Research & Commentary Results

MEI Distinguished Senior Fellow Joseph Votel, a retired four-star general in the Army and former commander of U.S. Central Command, joins host Alistair Taylor to discuss the challenges facing American forces in the Middle East today, from COVID-19 and ISIS to the turbulent situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the protests have raged, the Iraqi government has implemented a new policy in its application of rules and regulations monitoring civil society organizations (CSOs). The militias’ violent response to the protests has been well-documented; however, the more covert attack on civil society threatens civic engagement among the population more broadly. 

The spiritual cousin to the Shabandar Café — Baghdad’s literary heart that survived being bombed by extremists in 2007 — Mosul’s Book Forum is both an intellectual refuge and a laboratory for discussion and cultural expression.

Despite his support, al-Kadhimi’s path to obtain confirmation of his cabinet from the Council of Representatives is riddled with challenges.

Last Sunday, the pandemic claimed the life of the most internationally prominent face of the Arab Spring in Libya. The tragic death of former Libyan Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril in a Cairo hospital, at just 68 years of age, is in fact a fitting metaphor for the many stillborn aspects of Libya’s attempted political rebirth.

The Islamic Republic’s unconventional alliance network reaches far and wide, and its workings have only intensified since the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in early January 2020. The systematic effort to consolidate these alliances, indicated by the swift appointment of Gen. Esmail Qaani and his new deputy Gen. Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi to lead the Quds Force, is about much more than just retaliation and revenge against the United States. It is also, and perhaps more importantly, a calibrated response to the Trump administration’s reckless and escalatory changes to the established “rules of engagement” between Washington and Tehran.

Blurring the lines between the physical world and the online one, the Iranian group known as the “Nakhsa Warriors” remains cloaked in mystery. Their identity and status are unclear. Are they a military force that carries out operations, an online group of like-minded individuals that share content, part of an Iranian disinformation campaign — or perhaps something else altogether?

The different scenes in Baghdad tell the tale of a future that will, at the very least, present serious challenges, and at the worst could become chronically violent.

Governments and citizens throughout North Africa are gearing up for a huge increase in coronavirus infections expected in late March, April, and May. Just next door, Italy and Spain are two of the five worst afflicted countries on the planet.

No part of the world will emerge unscathed from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Just because China and Italy were the first to be severely hit, does not imply, that when all is said and done, that they will have sustained the brunt of the damage. North Africa is a region dependent on global commodities prices, tourism, and political and monetary support from Europe and the Gulf, where regime brittleness, youth unemployment, and Islamic radicalism all intersect.

From Morocco to Afghanistan, the scholars and experts at MEI take a closer look at how the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is affecting the Middle East.

Recent developments are making it increasingly difficult for the months-old protest movement to sustain its momentum.

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.

Libyan oil production has collapsed to less than 100,000 bpd as Hifter has continued to amass forces for what some claim to be a final push into the nation’s capital and largest city.

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.