot be explained by the Yemeni conflict alone. Someone wants the cost of these attacks to reach the American…

As the third anniversary of the events of October 7, 2023, passed a few days ago, the question that disappeared amid the noise of those early days returns: Where do we go with the Palestinian cause? Since that day, the Middle East has witnessed some of its most severe political, economic, and…

The first thing Iran needs at this critical juncture is to reconcile with itself. I mean here the ruling groups that contest decision-making, and that the world cannot possibly deal with as a single voice. No mediator, however skilled, can produce a stable agreement with a party whose negotiator…

The Iranian regime has planted its proxies in more than one Arab country to the point of eclipsing the state itself. The objective was to dominate the region. The Houthis, meanwhile, have attacked neighboring countries and disrupted the global economy in support of that goal. So who is the…

For some time now, I have been following discussions about renewed attempts to launch a Sudanese-Sudanese national dialogue. Like every Arab, I hope one of these efforts succeeds in bringing an end to this tragedy, which has dragged on far longer than it should have. Yet Arab experiences, and…

The publishers of Al-Qafilah, a long-established cultural magazine issued by Aramco, have been sending me its quarterly issues for years. At a time when some Arab cultural magazines have lost their distinguished standing, having lost the capacity to keep pace with developments, Al-Qafilah has gone…

He said to his companion, as the two of them watched the Middle East unfold on the screen: I have a feeling the Iranian project in the region has entered a phase of decline — and perhaps the retreat is no longer gradual, as it was, but closer to a rupture. His companion asked: and your evidence?…