The fighting that recently erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan has its origins in the former’s occupation of a segment of the latter’s territory in a war that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union. Behind these military engagements are ethnic tensions between these two Transcaucasian peoples that stretch back at least to the 19th century—as well as complex geopolitical forces. Harold Rhode tries to make sense of the muddle of larger and smaller powers who have an interest in the current war’s outcome:

In an extended television interview with an Arab broadcaster, Prince Bandar bin Sultan—who served for twenty years as the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., for a decade as head of the Saudi National Security Council, and two years as intelligence chief—responded forcefully to the Palestinian claim that the Gulf states have, by normalizing relations with Israel, “stabbed the Palestinians in the back.” Defending Saudi devotion to the Palestinian cause, Prince Bandar delivered a lengthy history of his country’s role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which he bluntly upbraided Palestinian leaders, and Yasir Arafat above all, for squandering chances at statehood and for their lack of “ethics.” While Bandar’s sentiments can hardly be described as pro-Israel, he asserted that the Palestinian leaders are every bit as responsible as the Jewish state for the plight of their people: