Most of the countries where Islam, or a sect of Islam, is the state religion are in the Middle East and North Africa region (59%), including Saudi Arabia and all of its neighbors. Most of the remaining countries where Islam is the official faith are in the Asia-Pacific region, including..…

It depends on making peace with the Taliban and a comprehensive regional settlement with all of Afghanistan’s direct neighbors—China, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan—and significant near neighbors—India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. ... Russia has contradictory policies in..…

Also, of the 10 countries with very high government restrictions, only two are in the Middle East and North Africa (Saudi Arabia and Egypt), while seven are in Asia (Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Burma, the Maldives, Malaysia and Brunei). ..…

o these two traditional western European allies, Russia, EU, Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia are also mentioned with some frequency as U.S allies in the future.. Despite the importance of Asia, and tensions recent years between U.S and many European allies over Iraq war and other issues,..…

Although Wahhabis had first arrived in Central Asia in 1912, when a native of Medina, Sayyed Sharie Muhammad, set up Wahhabi cells in the Fergana Valley, their doctrine was at odds with the moderate Islamic traditions of Central Asia, and it was not particularly popular. But in the..…

They are very, very upset not about Putin in Ukraine, as they say, but about Putin in Syria where he exposed the fact that the West was allied with the Saudis in funding and arming terrorists and Putin demonstrated you could defeat terrorism if you cut off the supply line from Obama’s friends in..…