This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Robert S. Ford, Gonul Tol, Paul Salem, Dr. Marwa Maziad, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.
With the announcement that Kuwait’s long-time ruler, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, had passed away, on Sept. 29, at the age of 91, the Gulf states lost their second senior statesman of 2020 following the death of Sultan Qaboos of Oman at the beginning of the year. Like Qaboos, Sheikh Sabah played an outsized role within the GCC as well as in regional and international affairs.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Maxim A. Suchkov, Ibrahim Jalal, Eliza Campbell, Alex Vatanka, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.
Last September, at the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani proposed the optimistically named “Hormuz Peace Endeavor” (HOPE). Over the past year, however, Iran’s plan has failed to gain any traction with the GCC states, even as the region’s security environment has fundamentally changed in ways that are detrimental to the Islamic Republic.
The ongoing intra-Afghan talks confirm, without a doubt, that the Taliban is negotiating from a position of remarkable strength. After being overthrown by the military of the world’s sole superpower two decades ago, the Taliban’s resurgence is a perfect example of what happens when a counterinsurgency campaign fails to eliminate its target’s safe havens. The Doha negotiations have also underlined the ugly reality of the Afghan conflict — that firepower alone cannot crush an insurgency when its narrative has some resonance with the local people.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Charles Lister, Hafsa Halawa, Bilal Y. Saab, Anthony Elghossain, and Michael Sexton.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Grace Wermenbol, Jason Pack, Shahla Al-Kli, and Khaldoun Khelil.
The Durand Line, as the British-Empire-drawn border that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan is known, continues to haunt the region and its leaders. On Sept. 7, Afghanistan’s first vice president, Amrullah Saleh, opened Pandora’s box by saying in an interview that “No Afghan politician of national stature can overlook the issue of Durand Line.”
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Meliha Benli Altunışık, and Robert S. Ford.
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.
The hurdles encountered in kick-starting the intra-Afghan talks seem to be more daunting than anticipated. This has not only delayed a process that was scheduled to begin immediately after the Doha agreement in February, but has also underlined the bumpy road that lies ahead for various stakeholders to reach a consensus on Afghanistan’s national destiny.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Charles Lister, Randa Slim, Jonathan M. Winer, Alex Vatanka, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Robert S. Ford, Mirette F. Mabrouk, and Syed Mohammad Ali.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Robert S. Ford, Paul Salem, Yesar Al-Maleki, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.
All is not well in Pakistan-Saudi relations, which seem to have gone into a tailspin. In order to repair the fractured ties with one of the country’s strongest allies, Pakistan’s army has swung into action and its chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, will travel to Saudi Arabia for talks this weekend.
When the Saudi-led coalition launched military operations against the Houthi insurgents on March 26, 2015, all of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, except for Oman, joined the multinational force. As has become clear, each of the Arab Gulf sheikdoms has its own national interests and unique history of relations with Yemen and Yemeni factions, and these have shaped their changing perceptions of the war over the past five and a half years. Kuwait’s role in Yemen’s multidimensional conflict is a case in point.