Category: Uncategorized
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Trump the Mediator: Continuity and Change Across Two Administrations
By Jesse Marks, August 25, 2025 Methodology This analysis draws on Rihla Advisory’s Trump Mediation Tracker compiled through open-source research documenting over 20 cases of U.S. mediation (or attempts at mediation) under Donald Trump’s first and second presidential terms, using publicly accessible government releases, press coverage, policy analysis, author interviews, and first-hand experience. The dataset…
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Understanding Gulf Arab Mediation in a Changing World
By Jesse Marks, August 10, 2025. Mediation has become an increasingly prominent feature of the foreign policies of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states over the past fifteen years. For GCC countries, mediation has emerged as a flexible tool to manage crises, project diplomatic influence, and reinforce their international profiles as neutral, non-aligned actors. This commentary…
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Understanding Mediation in China’s Foreign Policy
By Jesse Marks, July 21, 2025. Mediation has become an increasingly important function of foreign policy for states with expanding interests in regions affected by protracted conflict. For China, mediation—or the offer of mediation—has emerged as a more routine feature of its diplomacy, providing a means to manage rising tensions in areas where it has…
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Shockwaves Across the Gulf: Business Risk in the Wake of the Iran-Israel Escalation
Special Briefing Series: June 2025 Executive Summary Despite backchannel diplomacy attempts and public calls for restraint, neither Iran nor Israel appears ready—or willing—to back down. Both sides have escalated, leaving no clear pathway toward de-escalation. Israel’s leadership has framed its military actions as necessary preemptive strikes against Iranian nuclear ambitions. In turn, Tehran sees Israel’s…
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South Korea’s Syria Gamble
For South Korea, the normalization of relations with Syria opens a new chapter for bilateral cooperation – and strips North Korea of a rare diplomatic ally. Published with The Diplomat on June 18, 2025. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria on December 8, 2024, sent geopolitical shockwaves across Asia, creating an opening for South…
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Marco Rubio to visit Middle East: What’s on the agenda?
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to visit the Middle East from February 13 to 18, 2025, with stops in Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. While his visit is officially framed around discussions on the Gaza crisis, Rubio may also use this opportunity to push for broader U.S. regional objectives, including…
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Building Peace Through Business in the Middle East
In a recent dialogue with Chinese business leaders in late 2024, I was struck by how prominently concerns over economic decoupling with the United States and the trajectory of bilateral economic relations featured on their agenda. For experts in political economy and commercial affairs, this focus may seem overwhelmingly obvious. However, approaching this issue from…
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Saudi Arabia: Building a Semiconductor Ecosystem under Vision 2030
After a recent visit to KSA in November 2024, I was fascinated by Kingdom’s focus on investmenting in and cultivating a local semiconductor ecosystem amidst global competition around their production. I decided to do a paper to help readers develop a better accessible understanding of the dynamic. Saudi Arabia’s efforts to integrate into the global…
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Diversification without De-Americanization: Jordan and the IMEC Corridor?
Jordan often punches above its weight class due to its strategic geography and diplomatic prowess. Beyond this, it has struggled to fully develop its economy and pull itself out of the mire of economic deterioration. The Kingdom’s leadership has anchored its future to foreign aid and preferential trade with the United States, GCC countries, and…
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Will China protect Assad?
Russia has been the largest backer of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, ensuring his physical safety after fleeing Syria. However, China’s previous role in blocking international efforts to refer Assad to the International Criminal Court (ICC) played an equally significant role in shielding him from justice mechanisms through the Syrian war. Now, as Syrians call…