Sara Sadek

Pakistan is not merely reacting to the current phase of the 2026 Iran war; it is functioning as a system-adjusting intermediary within a rapidly reordering regional landscape. As established channels of diplomacy, trade, and financial coordination have fractured under wartime pressure, Islamabad has emerged as a critical node through which regional and extra-regional actors are progressively rerouting engagement, commerce, and influence.

In the early hours of Sunday, May 3, Jordanian F-16 fighter jets crossed into Syrian airspace and launched strikes on at least six locations in the southern province of Sweida. In a statement issued hours later, Jordan’s military said that “Operation Jordanian Deterrence” had targeted “factories, facilities and warehouses used by trafficking groups as launch points for smuggling operations into Jordan.”

The Houthis are a political-military faction and Zaydi religious movement founded in northwestern Yemen in the 1980s. A key member of Iran’s Axis of Resistance with links to other militant organizations in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, the group has continued to pose a threat to Western interests on a global scale.

Africa sits at the center of the clean-energy transition as both a major source of critical minerals and one of the world’s largest under-electrified regions, making it a key arena for geopolitical and industrial competition among China, the United States, Europe, and emerging actors. At the same time, African governments and regional institutions are becoming more assertive, using mineral leverage, regulatory reforms, and continental frameworks to shape investment terms and capture greater domestic value. Recent developments — including the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) offer of state mining assets to U.S. investors and China’s 2026 China-Africa engagement initiative — highlight Africa’s growing role not just as a site of competition, but as an active shaper of it.

The external policy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is increasingly shaped by systemic fragmentation, regional insecurity, and shifting patterns of great-power engagement. In response, Abu Dhabi has moved away from reliance on fixed alignments toward a strategy of strategic diversification across security, economic, and technological domains.

How is competition for influence in the Horn of Africa among Middle Eastern powers — especially the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel — reshaping the political landscape? Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Senior Fellows Mirette Mabrouk and Gönül Tol to unpack the dynamics driving this rivalry and its implications for conflicts and alliances across the region.

As Washington and Tehran edge closer to escalation, the most critical line of communication keeping the crisis from spiraling is being run not by polished diplomats, but by an unlikely figure: a Pakistani general. Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief, has quietly become the key intermediary in the U.S.-Iran standoff, managing what may be the most important backchannel between the two sides. The mediation has thrust Pakistan to the center of the crisis while exposing it to enormous risk.

The news from Lebanon reads like a litany of loss. Since the war began more than two months ago, not only have 2,882 people been killed and 8,768 wounded, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, but once again multiple heritage sites — especially those in the south — have been damaged and destroyed. Indeed, Lebanese heritage, inexorably linked to its peoples, shares in their vulnerability and suffering.

In 2025, jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan made a historic call for the group to disarm and dissolve, raising hopes of ending a 40-year conflict that has shaped Turkey and the wider region. Months later, the PKK symbolically laid down arms in what many viewed as a breakthrough moment for the peace process.