Research & Commentary Results

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2013 proclamation of the Silk Road Economic Belt (“One Belt, One Road”) and Twenty-First Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives provided an overarching framework for understanding China’s strategic priorities over the coming decade. The land-based and sea-based Silk Roads will link Asia and Europe via the Middle East and Central Asia through a series of transcontinental railroads, pipelines, ports, airports, and other infrastructure projects.

Al-Hashd al-Sha‘bi—also known as the Popular Mobilization Units, the Shi‘i militias, or simply “the Hashd”—has joined Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga to spearhead Iraq’s ongoing offensive against ISIS. The coordinated assault has scored significant successes in various parts of Diyala, Babil, and Salah al-Din, including the recapture of Tikrit. With this string of recent triumphs, the Hashd has provided a potent rallying point for a reinvigorated sense of Iraqi nationalism, albeit one with distinctly Shi‘i overtones.

Read the full article on LobeLog.

In the past four decades, the greatest achievements of American diplomacy were probably the Camp David Accords and the Dayton Agreement. Camp David led to the end of the perpetual state of war between Israel and Egypt. Dayton ended the carnage of the war in the Balkans.

Robert Baer’s See No Evil presents a firsthand account of the life of a CIA case officer in the war on terror. From recruiting agents in the volatile Bekaa Valley in Lebanon to wiretapping Abu Nidal students in France, Baer provides a fascinating description of his CIA service.

Read full article at The National Interest.

Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, was on his way back to Tehran from Lausanne as accolades began to pile up. At the airport, he received a rapturous reception, as if the Team Melli, Iran’s national soccer team, had beat Germany.

As the United States and other world powers pursued nuclear negotiations with Iran over the past 18 months, the Middle East descended into one of the worst periods of chaos and proxy conflict in its modern history, with Iran engaged aggressively in many of the region’s hotspots. Most leaders in the region fear that a nuclear deal with Iran will abet its aggressive interventionism and lead to further geopolitical and sectarian confrontation. But could the agreement—if it is completed—also create conditions for rebuilding stability?

Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen is a risky move motivated by various Saudi objectives in Yemen and in the region. The immediate objective is to save President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi from Ansar Allah’s advance on Aden and reinstall him as head of state by forcing Ansar Allah to make major political concessions. But the operation also marks the increasing willingness of the Saudis to use their own military rather than rely on the United States.

With its bold and public intervention in Yemen’s civil war, Saudi Arabia has cast off a half-century of caution and restraint in regional security affairs.

March 24, 2015: Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at The Middle East Institute, discusses the mood in Tehran as the deadline for negotiations approaches, the state of U.S.-Iranian relations, and what reaching a deal could mean to that relationship and the Arab world, in a brief interview.

This article was first published on Al-Monitor.

President Hassan Rouhani’s recent trip to Turkmenistan cannot be dismissed as a one-off. Since coming to office in August 2013, the Rouhani administration has prioritized relations with the Muslim states of the former Soviet Union. Given the potential for economic ties and trade, Tehran’s aspirations are fully understandable.

 Ivan L. G. Pearson’s In the Name of Oil: Anglo-American Relations in the Middle East, 1950-1958 provides a comprehensive analysis of the extent to which British interests in the Middle East influenced or were furthered by the United States between 1950 and 1958.

Frustrated by the United States’ failure to heed its advice on Syria and Iraq, and by Iran’s growing clout in these countries, Turkey seems to have decided to mend its frosty relationship with Saudi Arabia. When King Abdullah died earlier this year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan immediately cut short an African tour and flew to Riyadh to offer his condolences. He declared a period of mourning in Turkey and ordered the Turkish flag to be flown at half-mast.

The death of King Abdullah in late January 2015 brought a seamless transition of power in Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Salman acceded to the throne and Prince Muqrin became crown prince, while Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, minister of the interior, became second deputy prime minister and the first grandson of Ibn Saud in line for the throne. Despite speculation to contrary, the smooth transition was strong evidence of a preexisting agreement that included the late king, Salman, and other senior princes.

This article was first published on CNN.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the Congress this week was as eagerly anticipated in Tehran as it was in Washington.

The Iranian reaction to the speech has been a combination of indignation and indifference.

This article was first published on Foreign Affairs.

When the Houthis, a Shia rebel group in Yemen, forced the country’s pro-Western president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to flee the capital this past January, many in the region concluded that another Arab state had fallen into Tehran’s lap—a result, as one prominent commentator put it, of Iran’s “offensive state, the likes of which we have not seen in modern history.”