Has autocracy won out in the Middle East? Or is another future still possible? Why is the Middle East a crisis factory, and how can it be fixed? What does the future look like for its 500 million people? And what role should the West play? Iyad El-Baghdadi and Ahmed... read more
After over two years of cover up by the Trump administration, the Biden administration has declassified the formal US intel assessment of the murder of our fallen friend, Jamal Khashoggi. As expected, it implicates Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de-facto ruler. With the full truth... read more
Since losing close friends and fellow activists to murder by terrorists (Raed Fares) and authoritarian regimes (Jamal Khashoggi), as well as receiving direct and credible threats ourselves from both the Saudi government and ISIS, we have been forced to be extremely private about our work. Our highest-impact projects are ones... read more
Oslo, Monday, 13 May 2019; Iyad El-Baghdadi addressed the widely-reported threats against him by the Saudi government in a press conference. Thank you. Last week, the story broke that I had been contacted by the PST about a threat. The story – and the details that followed – generated a lot of... read more
The authoritarian regimes of the gulf are highly opaque and secretive, but their actions are extremely insidious - they operate in shadows, subverting democratic institutions and spreading disinformation to undermine democracy worldwide. However, there is one way their thoughts leak out – through their Twitter bot networks. These armies of trolls... read more
Jamal Khashoggi was a friend and colleague. His horrific murder has left a real gap in the global public sphere, and in the fabric of the Arab intellectual landscape. His analysis was first-rate, and his journalism was world-class. Moreover, at the time of his murder, we were in advanced talks... read more
