التحليل

Although the Gulf is not highlighted on the official map of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, it is one of the main regions where the BRI is being implemented. On the occasion of President Xi Jinping’s speech at the 6th Ministerial Conference of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in June 2014, he declared the regional countries as being “natural cooperative partners in jointly building the BRI.” Since then, Chinese state and private firms, banks, and financial institutions have embarked on efforts to advance the BRI in the Gulf, particularly in the energy sector.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s announcement late on March 11 that he would not pursue a fifth presidential term answers the most immediate demand of the protest movement in Algeria but leaves the transition process in government hands.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Randa Slim, Robert S. Ford, Marvin G. Weinbaum, James P. Farwell, Emadeddin Badi, Guney Yildiz, and Jean-François Seznec provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Baghdad, reconstruction efforts in Syria, the crackdown on militant Islamists in Pakistan, Iran’s cyber attack capabilities, upcoming elections in Libya, Turkish-Egyptian tensions, and Qatar’s $12B loan from bond markets.

Both the U.S. State Department and the American intelligence community have concluded that President Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy toward Iran is not working. Yet, Trump seems determined to carry on. To achieve its stated goal of changing Iran’s policies, the U.S. should adopt a more proportional approach that focuses on Tehran’s most threatening actions, such as its ballistic missile tests.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) loyal to General Khalifa Hifter has launched a military operation to capture the Fezzan region in Libya’s southwest. While the move seems to have garnered significant international and regional support, it is unclear what the implications of this operation may be for the country’s fragile stability and the country’s dialogue-based political process. 

Theorizing the future of the Arab Gulf states and the broader Middle East requires a proper assessment of the state of power distribution in the region. Is there a new balance of power emerging in the Middle East, or is the distribution of power heading in a more dangerous direction?

Disagreements between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government over oil policy have been one of Iraq’s most stubborn problems. Resolving this issue would allow for better development of natural resources, generate more revenue that’s badly needed for reconstruction, and might potentially deflate competing claims to disputed territories.

The alliance between Morocco and Saudi Arabia has historically been strong, bolstered by shared concerns about regional turmoil in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring protests, but recent tensions have brought bilateral relations to an all-time low. Last month, frictions between Rabat and Riyadh came to the fore when Morocco recalled its ambassador from Saudi Arabia.

How have Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to recalibrate Japan’s foreign policy affected his approach to the Middle East? Japanese policy in the region has often been forced to balance between U.S. priorities and Tokyo’s own energy security needs. As the authors argue in this article, even on those rare occasions when Japan has shown signs of a more activist foreign policy in the Middle East, the pendulum tends to swing back to a cautious, energy security-focused approach that reflects caution, neutrality, and the avoidance of military entanglements.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Marvin G. Weinbaum, Robert S. Ford, Alex Vatanka, and Birol Baskan provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including a potential agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan, protests in Algeria, Rouhani’s planned trip to Baghdad, and recent Turkish naval exercises.

Observers of political affairs in the Arab world are keeping a close eye on the upcoming Arab League summit, set to be held at the end of March in Tunis. Although Syria will not participate in the meeting, the question of when, or how, to bring Damascus in from the cold after an eight-year suspension from the body will be the most important issue on the agenda.

Washington devised the recent Middle East summit in Warsaw in the hope of mobilizing a broad front against Iran. In the end though, it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who reaped the greatest reward.

One of the most important reasons for Indonesia’s relative success is undoubtedly the existence of Pancasila, the pluralist State ideology. Equally important is the presence and role of major Islamic social and political groups, including the large Islamic mass organizations and Islamist political parties, that have supported the development of a truly inclusive, pluralistic and participatory democracy in Indonesia based on Pancasila.

Following the Feb. 13 truck bomb on members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Sistan-Baluchistan, the government was quick to blame foreign powers. Iranian officials aim to deflect attention from the country’s intractable internal problems, such as the persecution of its Sunni minority, a deep-rooted issue that has often been overlooked by the international community.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, contributors Mirette F. Mabrouk, Gerald Feierstein, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Przemysław Osiewicz, Grace Wermenbol, and W. Robert Pearson provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the EU-Arab League summit, the progress in US-Taliban talks, challenges to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s power, consequences of the Kashmir attack, and Turkey’s next steps in Syria.