Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
In a new policy briefing book, entitled The Biden Administration and the Middle East: Policy Recommendations for a Sustainable Way Forward, MEI scholars tackle a large number of country-specific and region-wide issue areas, laying out both the abiding U.S. interests and specific recommendations for Biden administration policies that can further U.S. interests amid a region in turmoil.
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.
In our final episode of the year, host Alistair Taylor interviews several MEI scholars on the key events that transpired across the Middle East in 2020 including in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, and they discuss US defense and diplomatic strategy in region as the as the transition to the Biden administration gets underway. Guests include Paul Salem, Bilal Saab, Randa Slim, and Marvin Weinbaum.
Robert Ford, Hafsa Halawa, and Randa Slim join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the political and economic challenges facing Iraq, the state of US-Iraqi relations, and the potential impact of upcoming U.S. elections in November.
In a new briefing book released ahead of the U.S. elections in November, entitled Election 2020: Challenges and Opportunities for US Policy in the Middle East, MEI scholars lay out key issues across the region, highlight the U.S. interests at stake, and provide policy insights and recommendations for the path forward.
Rebuild Beirut, But Hold the Government to Account
MEI’s Paul Salem and Randa Slim join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the main trends and developments across the region over the first half of 2020, and what to watch for in the months ahead.
MEI Non-Resident Scholar Imad Mansour and William Thompson, Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Indiana University, join host Alistair Taylor to talk about their new book, “Shocks and Rivalries in the Middle East and North Africa” (Georgetown University Press), and discuss the network of rivalries, conflict dynamics, and conflict de-escalation in the MENA region.
Absent major military escalation by his foreign patrons, Khalifa Hifter has now lost the war he initiated against Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli. The question remains, however, of how to end Libya’s proxy war and restart the necessary political process to bring about sustained peace.
Saying that Moscow is having a change of heart at this very moment, let alone is willing to publicly broadcast this to Damascus, may be a bit premature.
The story from Iraq since last October has been mainly one of uplifting hope, as mass protests sweep across the country in a fight against corruption, nepotism, and bad governance. But what of the places left behind and ignored? For most of its modern history, Iraq has been embroiled in sectarianism and conflict, most recently with the rise of ISIS. The country has celebrated its ability to fight ISIS and take back the areas the group controlled between 2013 and 2017, but for those that remain in the most vulnerable liberated areas, life is precarious and dangerous, with underserviced communities living in the most dire of conditions.
Washington’s foreign relations in the Middle East are often characterized by ebb and flow, tracking the region’s dynamic politics. But when it comes to Iraq, this ebb and flow is especially turbulent, and the country’s energy sector has been thrown under the spotlight as Washington presses Baghdad to take swift action to ensure its “energy independence” from Iran.
On March 1, Iraqi PM designate Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi announced that he had failed to form a new government to replace the current caretaker one headed by PM Adel Abdul-Mahdi. In the post-Saddam era, government formation in Iraq has always been a complicated process, but this is the first time since 2003 that a PM designate failed to form a government and the episode has revealed fundamental deficiencies in the Iraqi political process.
The country’s political parties now move to a new stage of repeating the crisis of the last few months, to nominate a new PM-designate.