Middle East
When a series of drones were used to attack a key Saudi oil facility over the weekend, the impact on oil production was noted by global markets. Oil prices spiked as the attack was believed to impact more than half of Saudi Arabia’s daily exports. Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility, ...
It was a busy weekend of activity for Iran, much of it rooted in its desire to seek ways around U.S. sanctions that are targeting its ability to sell oil around the world. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was the Biarritz surprise over the weekend as Group of Seven (G7) ...
New audio of the seizure of a British-flagged tanker indicates the vessel was too far away from help to avoid being forced to change course by Iranian Paramilitary forces last week. In audio released on Sunday by a maritime security firm, a British officer unsuccessfully demanded freedom to sail through ...
In part two of his two-part exclusive series for The Cipher Brief, AEI Scholar Kenneth Pollack, the author of the recently-released Armies of Sand: The Past, Present and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness, discusses how the fundamental balance of power in the Middle East is impacting the Arab world. The Middle East ...
In part one of his two-part exclusive series for The Cipher Brief, AEI Scholar Kenneth Pollack, the author of the recently-released Armies of Sand: The Past, Present and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness, discusses how the fundamental balance of power in the Middle East is changing, and what's driving the change. You ...
Reports that President Trump has ordered a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria are not inconsistent with prior messages we’ve heard from the President this year. In April, The Cipher Brief polled a number of our Experts based on the President’s statements that he wanted to ‘bring our troops back ...
Last spring, two weeks after the Trump Administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - the international arms control deal that curbed Tehran's nuclear program - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a new approach to Iran that, he vowed, included history's most ‘draconian’ sanctions. This renewed ...
As details about the disappearance of Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi are revealed, its worth looking back at the deeper roots of the U.S. - Saudi relationship. First printed in The Cipher Brief back in March, Abdulateef Al-Mulhim, a retired Commodore of the Royal Saudi Navy who now writes as a political ...
As the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Susan M. Gordon serves as DNI Dan Coats’ number two, helping to manage an Intelligence Community (IC) that includes 17 different agencies and organizations, if you include the ODNI itself. The IC’s central mission is to provide the President with the most ...
Iran hasn’t been the only target of U.S. sanctions in the past week. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered retaliatory sanctions again two unnamed U.S. officials after the U.S. ordered sanctions against two Turkish ministers last week. That action came in response to Turkey’s refusal to release North Carolina pastor ...
Bottom Line: In the past decade, Iran’s cyber capabilities have evolved from a tool used to lash out against domestic opponents of the Islamic Republic to a central pillar of its national strategy of holding adversaries at risk and gleaning crucial foreign intelligence. Despite a fall in disruptive Iranian cyberattacks ...
In the second part of a Cipher Brief two-part series on the significant implications of the battle for Hodeida, Cipher Brief Expert Norm Roule, who is also the ODNI’s former National Intelligence Manager for Iran, shares his secrets for understanding how today’s actions are influenced by the past and how ...
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned Monday that military action in Yemen will fail. The warning comes as a Saudi-led coalition targeted Houthi rebels aligned with Iran, according to Reuters. Still don’t understand the strategic significance of what’s happening in Hodeida? Consider that the city has long served as a hotbed ...
While the media is dominated by events in North Korea, it would be wise to devote some space to the decision this week by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait to provide Jordan with more than 2 billion dollars in aid over five years to sustain Amman during ...