Research & Commentary Results

The Middle East Dialogue is a regional Track II forum that meets twice a year and brings together current and former officials and senior experts from the Middle East, the United States, Russia, China, and the EU to discuss emerging political & security trends in the region.  What follows is a report from the latest meeting of the Dialogue in Erbil, Iraq, on March 30-31, 2014, led by MEI’s Director of Track II Dialogues Randa Slim and VP for Policy and Research Paul Salem.

It seemed like an ordinary demonstration. Clusters of banner-waving youths marched along the sun-drenched main street of Damanhour, in the heart of Egypt’s Nile Delta, on March 6. But the banners they held, featuring a large cartoonish drop of red blood beside an emphatic “No!,” were directed not at political figures but at Hepatitis C (HCV), a blood-transmitted virus attacking the liver that counts nearly 12 million Egyptians as its victims.

U.S. diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians have in the last year focused on relations between Israel and the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, led by PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Yet there is arguably a far more dynamic and perilous front: one that encompasses Israel, Egypt’s lawless Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip, the latter of which is run by Hamas.

On March 26, Egyptian Field Marshal Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi resigned from the military and announced his presidential bid. What do we know of Sisi’s platform, and what kind of military leadership does he leave behind? MEI spoke with resident scholar Mohamed Elmenshawy about these and other issues. 

Will any challengers take on the enormously popular Sisi? 

Introduction

The political crisis in Ukraine and subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia have sent reverberations throughout the Middle East, where Western and Russian influences continue to weave a complex geopolitical web. MEI interviewed four of its scholars to produce this detailed account of the challenges the conflict poses to the region’s political, security, and economic conditions.

In 2011, many observers predicted that relations between Libya and Egypt would become closer after both countries underwent similar revolutions followed by attempts at democratic transition. But three years later, the realization of this prediction appears unlikely. Political realities and ideological differences have led to a relationship that is contentious at best.

Jawad Nabulsi was looking straight at the policeman the moment he was shot in the face. The black-clad officer raised the barrel of his gun, pointed it directly at Nabulsi’s eyes, and pulled the trigger.

It was 11pm on January 28, 2011. The “Friday of Rage,” as protesters called it, would later be labeled the bloodiest day in the revolution that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Coverage of Egypt over the past three years has focused on the dramatic political events, yet it was the dire economic situation that created the pressure for the multiple uprisings. And if economic decline is not reversed over the next few years, Egypt might fall over an economic precipice that risks rendering the country eventually ungovernable. Security and political reform are urgently necessary in their own right, and will have a positive effect on the economy if achieved, but bold structural economic reform is also necessary to reverse Egypt’s downward spiral.

This article first appeared in The National Interest.

Summary

In the wake of the revolutionary fervor that has swept the Middle East and North Africa since the beginning of 2011, retributive justice has taken precedence over restorative justice approaches as countries seek to address human rights violations.

The Egyptian revolutionary motto, “bread, freedom, social justice,” which echoed over 18 days until Hosni Mubarak’s ouster on February 11, 2011, illustrated how restricted access to food had become one of the people’s main grievances. In the aftermath of the revolution, infused by a renewed sense of ownership of their country, many citizens launched environmental initiatives with a focus on sustainable agriculture.

In early 2011, Yemeni youths took to the street to demand the downfall of the regime and much-needed democratic reforms. This eventually led to the removal of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh from power later the same year. The political turmoil associated with the uprising has resulted in an alarming deterioration of the security situation throughout the country, most notably the seizure of two major cities in the southern governorate of Abyan by Ansar al-Shariah (AAS), an offshoot of al-Qa`ida. Backed by the Yemeni government, the Popular Committees (PCs), local armed resistance groups, pushed AAS out of major cities in Abyan.

In December 2012, the Central Bank of Egypt announced that the country’s foreign reserves had reached an alarming low of $15 billion, less than 50 percent of its holdings following Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011. At that point, the Bank was no longer capable of providing the treasury with the monthly dollar transfers necessary for the purchase of basic food and energy imports, and thus had to rely on foreign borrowing to cover these imports and debt service as well as to support local currency.

Economist Zubair Iqbal explains the daunting economic challenges facing Arab countries in transition following the Arab Awakening and the different trajectories stemming from those nations’ policy responses. Tunisia and Egypt provide an instructive case study: the former made hard fiscal decisions and has embraced sound economic principles and achieved broad support for a reform plan, while the latter, suffering from more difficult political conditions, has been faced with limited policy options that increase the risk for long-term challenges.