The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . A recent poll of Arab public opinion suggests US credibility has taken a hit, but all is not lost. That is if the United States realizes that Middle Easterners judge the US on glaring inconsistencies in its domestic and foreign policies rather than on its cultural, technological, and economic attributes. The discrepancy between US policies and professed values has always existed. However, it’s become more evident and relevant and more of a liability in the past 22 years as a result of the War on Terror, rising Islamophobia, the war in Iraq, US reluctance to confront Israel head-on, and most recently the war in Ukraine. In addition, China loomed less large in the past in the competition for influence in the Middle East. Arab nations were on the defensive in the years after the...

  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's four-day red carpet visit to the United States constitutes a microcosm of what a 21 st -world order century will likely look like. The visit spotlights the adjustments the United States faces in transitioning from a US-dominated unipolar world to a multipolar world populated by three major powers – the US, China, and India -- and several middle powers with greater agency to hedge their bets and chart independent courses. Those adjustments include the viability of a foreign, defense, and security policy anchored in alliances rather than more narrowly-focused agreements and micro-laterals like I2U2 , which groups the United States, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and India, or AUKUS, a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United K...

  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . US President Joe Biden’s controversial pilgrimage to Jeddah is part of a broader and more complex geopolitical puzzle with multiple Gulf and Red Sea littoral states attempting to hedge their bets and play rival global and regional powers against one another. Widely seen as a knee fall after the president refused, since coming to office, to interact with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Mr. Biden’s visit is likely to prove a double-edged sword for the United States. Mr. Bin Salman and other regional leaders will have welcomed Mr. Biden’s reassurance that the United States, with tens of thousands of troops in the region, would not abandon the Middle East and allow Iran to become a nuclear power. The problem is the reassurance comes from a man who may not be in office thre...

  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . Saudi Arabia has turned LGBTQ rights into a litmus test for the limits of social reforms by sending mixed messages. In line with broad-based official and popular rejection of gender diversity and fluidity in the kingdom and across the Muslim World, the Saudi General Commission for Audiovisual Media this week announced that a new, highly-acclaimed Spider-Man movie would not be shown in the country's cinemas . The United Arab Emirates also removed ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,’ from its release schedule. The decision called into question a UAE announcement in 2021 that it ended cinematic censorship . Like Saudi Arabia, the UAE banned Lightyear , a Disney and Pixar animated production last year, because of a same-sex kiss scene. It also barred Disney's Doctor Strange in ...

  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify , and Spreaker . A draft bill in the US House of Representatives that would strip PGA Tour, the organizer of golf’s flagship events, of its tax-exempt status because of its merger with a Saudi-backed rival spotlights the pitfalls of American and Saudi efforts to put relations on an even keel. So did comments by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan at the tail end of last week’s visit to the kingdom by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, laying down parameters for the Gulf state’s future engagement with the United States. To drive the point home, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to the kingdom a day before Mr. Blinken’s arrival and phoned Russian leader Vladimir Putin hours after meeting the secretary. Two days later, Saudi Arabia hosted a...