James M. Dorsey

  • AUTHOR

    James M. Dorsey

    James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, a syndicated columnist and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. A veteran, award-winning foreign correspondent whose career focused on ethnic and religious conflict, James focuses at RSIS on political and social change in the Middle East and North Africa, the impact of change in the Middle East and North Africa on Southeast and Central Asia and the nexus of sports, politics and society in the Middle East and North Africa and Asia.

Author's Posts

  • Crisis puts future of Saudi reforms and GCC in doubt0

    By James M. Dorsey A three-week-old, Saudi-UAE-led diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar threatens to complicate newly promoted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reform plans and undermine the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Middle East’s most successful regional association. Designed to impose Saudi Arabia and the UAE ‘s will on a recalcitrant Qatar, the

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  • Gulf crisis ties global soccer governance into knots0

    By James M. Dorsey International soccer governance is tying itself up in knots with football associations grappling with the fallout of the Gulf dispute between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Qatar that lays bare the contradictions embedded in their insistence that sports and politics do not mingle. The contradictions were evident in different responses

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  • Saudi-UAE demands challenge fundamentals of international relations0

    Source: Debka By James M. Dorsey A list of 13 conditions for lifting the Saudi-UAE led embargo of Qatar handed to the Gulf state this week by Kuwaiti mediators offers a first taste of newly-promoted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s foreign policy approach that if endorsed by the international community would call into question

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  • The Gulf Crisis: Southeast Asia has seen it all before0

      Semaan Khawam: Thawrat / Source Middle East Institute, NUS By James M. Dorsey Two competing visions of ensuring regime survival are battling it out in the Gulf. To Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the 2011 Arab popular revolts that toppled autocratic leaders in four countries and sparked the rise of Islamist forces

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  • The Gulf Crisis: Grappling for a face saving solution0

    By James M. Dorsey A two-week old conflict in the Gulf goes to the core of key issues in international relations that hamper the fight against political violence and govern diplomatic relations: the absence of an agreed definition of terrorism that allows autocrats to abuse efforts to counter extremism by repressing non-violent critics and the

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  • Stepping up the pressure: Saudi strong arms Muslim nations to take sides in Gulf crisis0

      By James M. Dorsey Saudi Arabia, in a first move to pressure mostly Muslim states to join its campaign against Qatar, has persuaded six sub-Saharan African nations with threats of reduced financial aid and restricted quotas for the haj, the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, to follow its lead in taking

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  • The longer the Gulf crisis lasts, the higher the stakes get0

    By James M. Dorsey Saudi Arabia and the UAE appear to be contemplating engineering a military coup in Qatar with the stakes in the Gulf crisis so high that a negotiated solution may prove difficult, if not impossible. Neither side in the Gulf divide can afford to back down or be seen to have failed

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  • POT, KETTLE: WHY IRAN BLAMES SAUDI ARABIA FOR ISLAMIC STATE ATTACKS0

      Terrorist killings at Iranian parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini bring into focus something Riyadh and Tehran have in common – the stoking of ethnic tensions and proxy wars they use to destabilise each other BY JAMES M. DORSEY 8 JUN 2017 Islamic State’s targeting of key religious and political symbols in Tehran is likely

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  • Crisis in the Gulf: Escalation or negotiation?0

    By James M. Dorsey Turkey’s parliament is this week fast tracking the dispatch of up to 3,000 troops to Qatar, home to the country’s military base in the Middle East. Certain to stiffen Qatar’s resolve to resist Saudi and UAE-led pressure to force it to change policies, the Turkish move comes amid hints that the

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  • Gulf crisis: Surrender or dig in for the long haul0

    By James M. Dorsey Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, by breaking off not only diplomatic but also economic relations with Qatar, is likely to make it this time round far more difficult for the Gulf state to resist pressure to change its controversial policies. The stakes are far higher than when Saudi Arabia,

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  • Saudi-UAE campaign to isolate Qatar and Iran puts Muslim nations in a bind0

    By James M. Dorsey A Saudi and UAE-driven campaign to isolate Qatar and by extension Iran puts non-Muslim Arab states in a bind and tests the degree of Saudi soft power garnered in decades of massive spending on the propagation of anti-Iranian, anti-Shiite Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism. The Saudi-UAE campaign, building on an increasingly vicious cyber

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  • US takes step towards embrace of Gulf plan to destabilize Iran0

    By James M. Dorsey The Trump administration this week appeared to take a potential step closer to backing efforts plotted by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to destabilize Iran; possibly topple its Islamic government; and force Qatar to fall into line with Gulf policies that target Iran, political Islam, and militants; with the appointment of

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  • Policy differences emerge among Gulf states days after wooing President Trump0

    By James M. Dorsey Cracks have appeared in a Saudi-led, US-backed anti-terrorist political and military alliance days after US President Donald J. Trump ended a historic visit to Saudi Arabia. The cracks stem from Qatar’s long-standing fundamental policy differences with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates about Iran and the role of political Islam.

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  • Two conferences spotlight Muslim world’s struggle to counter militancy0

    By James M. Dorsey Two conferences this week spotlight the Muslim world’s struggle to come to grips with extremism and militancy. The conferences, the Arab-Islamic-American summit in Riyadh and a gathering in East Java of youth leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim movement, laid bare the difficulty of reforming cultures in the

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