Of all the challenges to Saudi Vision 2030, arguably none is greater than Iran’s threat to Saudi national security. To succeed, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must protect the kingdom, which will require not only fortifying its defenses against further Iranian and Houthi attacks but also establishing a level of deterrence against Tehran.
A US security guarantee to Israel should help to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace, not avoid it
It has been nearly 70 years since Israel first asked the U.S. to sign a bilateral defense treaty. Ever since then, the idea of a formal security agreement has resurfaced from time to time, only to be struck down, due to an understanding that it does not serve the two sides’ actual needs. Prime Minister Netanyahu is currently floating the idea once again, but the U.S. can make use of his interest in a security upgrade to revive a different idea instead: the decade-old security plan for the two-state solution, known as the Allen Plan.
Peshmerga reform hangs in the balance in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region
Efforts to reform the Iraqi Kurdish security forces known as the Peshmerga are at serious risk of failing. Tensions between the ruling parties of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region are not new, but the working relationship between the leaders of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has collapsed over the past year. As a result, officials within the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs are no longer capable of preventing the politics of partisan self-interest from consuming the reform project. The prospects for the depoliticization and unification of the Peshmerga have rarely seemed more remote.
The future of America's Middle East posture is now
With its strategic prioritization of the Indo-Pacific and European theatres, the United States has had to significantly adjust its defense posture in the Middle East through new concepts and procedures to safeguard collective security interests.
The result is at least the beginning of a more dynamic and flexible approach to military deployment in the US Central Command (CENTCOM)’s Area of Responsibility. Instead of emphasising large and permanent basing, the United States will surge assets and resources from other locations depending on threats and needs.
Breaking down the details of the UAE’s climate strategy
In the race to manage climate change, the UAE is ramping up its efforts in a bid to accelerate its transition to a green economy. In the first two weeks of July 2023, it published several important documents laying out its actions and objectives, including a revised version of the national climate pledges it made under the Paris Agreement, as well as a number of targeted policies and strategies.
A defense treaty is not how Biden should fix the Saudi relationship
The United States has likely reached a crossroads in its relationship with Saudi Arabia. President Joe Biden can reconcile with Riyadh and use its influence to reshape the Middle East to Washington’s liking and stabilize the global energy markets. Or else the Saudis most probably will tie their fortunes much closer to China, thus complicating America’s top foreign-policy priority.
Effectiveness, not size, key to US involvement in Middle East
In the summer of 2016, I was honoured to be asked by former US national security advisor Stephen Hadley and former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to help design a wargame, or a simulated crisis, to test whether more or less US engagement in the Middle East would be more beneficial for US interests and regional security.
The crisis revolved around a fictitious incident at sea between Saudi and Iranian naval forces. We postulated that several small attack craft belonging to the Iranians confronted a Saudi frigate in the Arabian Gulf southwest of the island of Abu Musa.
Changing dynamics reshape power networks in Yemen’s “two Hadramawts”
Since 2015, Yemen’s largest governorate, Hadramawt, has been informally divided between two distinct centers of power with different military loyalties and external backing. The balance of power within the governorate is no longer fixed, however. Changes in Hadramawt’s military, political, and economic dynamics are reshaping power networks in the governorate and beyond, with implications for the conflicting agendas of the Saudis, Emiratis, and Houthis.
سورية التي أسست للخلاف بين قوات فاغنر والحكومة الروسية
لم يكن تمرد مجموعات فاغنر العسكرية على الحكومة الروسية ووزارة الدفاع وقادتها العسكريين مفاجئاً، خاصة في الفترة الأخيرة من الحرب الروسية الأوكرانية مع الظهور المستمر لزعيم تلك القوات يفغيني بريغوجين، الذي تكرر ظهوره خلال الأشهر الماضية منتفداً تارة ومهدداً تارةً أخرى للقادة العسكريين الروس، بسبب ما قال إنه نقص في الذخيرة والمعدات المقدمة لقواته على جبهات أوكرانية وخاصة باخموت، ما تسبب بمقتل العشرات من قواته على مدار الفترة الماضية.
Syria is where the conflict between Wagner and the Russian government began
The conflict between the Wagner Group and the Russian government was not born out of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, though the war there caused the rift to widen and tensions to explode publicly in the form of an armed rebellion. Instead, the discord actually started in Syria back in 2017 and has intensified since then.
مع تحول التحديات البيئية إلى أولوية بالنسبة للدول في منطقة الشرق الأوسط والبحر الأبيض المتوسط، تظهر فرص جديدة للتعاون البيئي الإقليمي، بما في ذلك بين إسرائيل وجيرانها. على الرغم من محدودية نطاقها ومواجهتها لعدة عقبات رئيسية، إلا أن هناك جهود تعاونية إقليمية جارية، بما في ذلك على المستويين الثنائي والمتعدد الأطراف، كما أن هناك جهود جارية للحفاظ عليها وتوسيعها. يتناول هذا التقرير الجديد، الذي تم إعداده تحت رعاية منتدى المناخ الإسرائيلي، أهمية التعاون البيئي الإقليمي في الشرق الأوسط والبحر الأبيض المتوسط، ويدرس نطاق هذا التعاون بين إسرائيل وجيرانها، ويوضح الفرص والعقبات والتوصيات لزيادة التنسيق والعمل المشترك، بما في ذلك الدور الذي يمكن أن تلعبه الولايات المتحدة وأوروبا.
Perspectives from the Bonn Climate Change Conference Ahead of COP28
This year’s Bonn Climate Change Conference featured events and discussions focusing on climate issues such as adaptation, mitigation, the global stocktake, and climate loss and damage. Progress on these issues at the Bonn Conference is intended to translate into potential draft decisions to be adopted at the COP28 meeting taking place in the UAE later this year. Mohammed Mahmoud discusses the details of the Bonn Conference, how it may have shaped the MENA climate change agenda, and other major outcomes with Athra Khamis and Neeshad Shafi, two of MEI’s non-resident scholars in the Climate and Water Program that attended the Bonn Conference.
The false promise of Washington’s foreign military sales reforms
Over the past few weeks, the US State Department and the US Defense Department released separate but similar statements about the changes each organization has instituted to the Foreign Military Sales, or FMS, process. There are 80 recommendations coming out of the Pentagon, but in short, they all advocate for less bureaucracy and more speed.
