التحليل

Even if we assume that there is goodwill between the U.S. and Iran to improve relations, the power of algorithms will place major stumbling blocks in the way of efforts toward future normalization. A priori programming of foreign policy options and lines of argument have led to immutable algorithms causing the relationship between the two countries to calcify. On both sides, the key personalities who define national security, interpret events, and shape policies toward one another have had virtually no direct contact or experiences with each other’s country. They interpret events, extract meanings, react to one another, and delineate policies through prisms, images, metaphors, binaries, groupthink, and in the lexicon of artificial intelligence, algorithms.

April 11, 2021 was to be a day of celebration and national pride marking the kingdom of Jordan’s centenary as a state — a geopolitical feat in itself few thought was possible a century ago. But instead of pomp and ceremony the festivities were overshadowed by stark events that took place a week before when the government unveiled a “plot” to destabilize the country involving a senior member of the royal family, a close former palace aide, and “outside entities.” This was an unprecedented development in the history of the kingdom and ruling monarchy. The implication of Prince Hamzah, the former crown prince and half-brother of King Abdullah, in a fuzzy conspiracy that is tantamount to a coup has shocked Jordanians from all walks of life. 

Under mounting pressure to define and execute its foreign policy to “restore U.S credibility,” the Biden administration needs to carefully consider its focal points in the Middle East, especially in light of the region’s recent realignment following the signing of the Abraham Accords. Luckily, through cyber diplomacy and norm setting, the administration can restore its credibility without abandoning its core ideals, while also nurturing relationships in the Middle East and beyond. Such cyber diplomacy could involve both engaging with partners to strengthen rules-based frameworks around acceptable state behavior in cyberspace and using cyber to leverage wider diplomatic aims.

New strategic alliances are being forged across the Black Sea in an attempt to counterbalance Russian influence in the region. The Georgia-Ukraine strategic partnership is complex and multifaceted. Despite diplomatic obstacles and how relatively new it is, the relationship is already making a difference to Black Sea security. On trade, security, or Euro-Atlantic integration, Georgia and Ukraine have realized they are louder when they speak with one voice. However, Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s border and in the Black Sea demonstrates that regional peace cannot be achieved without the support of the United States. Greater support is needed as Ukraine and Georgia continue to fight Russian hybrid warfare across the spectrum.

Vaccine diplomacy, or the use of vaccine supplies as a tool of soft power projection, has entered the political dictionary. In a world where COVID-19 has been taking a terrifying human and financial toll, vaccine supplies promise relief and interact with pre-existing politics and foreign policy priorities. China and Russia have sought to enhance their influence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with a number of high-profile vaccine deals. This has drawn the ire of a beleaguered European Union, whose self-professed goal is to become a more geopolitical union even while its domestic vaccination effort lags behind the U.S. and the U.K.

The announcement of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP), a 25 year-long economic and development agreement between China and Iran, has immediately added to the intensifying discourse concerning US-China Geostrategic Competition. Nonetheless, a closer look at its implications suggests that it may be useful in achieving some U.S. goals with Iran: particularly regime modernization.

Pandemics strike hard in conflict zones. As of April 8, 2021, Kabul had recorded 56,943 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 2,516 deaths. The Afghan Taliban have approved the administering of Covid-19 vaccines, which is a departure from its previous opposition to immunization programs. This article discusses the Taliban’s novel approach to the coronavirus pandemic and what it might or might not signify.

Since the start of the current war, Bashar al-Assad, in power since 2000, has consistently sought to promote himself as the protector of Syria’s minorities — be they Christian, Alawi, Shi’i or Druze —from Islamist extremists. Many Western audiences have been seduced by his smart casual look and by his increasingly prominent, beautifully turned-out British wife, Asma. With presidential elections due to take place, under Russian auspices, in the coming months, in which Assad is widely expected to run, his claim demands close scrutiny. What has happened to minorities over the last 10 years of war and how does that compare to their treatment historically inside Syria?

For many years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has thrived as a result of its ability to attract talent from abroad. On Jan. 30, 2021, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the vice-president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, announced on Twitter[1] an amendment to the law that is designed to entice and retain foreigners by permitting a select group of expatriates to become Emirati citizens without giving up their original nationality.

Relations between the United States and Turkey have never been worse, but the two countries still must deal with each other, and so President Joe Biden and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may talk this week. Each will review his list of issues. Both will commit to better relations and to best efforts to reach peaceful solutions to global, regional, and bilateral issues — and very little will change.

Turkey initiated a strategy to engage Southeast Asian nations in the early 2000s that resulted in the opening of new embassies and branches of numerous state-sponsored institutions across the region. With the launching of the Asia Anew Initiative in late 2019, Ankara has redoubled efforts to forge closer ties with the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and with ASEAN itself.  

For decades now, decentralization has been a recurring theme in Lebanese politics. That it is “administrative” does not make it any less “political” in a country where even minor technicalities can easily turn into major controversies. Yet decentralization is still perceived as one of the key reforms that has yet to come about.

At a press conference on Thursday, MK Mansour Abbas, head of the newly elected Islamist party in Israel, the United Arab List (Ra’am), made what many in the Israeli media dubbed a historic speech. In an effort to reach out to the Jewish Israeli public, he spoke in Hebrew and during the prime time on television often given to Israeli politicians. Speaking surrounded by the party’s green flags, the conservative Islamist quotedverses from the Quran calling for the creation of “an opportunity for a shared life, in the holy and blessed land for the followers of the three religions and both peoples” and told his Hebrew-speaking audience that “Now is the time for change.”

Since the NLD emerged as the most potent challenger to the military’s monopoly grip on state power three decades ago, the generals have tried different methods of exclusion, disenfranchisement and purposive prosecution against Aung San Suu Kyi and all dissidents. Today, they are discovering that Suu Kyi and the NLD are a mere expression or embodiment of the democratic will of Burmese society. The military leadership is unlikely to be able to defeat 50 million people who have decided that a half-century of life under the boot is more than enough.