Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Two weeks ago, on March 10, Iran said it would restore diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia after a seven-year rupture as part of a deal brokered by China. The agreement, reached in Beijing, is the result of almost a year and a half of mostly quiet talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia, facilitated by a host of countries including China, Iraq, Oman, Russia, and the United States.
On March 20, the EU will hold an international donors’ conference in Brussels to raise funds for Turkey and Syria’s recovery from the devastating earthquakes that struck in early February. While Turkey’s foreign minister will speak before the pledging session, no one will represent or even speak on behalf of Syrians.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy is converting two merchant container ships into vessels capable of carrying and launching combat drones against maritime or coastal targets. For now, Iran’s drone carriers are unlikely to pose a clear and present danger to the U.S., but they possess symbolic significance as a potential tool to defy American initiatives in the Middle East and respond to Israel’s attacks against Iran.
Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani has served for 10 years as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s top policymaking body in both domestic and foreign policy matters. A number of recent developments have aroused speculation that he could soon vacate his seat. Such a change would be an important signpost of how the Iranian establishment is posturing itself against the backdrop of continued revolutionary sentiment among significant segments of the population.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
MEI Managing Editor Matthew Czekaj speaks with scholars Iulia-Sabina Joja, Alex Vatanka, Yörük Işık, Charles Lister, and Roger Kangas on Russia’s current standing in the Middle East a year since re-invading Ukraine.
How has Russian aggression in Ukraine redrawn Moscow’s relationships in the MENA region? And as the Middle East increasingly becomes a key area of global great power competition, is Russia still a meaningful player there, politically, economically, militarily, and diplomatically?
The difficulty of quickly providing mechanized and armored equipment to Ukraine, training Ukraine to employ this equipment in combined arms operations, and ensuring Ukraine can maintain and sustain combat power should not be underestimated. As the examples of Turkey’s 2016 military operation in Syria and the U.S. operation in Fallujah in 2004 illustrate, dislodging Russia from its prepared defensive positions will be a daunting task for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“Idlib is under siege” — this is the common sentiment shared with me by both local leaders and residents alike. The dual earthquakes on Feb. 6 not only rocked the physical foundations of the cities in Syria’s last opposition-held region, it cracked the social foundation of trust Syrians had with the international aid community.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
In the center of Harem, Idlib, hundreds of Syrian families huddle around stoves and in tents as they look on at the row of collapsed apartments they used to call home. “This disaster hasn’t happened to Syria in a thousand years,” says Abu Ahmed, the director of the new camp. “The international community must witness what is happening to us and help.”
Russia left the war-torn region with only a single border crossing—and it’s no longer open for aid.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.