التحليل

Because of football’s popularity, there is significant involvement by regime insiders. The Revolutionary Guards’ transition from barracks to boardrooms began back in the mid-1990s, when they took on management roles in some of the country’s most high-profile sports. Sports were not high on the agenda for the revolutionaries who overthrew the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979, but as sports has grown in popularity and in profitability, it has become increasingly politicized.  Over the past two decades, most sports clubs and related bodies have been taken over by political or security-military organizations, with former Revolutionary Guards holding the top positions.

As long as weapons transfers to armed non-state actors are not adequately restricted and the monopoly of violence is not exclusively in the hands of the government, it will be impossible to build sustainable peace in Yemen.

In recent weeks, power outages and severe air pollution have plagued Iran’s major cities.

In 1906, the South Caucasus’ first energy pipeline was completed, connecting Baku on the Caspian Sea with Batumi on the Black Sea. More than 115 years later, this pipeline, measuring a mere eight inches in diameter and transporting kerosene, has been replaced with a modern network of natural gas and oil pipelines connecting the heart of Asia with Europe. With proper investment and the correct policies, even more oil, gas, and other goods will be flowing from the Caspian region to Europe and global markets.

The incoming Biden administration has a full plate as it seeks to reinvigorate American foreign policy engagements around the world. The need to reimagine future U.S. engagement with South Asia may not be among the highest priorities for policy makers. Yet, this region, home to nearly a quarter of the world’s population, presents perennial challenges as well as new threats that U.S. policy makers cannot afford to ignore.

As the Biden administration takes office, it faces a host of challenges, both at home and abroad. Where does the Middle East fit into all of this and what should the new administration prioritize in its first 200 days? In the second part of a two-part series, we asked experts and scholars from across the region to weigh in with their thoughts. 

The Middle East is in turmoil, with civil wars raging in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. COVID-19 is now an additional factor on top of the violence and monumental international support tasks, all of which require a sustained commitment. The effects of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic highlight the need for more robust international stabilization efforts to achieve long-term peace and self-sufficiency in the Middle East.

The strategic balance in the Black Sea region has shifted dramatically in Russia’s favor in the past decade. Russian anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities in Crimea, and the ongoing modernization of its Black Sea Fleet, enable Russia to threaten its neighbors’access to sea lanes and economic resources and apply coercive pressure via conventional power projection. Littoral states should prioritize addressing the military imbalance to deter Russian coercive actions. Rather than rely on increased U.S. presence, Black Sea states should create a flexible network within NATO or the EU to build their own A2/AD capabilities.

The Biden administration will face a number of major challenges in the Middle East over the next four years, from great power competition and climate change to cybersecurity and refugees and migration. But what realistically can it achieve in that time on the policy front? To better understand what’s possible, we asked 10 experts from across MEI to weigh in with their thoughts.

Until December 26, 2020, techno music was not a common topic of conversation in Palestine. That changed when Sama Abdulhadi, a famous techno DJ, gave a concert at Maqam Nabi Musa that provoked a backlash from religious conservatives. Abdulhadi, who is a Palestinian living abroad, decided to return to her homeland to perform three concerts that would be streamed on Beatport, a website specializing in techno music. She reached an agreement with the Ministry of Tourism to perform at Maqam Nabi Musa for a crowd of about 30.

A decade on from the Arab Spring, 9 experts from across MEI offer their thoughts on what has and hasn’t changed — and what it all means for the future of the region.

Keeping up with and making sense of the flood of information about the COVID-19 pandemic is a challenge. It doesn’t help that much of that information is misleading, often by design. The “infodemic” surrounding the coronavirus, described as such by the World Health Organization (WHO) as early as February 2020, “spreads faster and more easily than the virus” itself. A recent joint statement by WHO, UN, UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO, UNAIDS, ITU, UN Global Pulse, and IFRC noted grave consequences. It is “undermining the public health response and advancing alternative agendas of groups [and] individuals,” in ways that “cost lives … and threaten long-term prospects for advancing democracy, human rights, and social cohesion.”

Temporary marriages and sex tourism in Iran

This paper looks at the political implications of the relationship between Shi’a in the Gulf states and Iranian marj‘as, the historical background to these ties, and Gulf states’ concerns surrounding the outflow to Iran of religious taxes. In some Gulf countries, these issues are tied to concerns about the loyalty of Shi’a to the nation. The authors argue that the emergence of a marj‘a who would be based in one of the Gulf states could quell these concerns.The authors identify potential marj‘as from the region and steps that Gulf states must take so that their Shi’a citizens will shift their allegiance from foreign-based marj‘as to domestically based ones.