Alistair Taylor is the Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of MEI’s Policy Center. He holds a B.A. in history from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in political science from Sabanci University in Istanbul, where he specialized in Turkish foreign and defense policy. Before joining MEI, Alistair worked at Atlantic Media, the World Bank, and a British emerging markets research firm.
Putting Diplomacy First in the Middle East: Creating Incentives for De-Escalation
The Middle East is undergoing a historic transformation with unprecedented opportunities to build new relationships, de-escalate tensions, and foster conditions for stronger integration. At the same time, the region remains on edge because of ongoing tensions in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and other conflict zones, a civil war that broke out recently in Sudan, along with the overarching challenges presented by fraught relations between Iran, Israel, and several Arab Gulf countries — with the longer-term implications of the still-fragile Iranian-Saudi rapprochement yet to be fully assessed.
