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Mai Yamani
For Mai Yamani's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 28, 2014
Saudi Arabia's diplomatic pilgrimage to Pakistan
Although the strategic value of closer military ties with Pakistan seems highly questionable, Saudi Arabia has little choice.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2014
The last of the Sudeiri Seven
Never before have the intrigues and intricacies of royal politics in Saudi Arabia had such far-reaching ramifications for the region and beyond as they do now.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 31, 2011
Saudi Arabia's old regime grows older
The contrast between the deaths, within two days of each other, of Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi and Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz is one of terminal buffoonery versus decadent gerontocracy. And their demise is likely to lead to very different outcomes: liberation for the Libyans and stagnation for the Saudis.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2011
Saudi Arabia's anti-Shiite policy empowers Iran
The old saying "lonely is the head that wears the crown" has literally taken on new meaning for Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah. Not only has he watched close regional allies, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh, be toppled, but fellow crowned heads in Bahrain, Morocco, and Jordan have also felt their thrones quake from public protest.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2011
Are Saudi women next?
The unexpected visibility and assertiveness of women in the revolutions unfolding across the Arab world — in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere — has helped propel what has become variously known as the "Arab awakening" or "Arab Spring." Major changes have occurred in the minds and lives of women, helping them to break through the shackles of the past, and to demand their freedom and dignity.
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2011
Osama bin Laden's ghost
Osama bin Laden's death in his Pakistani hiding place is like the removal of a tumor from the Muslim world. But aggressive followup therapy will be required to prevent the remaining al-Qaida cells from metastasizing by acquiring more adherents who believe in violence to achieve the "purification" and empowerment of Islam.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2010
Saudi Arabia and the Afghanistan chaos
PRAGUE — In his quest to stabilize his country, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, dressed in white robes, arrived recently in Mecca on what can only be called a diplomatic pilgrimage. Although Karzai undoubtedly spent time praying at Islam's holiest site, his mission was intended to prove more than his piety.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2010
Rescuing Yemen from the grip of extremism
LONDON — Yemen has suddenly joined Afghanistan and Pakistan as a risk to global security. Indeed, it is increasingly seen as a nascent failed state and potential replacement host for al-Qaida.
COMMENTARY / World
May 17, 2009
Co-opting terror in Saudi Arabia's neighbor
LONDON — In a prominent hadith, the Prophet Muhammad said: "If disorder threatens, take refuge in Yemen." The prophet was referring to the prosperous and civilized Yemen. But today disorder and radicalization in Yemen are beginning to infect Saudi Arabia, and thus the safety of the world's largest oil producer.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2009
S. Arabia's Shiites stand up
BEIRUT — On Feb. 24, violent confrontations between Shiite pilgrims and the Saudi religious police and security forces occurred at the entrance to the prophet Muhammad's mosque in Medina. The timing and location of the clashes may have serious repercussions for domestic security, if not for the regime itself.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2008
Putin of Arabia as America's foil
BEIRUT — Almost undetected, Russia is regaining much of the influence that it lost in the Middle East after the Soviet Union collapsed. Ever since Russia invaded Georgia in August, Arab satellite television and Web sites have been rife with talk about the region's role in an emerging "new Cold War."
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2007
Containing the Mideast fires of reform
LONDON — The recent meeting in the Vatican between "Custodian of the Holy Places" King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Pope Benedict XVI was a seminal event, particularly as it comes at a time when radical Muslims are decrying the role of "Crusaders" in Middle East politics. It was also the clearest sign yet of a rising "Holy Alliance" among the world's conservative leaders. For the target audience of this meeting was not the followers of either, but another conservative leader, President George W. Bush.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2007
Role of EU a year after war in Lebanon
LONDON — It has been almost one year since the European Union committed to stabilize Lebanon following last summer's war. With its decision to send thousands of soldiers to Lebanon to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, the EU took its boldest step yet in creating a common foreign and security policy. But it remains an open question whether the EU will actually be able to stabilize the most fractured polity in the most dangerous area of conflict in Europe's immediate neighborhood.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2007
Saudi Arabia hosts a theater of reform
PRAGUE -- Having raised expectations for real political reform in Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah has announced that the time for change has not yet arrived. After reshuffling the Cabinet, everything remains the same.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2007
Sunni support key to success in Iraq
PRAGUE -- Doctors use the word "crisis" to describe the point at which a patient either starts to recover or dies. U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraqi patient now seems to have reached that point. Most commentators appear to think that Bush's latest prescription -- a surge of 20,000 additional troops to suppress the militias in Baghdad -- will, at best, merely postpone the inevitable death of his dream of a democratic Iraq. Yet as "Battle of Baghdad" begins, factors beyond Bush's control and not of his making (at least not intentionally) may just save Iraq from its doom.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2007
Opportunities in Mideast power struggle
PRAGUE -- This week U.S. President George W. Bush is -- reluctantly -- announcing a new policy for the United States in Iraq. A new policy is needed not only in order to halt America's drift into impotence as it tries to prevent Iraq from spiraling into full-scale civil war, but also because the map of power in the Middle East has changed dramatically.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2006
The radicalization of Western Muslims
LONDON -- What is it that makes young Muslims in the West susceptible to radicalism? What is it about the experience of the West's rising generation of Muslims that leads a small minority to see violence as a solution to their economic and political dilemmas, and suicide as their reward and salvation?

Longform

High-end tourism is becoming more about the kinds of experiences that Japan's lesser-known places can provide.
Can Japan lure the jet-set class off the beaten path?