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Ragui Assaad is Professor at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He has written extensively on labor market and youth issues in the Middle East and North Africa. The author acknowledges the able research assistance of Stefan Johansson in the preparation of this essay.
Iran looms large as an important policy question in the Middle East these days. But it barely received mention on the campaign trail in the United States, where American voters are fixated on issues closer to home: the economy, abortion, immigration, and the health of America’s democratic system are all front and centre. This doesn’t mean that Iran is unimportant when it comes to US national security policy—it just these issues aren’t very likely to determine who will win the presidential race in November.
Over the past month, Iran and its regional network of allies and proxies – the Axis of Resistance – has suffered a string of dramatic losses and defeats. What is the future of the Axis and its members, and what can the US and its allies do to confront and disrupt this Iranian-led network?
MEI Managing Editor Matthew Czekaj speaks to Meir Javedanfar and Alex Vatanka on Iran’s role in keeping its network of proxies together and the conflicting interests that may force the country to rethink its antagonistic regional strategy.
Last month marked the second anniversary of the death of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini and the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement born of her murder. The authorities’ subsequent brutal crackdown on the protesters is but one flagrant example of the government’s appalling human rights record. The regime’s disdain for international human rights norms is not the recent result of Iran’s transition from Islamic theocracy to nationalistic military-security state. Rather, it has been a feature of the regime from the beginning, as shown by (inter alia) the 1988 mass executions of Iranian prisoners.
The Islamic Republic, the most unpatriotic in Iranian history?
It is no exaggeration to say that the Islamist political system in Tehran is on the brink of experiencing perilous blowback for the foreign policy choices it has made. Whether Tehran continues to prioritize the fight against Israel or decides to look for ways to deprioritize the conflict as a national security matter will not be settled in the foreseeable future — or perhaps the matter will be taken out of Iran’s hands.
Renewable Energy and Morocco’s New Green Industries: How Morocco’s Green Energy Ecosystem Can Expand Women and Youth Employment Through Sustainable Development
A leader in renewable energy in the Middle East and North Africa, Morocco is developing a dynamic green energy ecosystem that is beginning to incorporate renewable power into major sectors of its economy. Moving forward, renewable energy and the green energy ecosystem hold significant potential to drive the creation of employment opportunities for its growing population. Indeed, the expansion of green industrial manufacturing and agricultural production in Morocco could become the engine of sustainable human development more broadly. This case study explores current and planned efforts to expand the kingdom’s renewable energy sector and green energy ecosystem, assessing the opportunities and challenges in using these new green industries as a driver of long-term employment, particularly among women, youth, and rural populations.
At last month’s Summit of the Future, the more than 190 UN member countries agreed to unprecedented new commitments on behalf of future generations, and they pledged to build a long-term future perspective into their mechanisms of governance, domestically and multilaterally. MEI’s Strategic Foresight Initiative program director Steven Kenney reflects on attending the summit and its outcomes.
Over the past month, Iran and its regional network of allies and proxies – The Axis of Resistance – has suffered a string of dramatic losses and defeats. What is the future of the Axis and its members, and what can the US and its allies do to confront and disrupt this Iranian-led network?
'Fight big or think big': How the Middle East can pull back from the brink
If war is the continuation of politics by other means and every conflict is a symptom of a deeper unresolved contradiction, the violence of the past year – as well as the current direct confrontation between Israel and Iran – are the result of two deep and unresolved political problems.
These are the denial of Palestinians’ basic rights amid long-term Israeli occupation and Iran’s rejection of the basic rules of international law, as well as its insistence on maintaining a string of militias in broken Arab states from Lebanon to Yemen.
Israel has confirmed the death of Yahya Sinwar, chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau and Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip. Sinwar was one of the chief architects behind Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and has been a key Israeli target throughout the Gaza war.
Key takeaways from new polling on Iran’s foreign policy and regional role
Arash Ghafouri and Alex Vatanka break down key takeaways from a new survey conducted by Stasis Consulting among Iranians living in Iran on Tehran’s foreign policy, regional influence, and diplomatic relations.
New polling highlights Iranians’ views on Iran’s foreign policy and regional role
The results of the latest public opinion survey from Stasis Consulting provide key insights into how Iranians view Tehran’s foreign policy, regional influence, and diplomatic relations at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East, including how they perceive the economic costs of Iran’s current approach and its support for its regional proxy groups.
