President Donald Trump has an opportunity to do something no American president has managed in nearly half a century: end the war between Israel and Lebanon for good.
For two decades, US drones hunting terrorists across the mountains of South Asia were the symbol of American military power: precise, lethal, and unmatched. That era is now over. Drones are no longer exquisite tools of counterterrorism and have evolved into something far more common and destabilizing: cheap, expendable, and mass-produced tools of attrition.
Last Thursday, the US announced a 10-day cease-fire “to enable peace negotiations between Israel and Lebanon”. The State Department statement – reportedly agreed to by both governments – marked a significant diplomatic shift. It included an affirmation that “the two countries are not at war,” a commitment to work toward “full recognition of each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” as well as “achieving a permanent agreement that ensures lasting security, stability, and peace.”
As Lebanese, Israeli, and American teams prepare for their first-ever trilateral leaders summit, it is time to reflect on this opportunity and lessons from the past.
This bonus episode of Middle East Focus features a recent MEI Virtual Briefing. Director of Communications Zeina Al-Shaib is joined by MEI Distinguished Diplomatic Fellows Alan Eyre and Daniel Benaim to discuss the historic talks held in Pakistan last weekend between the United States and Iran. Tehran insists the US failed to gain its trust, while the US made its red lines clear and declared it would blockade Iranian ports in the Persian Gulf. What happens next? Eyre and Benaim offer insights into what goes on behind the scenes at such negotiations; identify the core issues at play; explore potential incentives to end the war; analyze the weaponization of energy; as well as assess the role of other regional players in this conflict.
As the international community focuses on the regional and economic reverberations of the US-Israel-Iran war, the wartime experiences of ordinary Iranians and their aspirations for the future have received much less attention. Arash Azizi, a postdoctoral associate at Yale University and contributing writer at The Atlantic, joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to discuss the war’s repercussions for the Iranian population and how the outcome of the conflict may shape the peoples’ lives going forward. Together, they explore Iran’s internal politics, the viability of the opposition, and the conditions needed to achieve democracy in Iran.
In the midst of a fragile cease-fire to the US-Israeli war on Iran, European leaders remain reluctant to get involved in another Middle Eastern war and are bristling under threats and insults from the US. As the NATO alliance frays and Russian attacks on Ukraine continue, the moment for Europe to take action has arrived, and is fleeting.
Did the presence of American military bases in the Gulf monarchies draw those states into the American-Israeli war against Iran, a war they had no say in initiating and no voice in prosecuting? That is certainly the feeling among some citizens of those states.
What made Mohammad Javad Zarif’s recent Foreign Affairs article so explosive was not simply what he proposed, but when and where he proposed it.
Amb. Hale discusses three broad policy options for Washington following the failure of the US-Iran talks in Pakistan.
The US and Israel entered the war with three goals, and these goals were in tension from the start.
Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow Amb. (ret.) Robert S. Ford to examine what is at stake for Iraq in the Iran war. The only country to have been hit by both sides, Iraq is caught in the middle of a regional conflict, with the local Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) carrying out attacks on American interests and personnel — and the US responding. This escalation comes at a period of internal political transition in Iraq, which has been locked in negotiations to form a new government since the November 2025 elections. Ford, who served as Deputy and later Acting Ambassador in Baghdad from 2008 until 2010, unpacks how Iraq is navigating the current moment, how the Kurdistan region fits into this equation, and what this all means for the future of US-Iraqi relations.
