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  • Countdown to Middle East war? How the region can step back from the brink

    With Israel poised to attack Iran, having already blindsided friends and foes alike with its blitz against Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, all the talk is of an inexorable slide towards a new, pan-Middle Eastern war. Yet brakes remain to halt a regional fall into a wider conflagration that would lock Israel and Tehran into escalating conflict and suck in other nations, according to several people with experience in intelligence and military decision-making.

  • Are Households Quitting Electric Vehicle Ownership?

    In this paper, we investigate the proportion of U.S. plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners who discontinued PEV ownership by disposing of their PEV and buying a non-PEV as their next vehicle, which is termed PEV “discontinuance.”

  • Will contest over gas field derail Iran-GCC rapprochement?

    Iran is expressing renewed concern over a Kuwaiti-Saudi project to extract gas from a contested offshore natural gas field. Meanwhile, some in Tehran are urging a parallel endeavor to also explore the field. Given the ongoing normalization of relations between Iran and Gulf Arab states, the contention has given rise to the question of how the Islamic Republic may approach the matter without forfeiting its claim.

  • Is a regional war between Israel and Iran inevitable?

    In terms of its impact on the Arab world, some have compared Nasrallah’s killing to the defeat of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1967. Nonetheless, since Israel assassinated Nasrallah, the Lebanese organisation has attempted to project continuity, in terms of both its leadership and decades-long armed struggle against Israel. There has also been celebration in north-western Syria’s rebel-controlled Idlib governorate, where much hatred for Hezbollah still exists due to the group’s intense intervention in the Syrian crisis, beginning with the 2013 battle for Qusayr.

  • Who were the 7 high-ranking Hezbollah officials killed over the past week?

    Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force now finds itself trying to recuperate from severe blows, having lost key members who have been part of Hezbollah since its establishment in the early 1980s. Chief among them was Nasrallah, who was killed in a series of airstrikes that leveled several buildings in southern Beirut. Others were lesser-known in the outside world, but still key to Hezbollah’s operations.

  • Iran After the Lebanon Debacle: Suppress Domestic Dissent and Dash for the Bomb?

    Iran’s recent debacle in Lebanon bears some resemblance to the Argentine military junta’s defeat in the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and Britian over the Falkland Islands. In an appeal to Argentine nationalism, the junta “reclaimed” the islands, was defeated by Britain after 74 days, and relinquished power in 1983. In similar fashion, the Islamic Republic of Iran dedicated considerable time and effort to forge the much-heralded “axis of resistance,” with Lebanese Hezbollah at its core, to encircle Israel and deter Israeli bombardment of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. However, since September 17, Israel has seemingly managed to neutralize hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and operatives and assassinated the top military and political leadership of the Lebanese militia.

  • Has Gaza Created Structural Impediments to Normalization?

    On September 16, the United Arab Emirates Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan made clear the UAE will not support postwar efforts in Gaza without the creation of a Palestinian state. With its explicit conditionality and reference to a “status quo” in Gaza that would prevent postwar UAE involvement, the statement represents a modulated toughening of previous UAE expressions of willingness to participate in a temporary international mission after the war. Along parallel lines September 16, a senior Omani Foreign Ministry official insisted Oman “had no intention” of normalizing relations with Israel and called for an immediate stop to Israel’s “barbaric war on Gaza.”

  • Commentary: Chinese Takeout in Saudi Arabia? You Bet

    The company is joining a growing fleet of businesses that see a bright future in the Gulf kingdom. In recent months, Chinese firms won multibillion-dollar contracts to build solar plants and mixed-use development projects. In exchange for a $2 billion investment, PC maker Lenovo Group Ltd. is establishing regional headquarters there in a deal that is expected to create 15,000 jobs locally. And last but not least, Hong Kong’s flagship airline Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. will start a new direct route to Riyadh in late October, pleasing Saudi officials who have been pitching the nascent tourism industry.

  • Why are the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia Key to the Expansion of Brazilian Agriculture?

    The diversification of Brazilian export destinations is crucial to reduce overdependence on a single market, such as China, which currently accounts for a significant share of Brazil’s exports. Although China is a critical trading partner, concentrating exports in a single market makes the country vulnerable to economic and political risks, such as oscillations in demand, changes in trade policies, and economic instability.

  • Saudi Arabia’s fiscal breakeven oil price is rising fast. What will the kingdom do about it?

    In May of 2023 the International Monetary Fund forecast the kingdom’s breakeven oil price at $80.90 per barrel, which moved it back into a fiscal deficit following its first surplus in nearly a decade. To be sure, the fiscal breakeven isn’t the price at which Saudi Arabia makes a profit on crude but the average oil price it needs to balance the books. The IMF’s latest forecast, in April, put that breakeven figure at $96.20 for 2024; a roughly 19% increase on the year before, and about 32% higher than the current price of a barrel of Brent crude, which is trading at around $73 as of Wednesday afternoon.