A Saudi newspaper reportedly said that the conservative religious country will now allow women to ride a bicycle in public. Well, sort of, the AP reports:

The Al-Yawm daily cited an unnamed official from the powerful religious police as saying women will be allowed to ride bikes in parks and recreational areas, but they must accompanied by a male relative and dressed in the full Islamic head-to-toe abaya. [...]

The official told the paper that Saudi women may not use the bikes for transportation, but “only for entertainment,” and that they should shun places where young men gather “to avoid harassment.”

So Saudi women can now ride bikes (progress?), but they can’t do it unaccompanied, must be completely covered and can’t use a bicycle for transportation purposes (baby steps). Women are also not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, despite a series of recent local protest movements seeking to overturn the ban.

There have been other small steps forward for women’s rights in this deeply conservative and repressive culture. The Kingdom sent a woman to the summer olympics for the first time last year and in 2011, the Saudi King granted women the right to vote and run in municipal elections starting in 2015. King Abdullah also recently appointed 30 women to the previously all-male Shura Council, a formal advisory committee in Saudi Arabia. And another Saudi newspaper reported last week that authorities will license women’s sports clubs for the first time.

But Saudi Arabia is still by no means a haven for political and human rights. Last year, Princess Basma Bint Saud Bin Abdul Aziz, a Saudi royal living in London, risked severe backlash by calling for reform, particularly of the religious police. “It is such a non-tolerant atmosphere,” she said. “Our religious police has the most dangerous effect on society – the segregation of genders, putting the wrong ideas in the heads of men and women, producing psychological diseases that never existed in our country before, like fanaticism.”

But in a new piece looking at expanding rights for women in Saudi Arabia, Time Magazine Middle East Bureau Chief Aryn Baker observes that, “From the outside, progress on women’s rights in the kingdom may appear to be mired in tar,” but, she adds, “from the perspective of women inside the country, dizzying changes are afoot.”

Iranian development of a nuclear weapon would not necessarily cause its arch-rival Saudi Arabia to pursue its own, contrary to conventional wisdom, says a new report out today from the Center for New American Security.

Titled “Atomic Kingdom: If Iran Builds the Bomb, Will Saudi Arabia Be Next? [PDF]” the report was drafted by former Obama Pentagon official Colin Kahl, along with Melissa Dalton and Matthew Irvine. Going against the conventional narrative, the researchers determine that the risk of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East following an Iranian nuclear test, while “greater than zero,” is unlikely.

Two of the main regional powers — Egypt and Turkey — would be unlikely to seek nuclear weapons due to lack of a threat from Iran on the part of the former and the guarantee of NATO’s nuclear umbrella on the part of the latter. This leaves the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the most likely country in the Middle East to try to obtain nuclear weapons should Iran ever choose to build nuclear weapons. Saudi nuke acquisition, according to conventional wisdom, could either be in the form of a reformatting its native civilian nuclear research program to support military aims or a deal with Pakistan to provide a nuclear guarantee against Iran.

Either of those scenarios is far less likely than most would imagine, according to the report. Instead, as shown in the chart below, the authors believe that it’s far more probable that the Kingdom would rely on scaling up its conventional defenses against Iran or relying on a United States’ nuclear guarantee:

In reaching their conclusion, the researchers weighed the possible disincentives Saudi Arabia would face in opting to develop its own nuclear arsenal, including the risk of economic sanctions and a blow to the Saudis’ reputation globally. Possible security risks that follow along with the possession of nuclear weapons would also be a concern the Saudi government, as well as the odds that such weapons could lead to a split with the U.S. — a result that would far outweigh the benefits of owning nuclear weapons.

The “Pakistani option” — Saudi Arabia coming into possession of ready-make nuclear weapons from Pakistan — is likewise dismissed by the report. While Pakistan and Saudi Arabia maintain strong military ties, and the Pakistani Embassy in Riyadh once said “each Pakistani considers (the) security of Saudi Arabia as his personal matter,” Pakistan would be unlikely to provide nuclear weapons to advance any objective not related to countering India. As noted by CNAS, the nuclear club has not grown substantially since China tested weapons fifty years ago, and has in fact seen more states give up nuclear weapons than acquire them.

Iran still has not decided to pursue nuclear weapons, according to intelligence from the United States and Israel. And despite what the CNAS report views as the low chances of a nuclear arms race should Iran acquire a weapon, it also stresses that the United States’ policy should remain one of preventing Iran from doing so, with military force if necessary.

Manssor Arbabsiar, aka Mansour Arbabsiar, pleaded guilty today in federal court to taking part in a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. Arbabsiar is a naturalized citizen who holds both U.S. and Iranian passports. The charges stated that Arbabsiar served as an intermediary between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an elite Iranian paramilitary group, and a third-party who would carry out the killing.

Arbabsiar claimed to be acting on the behalf of his cousin, a “big general” in the Iranian army, in arranging for a meetings during several trips to Mexico in 2011. Arbabsiar believed that he was speaking with a member of the Zetas, one of Mexico’s most feared drug gangs. Instead, he was meeting with an undercover Drug Enforcement Agency agent. In the course of several interactions with this source, Arbabsiar agreed to pay $1.5 million to carry out the assassination, $100,000 of which Arbabsiar wired to an FBI bank account as a down payment.

Arbabsiar was later arrested and agreed to make monitored phone calls to Iran. The speaker on the other end, identified as Gholam Shakuri, told Arbabsiar to move forward with the assassination attempt against the ambassador. Both men were charged with attempting to hire an assassin and plotting to commit terrorism.

Shakuri is a member of the Quds force, the special operations wing of the IRGC, and was charged in absentia. The Department of Justice has stressed that Shakuri remains innocent until proven guilty.

“Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost,” FBI Director Mueller said at the time charges were filed last year. Reaction to the plot then ranged from incredulity to relief, with one commentator arguing that the alleged missteps made a feared force in the Middle East look “like a bunch of miscalculating buffoons.”

The United States tightened sanctions against Iran in retaliation and Saudi Arabia passed a resolution at the United Nations condemning Iran.

Women in Saudi Arabia still can’t drive, but today Wojdan Shaherkani became the first Saudi woman ever to compete in the Olympics. Saudi officials finally agreed last month to send two women along with the Muslim country’s Olympic squad to London, after initially claiming that no women had qualified. Shaherkani lost her judo match to Melissa Mojica of Puerto Rico in just 82 seconds, but the event was indeed historic, as the New York Times observed:

The 10:33 a.m. elimination match in women’s judo, 172-pound-plus category, was unremarkable, just another quick bout on the assembly line of judo matches that took place throughout Friday morning. That is, it was unremarkable, athletically speaking.

Historically, politically and socially speaking, it was another thing altogether.

“In white,” the announcer declared, as the two judokas walked into the arena, “the first woman ever from Saudi Arabia, Wojdan Shaherkani.”

And even though Shaherkani lost, the crowd gave her a standing ovation. “I’m proud, I’m happy and I want to continue in judo. I want to thank the fans for their support,” she said after the event, adding, “I was disturbed and afraid at the beginning, it was my first time in a big competition and there was a lot of pressure because of the hijab issue.”

Judo officials originally said Shaherkani would not be allowed to compete wearing a hijab, but a deal was struck to allow her to wear a black swimming cap instead.

Women will represent the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the first time in Olympic history when the 30th Olympiad begins in London later this month after the conservative Muslim monarchy agreed to add two women to its Olympic team earlier today. The decision followed similar moves by Qatar and Brunei, meaning that for the first time, every country participating in the Olympic Games will have at least one female on its team.

Saudi Arabia agreed last month to let women attempt to qualify for the Olympics, but after an injury to the horse of the country’s most serious contender — an equestrian rider — no female athletes qualified (some have said Saudi officials knew this when they agreed to let her compete). The International Olympic Committee, however, granted qualification status to two athletes — judoist Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani and 800-meter runner Sarah Attar — after months of negotiations with Saudi Arabian officials, Sports Illustrated reported.

Attar, who lives and trains in the United States, said the decision will help make “big strides” for female athletes in Saudi Arabia:

“A big inspiration for participating in the Olympic Games is being one of the first women for Saudi Arabia to be going,” the 17-year-old Attar said in an IOC video from her U.S. training base in San Diego. “It’s such a huge honor and I hope that it can really make some big strides for women over there to get more involved in sport.” [...]

“To any woman who wants to participate, I say `go for it,’ and don’t let anybody hold you back,” Attar said in the video after running a lap on the track wearing pants and a headscarf.

Female athletes in Saudi Arabia still cannot enter sports stadiums or rent athletic venues, though the country is home to a vast network of underground women’s sports leagues. “The participation of two Saudi women in London is an important breakthrough, but will not hide the fact that millions of Saudi girls are effectively banned from sports in schools in Saudi Arabia,” Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch told Sports Illustrated.

In 1996, 26 countries sent teams to the Atlanta Olympics that did not include female members. Only three teams did so at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Last month, hopes were raised that Saudi Arabia would allow women to compete on their Olympic team, bringing the kingdom in line with Brunei and Qatar, which are sending their first female competitors to the London Olympics. But yesterday, Saudi Arabia reported that no Saudi women qualified for the London Olympics, meaning the Saudi Arabian Olympic team will continue to be all-male.

The news was confirmed by the pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat which announced that Saudi male athletes have qualified to compete in track, equestrian and weightlifting at the games but there would be no “female team taking part in the three fields,” said an unidentified Saudi official. The official added that no female athlete had taken part in qualifying events in Saudi Arabia.

Hope for a Saudi female Olympian had come to focus largely on Dalma Rushdi Malhas, a 20-year-old showjumper, but her participation in the games appears to have been cut short by an injury to her horse.

In June, Saudi Olympic officials announced that they were lifting a ban on women athletes representing the conservative Gulf monarchy at the Olympics but rights groups doubted the Saudis’ resolve. “It is 100% the case they knew she couldn’t compete when they made the announcement,” Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch told the Wall Street Journal after Malhas failed to qualify. HRW is one of the international organizations that has called for Saudi Arabia to be banned from the London Olympics if the country declines to send women athletes.

Worden added that the initial Saudi announcement of including females on their Olympic team “was total spin for the west… But on the other hand, it pins them down to finding a woman.” The latest news would suggest that Saudi Olympic officials have been unable, or unwilling, to place a female athlete on the team. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s track record of discriminating against women and girls may have ultimately undermined the Saudi Olympic team’s ability to find a suitable female athlete.

“[H]aving banned its women and girls from engaging in sports at home, finding one who’s had access to Olympic-level training is a long stretch,” opined Lara Setrakian in the International Herald Tribune last week.

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia reversed course on Sunday, ending a ban on women athletes representing the conservative Muslim monarchy at the Olympics. In April, Saudi Prine Nawaf, who heads the country’s Olympic committee, said women would not be travelling with the official delegation to the 2012 games in London this summer. The decision raised an outcry, including propsals to bar Saudi Arabia from the games.

Sunday’s decision by the kingdom was related in a statement from the embassy in London:

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is looking forward to full participation [in the Olympics]. The Saudi Olympic Committee will oversee participation of female competitors who qualify.

The statement about the Olympic Committee “oversee(ing) participation” of women likely refers to the initial comments by Prince Nawaf, who said that female athletes might be allowed to compete outside the purview of the official delegation.

Women who do compete — to include the most successful of Saudi Arabia’s female athletes, 18-year-old Dalma Rushdi Malhas, a competitor in Olympic equestrian — will be required to wear clothes that “preserve their dignity.” The BBC comments that the euphemism is likely to mean women will wear “sport hijab,” a loose-fitting garment that covers a woman’s hair but not face. Malhas has in the past given press conferences with her hair uncovered.

While allowing a single woman athlete into the Olympics doesn’t exactly erase rampant sexism in the powerful, oil-producing Persian Gulf country, the move does signal a step toward alleviating gender segregation in some conservative, religious MIddle Eastern countries’ participation in the Olympics.

Both Brunei and Qatar are set to send their first female competitors to the games. With the Saudi addition, Chloe at Feministing writes, “(T)here are now no countries remaining in the world who do not allow women to represent them at the Olympics. And that means that the Modern Olympic Games just got a hell of a lot more modern.”

Shortly after the death of Osama bin Laden last year, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that al-Qaeda’s defeat is “within reach.” While Panetta has since stressed that the terror group still remains a significant threat, particularly in light if its resurgence in Yemen, he said in an interview with Reuters that only a “small handful” of al-Qaeda leaders remain. “We’ve not only impacted on their leadership, we’ve impacted on their capability to provide any kind of command and control in terms of operations,” Panetta said.

He also said Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s top counter terrorism official, told him that bin Laden’s death has had a significant impact on al-Qaeda’s ability to recruit:

“I asked him the question — as a result of the bin Laden raid, as a result of what we’ve done to their leadership, where are we with al Qaeda,” Panetta recounted, adding that al Qaeda and bin Laden “came out of Saudi Arabia.”

“Bin Nayef said, ‘For the first time, what I’m seeing is that young people are no longer attracted to al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.’”

Panetta said that the U.S. will continue to go after al-Qaeda. “We’ll keep the pressure on at the top and we’ll keep going after their leadership,” Panetta said, adding, “But the real issue that will determine the end of al Qaeda is when they find it difficult to recruit any new people.”

Reuters notes that “[o]nly about eight hard-core al Qaeda leaders are still believed to be based in the lawless borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan, compared with dozens a few years ago.”