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Efforts by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to mediate differences between Qatar, which supports the Muslim Brotherhood, and Egypt's military government under Sissi, as the security threats in the region intensify. At the Gulf Cooperation Council meetings an effort to reduce differences between the Saudis and U.A.E. with Qatar, as the Middle East fragments bringing conflict to Libya and Iraq, in addition to Syria. Islamic State now threatens Saudi Arabia. The U.S. operates its main command center from Doha, Qatar. Iran supports the U.S. and Iraq under the Abadi government as it works to reduces sectarian Sunni-Shiite tensions and push back Islamic State. The Saudis and Iran now find themselves on the same side and see the need to reduce Shiite-Sunni tensions to restore peace to the region. This is the new background to the efforts to heal regional tensions in 2014-2015, as a reluctant Obama administration takes up American responsibility to restore peace to the region and avoid fragmentation....

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WSJ looks at the 75 years of the US Saudi Arabia relationship that started when US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt met Saudi king Ibn Saud at Bitter Creek, Egypt, on a US Navy destroyer ship in 1945. It has gone through many phases over this period and mainly involved the Saudi kingdom maintaining its supply of oil to the US and Western Europe. This relationship went through an oil embargo during tense periods of Israeli Palestine conflict as in 1983 with an oil embargo that pushed up oil prices. What is different this time is the situation in Yemen where Iranian supported Houthi rebels near the border with Saudi Arabia are engaged in a conflict with the Saudis. Democratic administrations under first Obama and Biden today support reaching a deal with Iran on nuclear weapons development and limit US military support for the war in Yemen. The Saudis for their part are not keen on a regional war and turned down efforts by president Trump to respond to attacks from Yemen. Mr. Biden's envoy has arranged for a deal to reduce tensions between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudis. The diplomatic impasse in relations stems from the Kashoggi incident and president Biden's concern for the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. Other factors making relations difficult are the economic interests of the two countries diverging. The relationship Roosevelt started in 1945 has changed in its fundamental character. Oil supplies for imports into the US is no longer a factor for the US which was the original interest of president Roosevelt in Saudi Arabia. This changed by 2015 as the US fracking industry enabled US to become self sufficient in oil and able to supply LNG to western Europe. Instead of the US Saudi oil now goes to China. Russian oil also goes to China as its industry expanded with American investment. This has led to a new Saudi relationship with China which has changed the dynamic of the American Saudi relationship. Some of the new aspects of this can also be seen in Saudi relationship with South Asia. Saudi ties have increased with India and India in 2021 was the first country to provide vaccine supplies to Saudi Arabia. Saudis, Qatar, United Arab Emirates are building relationships with India as a close neighbor in the region. Relationships are in some ways improving in the Asian region compared to the period when oil was simply exchanged as a commodity for defense supplies from the US without regard to cultural, educational and other changes in Saudi society. In a sense US and Western Europe paid little attention to the huge democracy of over 1 billion people right in the middle of Asia and followed policies that led to major investments in China and little or no investment in India, and without realizing it followed a policy that the British had pursued in the British Empire of treating different communities and religions as separate as opposed to one community of people in South Asia that were engaged in modernizing, building infrastructure and changing centuries old ways of living. The British Empire was sustained by this kind of thinking, and as long as Indians were complacent and lacked the will to make their aspirations for a better life and infrastructure for modernization this kind of thinking prevailed. The economic crises in Asia have reinforced the idea that there is one community entirely focused on development and modernization in South Asia. The people in South Asia care most about the cost of living and the infrastructure and services for the quality of life they live and their children can aspire for- same in European Union that chose the Greens and chancellor Scholz, and same in the US that chose president Biden to invest infrastructure and people, the same in China and the same in India and the rest of Asia. This is the situation that the US and Britain, and the European Union are now beginning to learn and adapt to that is a constructive aspect of these changes to rebuild the connections and supply chains that were sorely neglected before now. ...

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Out of the rubble of failed policies, lack of far sighted leadership, and the failure of Middle Eastern elites and leaders, must arise the right way forward.

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A new dynamic is taking hold in U.S.-Saudi relations as U.S. interests for improving U.S.- Iran relations and tackling the nuclear proliferation issue, differing perceptions about democracy in Egypt and Bahrain, create distance between the two countries. The emergence of abundant shale oil in the U.S. and Canada and other parts of the world is reducing U.S. dependence on the Saudis for oil, and creates a sense among ordinary Saudis that the U.S. will abandon the special relationship with Saudi Arabia. The Saudis see their role as supporting fellow Sunnis in the struggle in Syria. The Obama administration has not taken any steps to support the Syrian people's struggle against the Assad regime and allowed the refugee crisis to develop to huge proportions with over 2.5 million people mostly Sunnis becoming refugees in border camps. The numbers are estimated to grow to 5 million if nothing is done according to UN estimate. Shiite Iran's support of the Assad regime has increased Sunni- Shiite discord in the Middle East. ...

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The move by Houthi rebels- belonging to an offshoot of Shiite Islam- from the north of Yemen to Sanaa and then to Taiz and Aden in the south of Yemen draws a Saudi response. Yemen borders Saudi Arabia in the south. The Saudis launch airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. The Persian Gulf states, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Pakistan support the Saudis, creating the potential for a wider sectarian conflict in the region. The withdrawal of U.S. influence in the region under the Obama administration leads to the collapse of the Arab Spring, the Saudis pursuing an independent foreign policy, the rise of Islamic State militants, Turkey following its own policy, emboldening Iran in extending its influence in the Middle East, and creating a situation of wider sectarian Sunni-Shiite conflict throughout the Middle East. It creates a situation in which the U.S. is involved on the Iranian side in support of the government in Baghdad supported by Iran against Islamic State militants, and at the same time on the side of the Sunni coalition in Yemen as the U.S. withdraws from drone bases in Yemen. At the same time the Obama administration finds itself distancing itself from Israel as it negotiates alongside France and Britain with Iran on a nuclear agreement....

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King Salman appoints Mohamed bin Nayef, 55 years-old, as the deputy crown prince in Jan. 2015. The crown prince is Muqrin Abdulaziz, 69 years-old. Mohamed Bin Nayef is the son of the Interior Minister, who worked under his father from 1999 till he became the new Interior minister in 2012. Nayef has pursued an aggressive program to remove Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. By taking action against all dissent inside Saudi Arabia Nayef has also jailed human rights activists, including the flogging of a blogger critical of the government. The defense minister Prince Mohamed bin Salman, is a son of King Salman. King Salman was defense minister till he succeeded his half-brother Abdullah. Ali al-Naimi continues as Oil minister, a position he has held for decades. Saudi Arabia established a panel in 2006 to work with future kings after King Salman to appoint an heir to the throne. Even with the appointment of Nayef, a grandson of Saudi Arabia's founder, Abdulaziz ibn Saud, as deputy crown prince, the leadership of the country remains within a small number of princes of the royal family. Under the Obama administration the relations between U.S. and Saudi Arabia have become strained with president Obama's failure to intervene in Syria. The Saudi have pursued their own policies since then, in first Bahrain and then Egypt the Saudis supported the monarchy and the military respectively to maintain power in the face of the Arab Spring. The danger is that Saudi policies may be contrary to the U.S. position supporting freely elected governments and basic rights, particularly when it comes to suppression of all dissent including peaceful dissent and normal criticism of government, and yet with the rise of Islamic State the U.S. puts itself inadvertently behind these very policies. The Saudis would say this has happened because U.S. president Obama failed to support the effort for freedom in Syria and a transition in Libya and Iraq (with the added complication of Maliki's sectarian policies), creating a war torn neighborhood in which the Saudis had to act on their own. These are the hidden costs of the policy of the U.S. president for the U.S. and for the Middle East- more sectarianism with Shiites and Sunnis openly in conflict, reversal of hard won gains in Iraq, reversal of the Arab Spring except in Tunisia, war torn Libya and Iraq- with a withdrawal that never truly happened because it required a firmly guided transition period of support in the region with lower cost and involvement of an extended period leaving no room for reversal of gains. It leaves both the Saudis and the U.S. in a more precarious position than a decade ago....

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Karen Elliott House, who has reported extensively from Saudi Arabia for a long time, says the Saudi succession to a younger generation is established, yet the different strains on the fabric of Saudi society continue. The parts of the society that are Islamic fundamentalist see the monarchy as too worldly compared to a militant Islamic State, and the western educated class sees the monarchy and religious clerics as not making enough room for modern ideas, for women and a free press. Inside the kingdom the very dichotomy that allowed the Saudi state to flourish from its beginnings in the feudal period of the late eighteenth century with Wahhabbi given the role of religious authority in exchange for guaranteeing political legitimacy of the monarchy now creates tensions in a modern state. Outside the kingdom Iran is seen as a rival state in the region, and the Saudi monarchy is seeking the support of the U.S. to fight Islamic State. Ibn Saud, described as a skilled statesman by John Foster Dulles, carefully strengthened the monarchy's role in the region for the first half of the twentieth century in his dealings with Britain and the U.S., and successors including King Abdullah continued his policies. Saudi Arabia now is in a new period of radicalism, and conflicts in the region, with an aging leadership in transition, a house divided against itself, as Karen Elliott House who as observed the kingdom for so long points out....

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Pultizer prize winning journalist for reporting on the Middle East, Karen Elliott House, reports on Saudi Arabia and Middle East following the Arab Spring and the changes in the Middle East. A vast demographic of young people is stuck in the region facing an impasse of poor leaders, internal divisions, and lack of jobs or economic opportunity, following a failed Arab Spring. Their aspirations for a better life on hold.

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The U.S. effort to protect the sea lanes in the straits of Hormuz as the Iranian backed Houthi rebels advance into the southern port city of Aden in Yemen. This involves support of Saudi airstrikes in Yemen and control of airspace over Yemen. In Iraq the U.S. makes airstrikes to support Iranian backed Shiite militias near Tikrit. The lack of a coherent policy and years of inaction by the Obama administration in the Middle East leads the U.S. into a situation where it is drawn into airstrikes on both sides of the Middle Eastern sectarian Sunni-Shiite conflict.

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The 1953 coup that toppled the elected Mossadegh government was supported and attributed to planning by the CIA. During a cold war with the Soviet Union countries in the middle were considered expendable by either side. Added to this was the interest of big oil companies similiar to the Anglo-French response in the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. This still rankles with Iranians. In response to the election of President Obama and his offer for an open discussion the Iranian President Ahmedinejad calls for an apology for that coup and the toppling of an elected government. This led to replacing it with the Shah's monarchy which was overthrown in 1979 after 26 years.

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Joe Parkinson of the WSJ gives a in-depth account of the emergence of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey's politics, with contributions by Emre Peker, Ayla Albayrak, Yeliz Candemir. Erdogan grew up in a poor neighborhood of Istanbul, and became the head of a local youth branch of the Islamist National Salvation Party in 1976 after an adolescent period steeped in mosque culture and Islamic ideas. In 1994 he is elected Mayor of Istanbul amid voter discontent with corruption and problems with infrastructure and public services. He served for four years making improvements. After reciting a poem publicly that said "the mosques are our barracks, domes our helmets, minarets our bayonets and faithful our soldiers," he is jailed for 4 months by a military backed secular government in 1999. During this period Erdogan, described by friends from his youth as having a unique ability to adapt to difficult situations, makes a transformation. He moves to the centre, coming out in favor of stronger ties to the EU, and works hard to attract support from the secular and nationalist voters to add to his conservative religious base. In 2003 he is elected prime minister as head of the Justice and Development Party. This begins a period of ten years in which Turkey sees remarkable period of economic growth during which Turkey's GNP nearly quadruples from a little over $200 billion in 2002 to $794.5 billion in 2012, according to the IMF. It may be partly coincidence and partly good management of the economy under Erdogan. Turkey's previous banking and currency crises before 2003 created a better understanding and discipline for managing the economy. Emerging markets such as Brazil, India, China, Russia, Indonesia, and other parts of Asia and Latin America were able to achieve high rates of growth during this 10 year period. Competitiveness in Brazil and Turkey has not improved significantly in this period according to experts, and large capital inflows into Turkey partly supported the credit boom in Turkey. And just as growth is slowing significantly in all emerging markets, Turkey under Erdogan faces a new test. Especially now that Erdogan is seen as autocratic in his effort to suppress protests to build an Ottoman era army barracks in Taksim Square, Istanbul. The fears of secularists in Turkey are that this is the Erdogan of the period in 1999, after serving as Mayor of Istanbul. Just as Turks turned away from the overreaching actions of the military, the public sentiment may be shifting beyond the overreaching actions of the religious parties in Turkish politics. The protests in Brazil against the Rouseff administration after the popularity of the Lula administration, show that slowing economic growth and missteps by the elected government can alienate younger voters. The parties still retain a majority but face an uncertain future in which lower economic growth and missteps lead to a search for alternatives. At the same time Turkey's efforts for accession to the EU are beng put on hold as Germany opposes the actions to suppress protests of the Justice Party in Turkey. ...

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Karen Elliott House, a widely respected expert on Saudi Arabia, gives her assessment of the Saudi situation as the Obama administration completes a nuclear deal with Iran in July 2015. She says the Saudis have few options in the short term. She also points out that the unfreezing of $100 billion in assets of Iran by the end of 2015, and the lifting of economic sanctions, could exacerbate tensions in the Middle East if Iran uses the money to increase support to proxies in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has a large population of young people and high youth unemployment, increasing political risks, says Karen House.

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Islamist parties are having difficulty integrating into political life and bridging the differences with secularist or liberal political parties in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Pakistan and Turkey following the democratic transition in 2011-2013 in the Muslim world. Some progress has been made, but lack of experience, lack of respect for the opposition and other opinion, overreaching, personal styles of individual leaders such as Erdogan and Morsi, and poor economic conditions after decades of neglect under military rulers in Egypt and other countries, is creating problems for Islamist parties in government.