Ferid Belhaj

On August 7, 2026, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Défense Agreement, a collective-defense pact widely compared to NATO’s Article 5. This essay argues that the comparison is misleading. Mecca borrows NATO’s language of solidarity without yet possessing NATO’s institutional machinery, and the Houthi offensive against Saudi Arabia in September 2026 provided an early and revealing test of what the agreement actually means in practice. Neither Pakistan nor Turkey automatically entered the fight on Saudi Arabia’s behalf, and Washington, despite an initial reluctance to strike directly, remained indispensable through intelligence support and a major proposed F-35 sale. Drawing on realist alliance theory — Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, Stephen Walt, Glenn Snyder, and Steven David — and on the precedent of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), the essay contends that the Middle East is not dividing into rival blocs but moving from hierarchy toward a looser, overlapping geometry of hedged partnerships, in which American exclusivity is eroding considerably faster than American primacy.

As part of a report outlining an actionable US roadmap to win in Lebanon, the author analyzes previous international donor strategies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Ukraine as Washington and its Gulf partners consider how to assist the new Lebanese government in crafting and implementing a national recovery plan.

This essay argues that the current debate about the future of the international monetary system is not really about Gulf currencies, oil pricing, or de-dollarization in the narrow technical sense. It is about something deeper and more important: whether institutional trust can survive when geopolitical certainty is eroding.

The following study discusses the role of Lebanon’s gold reserves in the establishment of a currency board and evaluates four policy options: a true currency board, constrained central bank reform, full dollarization, and a unified managed float. Gold reserves are relevant under all four. The conclusion is consistent across them: no monetary framework, however carefully designed and however well backed, can substitute for the prior political decision on who bears Lebanon’s losses and how the state will finance itself sustainably.

While acknowledging the centrality of security tensions and potential conflict in the Gulf, this essay intentionally sets aside a detailed treatment of military and hard-power dynamics, concentrating instead on the geoeconomic logics of capital, infrastructure, energy, and connectivity, through which Gulf states now articulate power in a fragmented world order.

As the world faces unprecedented challenges, from climate crises to migration pressures, the need for concerted action to address financing for development has never been more urgent. Against a backdrop of resource constraints, geopolitical shifts, and faltering progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it is imperative to chart a course of action that is both pragmatic and visionary. This piece outlines 10 actionable measures to tackle these multifaceted challenges and pave the way for a more sustainable and equitable future.

The rapid evolution of the war in Ukraine and its horrendous humanitarian consequences caught many of us by surprise. The effects of the crisis will materially — although heterogeneously — impact MENA economies, and, sadly, can have a compounding negative effect on food security and welfare across the region.

Everybody wants development, nobody wants to change. This adage, variants of which have been attributed to many authors, is certainly true for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), for a variety of reasons, are unrivaled in their need for bold, creative thinking about their future. But that is precisely why creative thinking about the future of the region — why strategic foresight — is essential. Produced in conjunction with MEI’s Strategic Foresight Initiative, Thinking MENA Futures aims to map out some of the possible futures for the region, as envisioned by thoughtful innovators working today to realize them.

Governments in the Middle East and North Africa must restore confidence in their abilities to lead change.

Today, on the streets of Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and other countries, we hear the demands of the youth, asking for justice, governance, dignity, and jobs. In contrast to these demands, we see governments unwilling or unable to move towards systems of governance that would ensure transparency, accountability, and fair competition for all. Corruption can only be vanquished if transparency, a rigorous justice system, and credible redress mechanisms are put in place. The World Bank can and must re-engage on that path.

Female labor force participation levels in Arab countries are the lowest in the world — despite the rising educational attainment of women reaching working age. Indeed, young women across the Arab world exceed the education levels of young men, who are worrisomely falling behind. Remedying the underrepresentation of Arab women in the labor force and reviving the educational motivation of young men are both social and economic imperatives.

The below transcript is from the fourth panel of MEI’s 72nd Annual Conference, held on November 8, 2018 at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel in Washington, D.C.