المشرق العربي

Lebanon’s in trouble and the Lebanese may soon face the real reckoning that they’ve thus far avoided. Having bought time they’ve increasingly needed with money they’ve increasingly lacked, but somehow conjured, they’re running out of both. Its leaders must act, soon, to avoid a complete catastrophe. And, whether avoiding or coping with collapse, the Lebanese must well and truly consider how to shape a better future.

The Berlin Conference on Libya will be a crucial test of whether Europe can act on its ambitions.

MEI experts Robert S. Ford, Fatima Abo Alasrar, and Emad Badi join host Alistair Taylor to survey what lies ahead for the Middle East in 2020, with particular attention to Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Algeria.

On Jan. 8, Turkey inaugurated the TurkStream natural gas pipeline from Russia, seemingly deepening Ankara’s ties with Moscow. However, a fuller analysis of Turkey’s current energy policies and consumption trends indicate a dramatic shift westward, away from Russia and Iran.

It is unclear how many civilians were killed in February and March 2019, when the U.S.-led coalition and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) pounded ISIS’s last enclave around the town of Baghouz. Presumably, the numbers reached into the thousands. Those who escaped found themselves in the desert, hundreds of kilometers away from lifesaving aid. The reasons for the failure of the humanitarian response were mainly political.

It is increasingly the case that the Russian-Turkish decisions on Idlib or Syria need to be understood as part of a broader Russian-Turkish partnership.

Over the past two decades, Israel has developed robust bilateral relationships with China, India, and Singapore. Israel has also succeeded in forging ties with Japan and South Korea. More recently, Israel has devoted considerable attention to strengthening its relations with Southeast Asian countries, particularly Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Myanmar. Military-security cooperation in the form of arms trade as well as technology transfer and licensed production has emerged as an important dimension of Israel’s relations with Southeast Asian countries.

Erdogan may want to hold early elections in 2020 to mitigate the fallout of a worsening economy and deny the new parties enough time to organize.

Militarily, the most concerning issue remains the fate of Idlib, where at least three million people remain crammed in a killing-zone that encompasses just 3.5 percent of Syria’s territory

Politically Netanyahu seems to be about as popular as before his long-awaited indictment, which portends another inconclusive election and a political system unable to break the deadlock.

Holding long overdue elections for the Palestinian presidency and the legislative arm of the Palestinian Authority could be a step toward redressing the Fatah-Hamas conflict.

Neither encryption nor hacking tools are new, but 2019 has seen pointed scrutiny and rancor over both.

The consequences of what happens in Idlib could come to define the future of Syria — a country already destined for many more years of instability and suffering.

Having raised eyebrows among many European officials with rhetoric targeting Syrian and other Middle Eastern/North African refugees in Hungary, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán sees the return of Syrian refugees to their home country as serving vital Hungarian and European interests. As Hungary continues to align closely with Russia while deepening its ties with Turkey and other non-Western governments, Budapest’s foreign policy is eroding an EU consensus.

Introduced in August and subsequently delayed due to the country’s political upheaval, the National Lebanese Strategy for Cybersecurity is composed of two main sections: 1) preparation of a cybersecurity strategy and 2) establishment of a national cybersecurity agency.