Simon Henderson is a policy analyst and author specializing in the Persian Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. He is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he focuses on Gulf politics and succession issues. He contributed articles to The Weekly Standard between 2002 and 2011, covering Middle Eastern security affairs, the Saudi royal family, and Pakistan's military and political dynamics.
Saturday, May 28, was the thirteenth anniversary of Pakistan's first nuclear test in 1998. The day is known as Yaum-e-Takbeer, the Day of Revival. This year it revived a long-running and vicious campaign between the controversial Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan and the former military…
So Osama bin Laden has not been hiding in Karachi or somewhere in the mountains of Waziristan; rather, he’s been in Abbottabad. Oh dear. There might be a place more embarrassing for Pakistan but it is hard to think of one. It is yet further evidence that Pakistan, supposedly a key ally of the…
SOME DAY SOON--if it hasn't happened already--the first American male between the ages of 16 and 45 will be fingerprinted at the border as he enters Saudi Arabia. The measure is in retaliation for the discretionary fingerprinting of male visitors to the United States from a range of Muslim…
AS THE ADVANCE towards war against Iraq continues, the Bush administration has started lobbing missiles at hardline liberals ever unconvinced about the threat Saddam Hussein poses to his region and the world. The administration's game presumably is to make these diehards change their minds and to…
SOMETIMES the driest document can unintentionally highlight telling truths. That is the case of the "Arab Human Development Report 2002," published in July by the United Nations Development Program. Written by a group of Arab scholars and economists, the 168-page report has been praised as an…
DELIBERATELY but without fanfare, Saudi Arabia has altered its relationship with the United States. Quite logically, and dangerously, the House of Saud has decided the proper reaction to the events of September 11 is to distance itself from Washington, seeking instead to firm up its support among…
LAST WEEK, the New York Times's Patrick E. Tyler reported that President Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had agreed on a new strategy of joint action and pressure to break the deadlock in the Middle East crisis. American officials would talk bluntly with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon…