Attiya Ahmad

On Dec. 18, 2018, the seaport in Libya’s capital was the scene of a surprising yet deft maneuver orchestrated by the city’s four main armed groups, namely the Tripoli Revolutionaries’ Brigade (TRB); Abu Salim’s Special Deterrence Force; the Nawasi Battalion; and the Bab Tajoura Brigade.

President Trump’s Dec. 23 tweet promising a “slow and highly coordinated” withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria may ease the gnashing of teeth among officials and analysts in Washington, but it won’t end the criticism of his decision. That is precisely why the president should view the hullabaloo that erupted after he announced the Syrian pullout as an opportunity to take a number of steps to make the most of his essentially correct, but widely unpopular, move.

Could Trump’s Syria withdrawal lead to a detente between Tehran and Riyadh over Damascus?

Teahouses are at the heart of Kurdistan’s culture and are linked to the Kurdish collective memory of struggle and oppression, making them a central part of contesting narratives about progress, change, and tradition.

As the conflict in Syria concludes, the next phase will center on rebuilding and will require hundreds of billions of dollars in investment. For now though, sanctions imposed by the U.S., U.K., and EU block money from flowing in.

While four million Afghans bravely defied Taliban threats to cast their ballots in parliamentary elections in October, issues with the voting process and the two-month delay in announcing the results are causes for concern, especially with four important elections scheduled for next April.

Eleven MEI scholars run down the major policy developments in the Middle East in 2018.

In our final episode of the year, host Alistair Taylor interviews several MEI scholars on the key events that transpired across the Middle East in 2018 including in the Gulf, Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan. Guests include Paul Salem, Gerald Feierstein, Alex Vatanka, Gonul Tol, and Ahmad Majidyar.

Whether Erdogan will follow through on his threat of military incursion against the YPG in U.S.-protected areas of Syria depends on the reaction of the international community, the Turkish military, and nationalist voters at home.

A secret letter recently obtained through an inside source sheds light on ISIS’s efforts to persuade an al-Qaeda affiliate to jump ship, abandon its allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahri, and join Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s ranks.

Aisha Al-Sarihi, visiting scholar at AGSIW, Nadim Farajalla, director of the Climate Change and the Environment program at AUB’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, and MEI’s Amal Kandeel join host Alistair Taylor to discuss how climate change is affecting the Middle East and what can be done to address the issue.

While non-Arab powers have taken the lead in the Syrian crisis so far, Damascus will need to restore political, economic, and diplomatic ties with regional Arab states as it moves into the phase of postwar reconstruction and development.

For Turkey, the best solution to its “U.S. problem” might seem like an American withdrawal from Syria, but such a move could create new and potentially more complicated problems for Ankara.

The Syrian Republican Guard (RG) has served as the backbone of the regime’s fighting forces since protests first broke out across the country in 2011.This report uses publicly available Facebook posts to piece together the history of the five regiments, six brigades, and 46 battalions identified as now belonging to the RG. Featuring an order of battle, command structure, and battalion commander profiles, this report stands as the most comprehensive record of the RG to date.

While OPEC and Russia-led non-OPEC members agreed to cut oil production last week by 1.2 million bpd, Riyadh’s ability to control the cartel and global oil prices is waning.