الخليج وشبه الجزيرة العربية

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

What happens when a petrostate loses its oil rents? While the oil market continues to go through boom-and-bust cycles, cases such as Iraq provide evidence of how the rapid loss of oil revenues—traumatic decarbonization—may affect the politics and stability of these petrostates. In Iraq, multiple shocks to oil revenues from 2014 through 2020 fundamentally altered the organization and concentration of political power in Iraq with destabilizing and democratic consequences.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is at its core an ideological army, not a national one, and its notorious enmity toward Israel is an aberration in Iranian history. But many Israelis to this day think Iran could be a natural partner as long as the country gave up its pursuit of ideologically driven regional dominance, disavow calls for the destruction of Israel, and were instead to again allow the regular army, the Artesh, to pursue Iranian national interests.

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoys keeps visiting Iran. Igor Levitin, Putin’s advisor, has visited Tehran twice in 2023, totaling five visits in the last six months. During his latest visit, Levitin met with top Iranian figures, including Mohammad Mokhber, first vice president and top economic coordinator, and Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

تركزت جميع النزاعات التاريخية والحديثة في الشرق الأوسط حول الاعتبارات الإقليمية الكلاسيكية المتعلقة بفقدان الأراضي أو استعادتها. وللخروج من هذه الدوامة، كان من الضروري الابتعاد عن أحد الأسباب الجذرية الرئيسية للنزاع: الجغرافيا. وقد تكون التغيرات الحالية في المنطقة، التي تتميز بتوجه كبير نحو تخفيف حدة التوتر واستعداد متزايد للانفصال بشكل دوري عن الحلفاء التقليديين، مؤشرات على حدوث تحول جذري عميق نحو "السياسة الكمومية".

Over the coming decades, the worsening effects of climate change will increasingly displace many millions of vulnerable people in the Middle East and North Africa, and many of these refugees will attempt to relocate to the Global North. To avert such a monumental looming problem requires pragmatic solutions and their swift implementation.

When Saudi Arabia suddenly announced in early April that it would reduce its oil production by 500,000 bpd, followed shortly thereafter by several other OPEC+ members, bringing the total cut to 1.1 million bpd, Japan was greatly concerned. In spite of Japan’s serious efforts to work toward a carbon-neutral society, the country is still heavily dependent on oil, the overwhelming majority of which comes from the Persian Gulf.

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

Last week’s spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, D.C., were an important occasion for financial and economic leaders from the MENA region to meet with their counterparts from these IFIs and major bilateral donor countries. At the same time, they serve as a lead up to the important Annual Meetings that will be held in Marrakech, Morocco, in the fall — the first time they will be hosted by an Arab or African country.

في الشرق الأوسط، تسعى دول الخليج - من خلال العمل المشترك أو بشكل فردي - إلى تحقيق إنجازات علمية وتجارية جديدة في مختلف مجالات صناعة الفضاء. وترتبط هذه الطموحات بآثار جيوسياسية كبيرة، حيث يتفاوض عدد متزايد من الدول الفضائية حول قطاع حساس وذو قوة متزايدة.

It is clear that the era of US hegemony in the Gulf, and the Middle East more broadly, is over. What is less certain is what security system will replace it and whether it will better serve regional security and US interests.

The Gulf is becoming a more crowded geopolitical space than ever, with external powers such as China, Russia and India increasing their involvement in the region to safeguard their economic interests, while local powers, most notably Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, are rising and pursuing a more independent foreign policy course.

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

The development of small-scale LNG and the domestic deployment of LNG as a transport and power-generation fuel could help to lower Saudi Arabia’s carbon footprint as well as improve air quality by reducing vehicle exhaust.