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Jean-Pierre Cassarino holds a professorship at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies (RSCAS/European University Institute, Florence) where he directs the Return migration and Development Platform (http://rsc.eui.eu/RDP/). He is also research associate at the Tunis-based Institut de Recherche sur le Maghreb Contemporain (IRMC). Since the mid-1990s, he has published extensively on international migration, particularly on return migration and has carried out numerous field surveys investigating returnees’ manifold patterns of reintegration. Selected publications include: (ed.) Unbalanced Reciprocities: Cooperation on Readmission in the Euro-Mediterranean Area, The Middle East Institute Press, Washington, 2010; (ed.) “Conditions of Modern Return Migrants”, International Journal on Multicultural Societies, Vol. 10, Issue 2, UNESCO, Paris, 2008; (ed.) Return Migrants to the Maghreb Countries: Reintegration and development challenges, RSCAS, European University Institute, Florence, 2008; Tunisian New Entrepreneurs and their Past Experiences of Migration in Europe: Networks, Resource Mobilisation, and Hidden Disaffection. Ashgate Publishers, Aldershot, 2000. Email: [email protected]
Venezuela’s Shadow Over MENA: Perceptions and Precedents
MEI Vice President for Policy Ken Pollack joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to explore what the precedent set by the Trump administration’s military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro could mean for US policy in the Middle East — particularly in light of ongoing anti-regime protests in Iran. The conversation unpacks the reverberations of Operation Absolute Resolve, Washington’s options for and potential consequences of responding to the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown, regional perceptions of recent US actions and stated objectives, and broader questions around the direction of the Trump administration’s evolving grand strategy.
Khamenei did this to himself. The US can help — without another Middle East quagmire
Last week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei effectively greenlit mass killing to save his regime. His message was blunt: blood would be spilled to preserve the system. His security forces followed through, unleashing a level of violence against protesters that even by the Islamic Republic’s grim standards marks a dangerous escalation.
Balancing on a Fault Line: Turkey Between Russia, Ukraine, and the US
This webinar discussed the following looming questions: Can Turkey sustain a three-way balancing act between Russia, Ukraine, and the US? Where does Ankara stand on Trump’s peace plan, which would require Ukraine to cede territory to Russia? How does Moscow view Turkey’s S-400 dilemma? And what would the continuation of the Russia-Ukraine war mean for Turkey’s security—and for its already strained relations with the West?
Iran is facing the largest demonstrations since 2022, when the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody ignited a nationwide uprising. This time, the unrest comes as the Islamic Republic is unusually exposed—still reeling from a bruising 12-day war with Israel last summer. What does this moment mean for the regime’s survival? How is this wave of protests different from those that came before? And is there anything the outside world can do to support Iran’s pro-democracy movement without backfiring?
How Damascus and the SDF came to blows in Aleppo — and what might come next
After months of building tensions, full-blown hostilities erupted between Syria’s transitional government and militia fighters linked to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Aleppo on January 6. Through four days of fighting, government forces have now assumed full control of Syria’s second city, after expelling SDF-linked forces from its northwestern districts.
A New Phase in Vision 2030: From Strategic Exemptions to Broad Ownership
Saudi Arabia is making a bold push to rewire the rules of the game for foreign investment within the Kingdom. The proposed lifting of the 49 percent foreign‐ownership cap in publicly listed companies is emerging as the next frontier of that effort. This reform, scheduled to take effect on February 1, could change the calculus for active and passive global capital, drive fresh scrutiny of regulatory constraints, and test the Kingdom’s ability to follow through in what may prove to be a tight balance between opening up and preserving sovereign control.
America’s dramatic capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro has set the stage for the conduct of America’s national security strategy in 2026. It has also raised questions.
This bonus episode of Middle East Focus features a conversation from MEI’s Virtual Briefing Series. Director of Communications Zeina Al-Shaib is joined by Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow Alan Eyre and Senior Fellow Alex Vatanka to discuss the ongoing protests in Iran. The street demonstrations, sparked by the country’s economic nosedive and at times turning violent, are the largest in three years. As regime arrests and killings of protesters have intensified, US President Donald Trump has threatened to intervene, his remarks potentially taking on a more vivid significance in light of the American military extraction over the weekend of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, an ally of Tehran. Eyre and Vatanka discuss what these latest developments mean for an Iranian regime already under intense internal and international pressure; the political impact of President Trump’s threats; the limits of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s power to de-escalate the situation at home; and how the instability inside Iran may affect the wider region.
Yemen’s Southern Front: Strategic Leverage, Fragmentation, and Regional Risk
Beginning in early December 2025, UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces launched an offensive in eastern Yemen, seizing Seiyun and key military and administrative sites across Wadi Hadhramaut before advancing into al-Mahrah, as Saudi-aligned tribal and government units withdrew under mounting political and military pressure.
Iran’s political deadlock — and a way out the regime is unlikely to take
On Sunday, December 28, Iran’s latest wave of unrest began not on a university campus or in a symbolic political square, but in the very heart of the country’s economic sphere: the Grand Bazaar commercial center in downtown Tehran. What distinguishes the current moment is not simply the persistence of unrest but its emotional register. Iranian commentary increasingly describes not just hardship but a collapse of expectations of a better future.
From coalition to confrontation: Saudi-UAE rivalry in Yemen and its regional implications
The final days of 2025 marked a turning point in the Middle East, as competition between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Yemen spilled out into the open. Tensions between the two coalition partners, which jointly launched a military intervention in Yemen in 2015, have simmered for years and are now rapidly escalating, with far-reaching implications for both Yemen and regional security more broadly.
Iran’s Axis of Resistance After the 12-day War: Adaptation, Restructuring, and Reconstitution
منذ حرب إسرائيل التي استمرت 12 يوماً ضد إيران، دخلت طهران وشبكة وكلائها الإقليميين وحلفائها غير الحكوميين، ما يُعرف باسم محور المقاومة، في مرحلة من السكون الاستراتيجي — هدوء ظاهري يخفي إعادة التسلح والتكيف المالي والتجديد الأيديولوجي.
العلاقات الأمريكية السعودية في أعقاب زيارة محمد بن سلمان
استضاف معهد الشرق الأوسط الدكتور غريغوري غوس والسفير مايكل راتني والدكتورة كارين يونغ لتقييم السياسة السعودية والعلاقات الأمريكية-السعودية في أعقاب زيارة محمد بن سلمان.
