As a fragile cease-fire takes hold in the Middle East, countries are jockeying to shape the peace. But one group remains largely absent: US ambassadors.
Trump’s active Middle East policy reflects a striking paradox. The United States is more visibly engaged in the region than the “America first” rhetoric suggests, yet its influence over regional outcomes continues to erode.
An operation that Donald Trump said could take Iran out “in one night” has now turned into a regional war that has just entered its sixth week, with the US president appearing increasingly frustrated over the situation.
The following study discusses the role of Lebanon’s gold reserves in the establishment of a currency board and evaluates four policy options: a true currency board, constrained central bank reform, full dollarization, and a unified managed float. Gold reserves are relevant under all four. The conclusion is consistent across them: no monetary framework, however carefully designed and however well backed, can substitute for the prior political decision on who bears Lebanon’s losses and how the state will finance itself sustainably.
The United States and Israel have done significant damage to Iran’s military and security apparatus. Senior commanders have been killed at a pace rarely seen in modern warfare.
Iran’s leadership did not take long to respond to President Donald Trump’s latest address on the war. Regime-linked media dismissed the April 1 White House speech as a repetition of earlier claims, while officials and commentators close to the Iranian government framed it as further evidence that Washington remains uncertain about its own course. In the battle over messaging, Trump’s ambiguity is giving Iran’s narrative the edge.
This special episode of Middle East Focus features a conversation from MEI’s Virtual Briefing Series. Host Alistair Taylor is joined by former National Security Council Senior Director Stephen Flanagan and MEI Senior Fellow Iulia-Sabina Joja to discuss the impacts of the Iran war on US-European relations. The conflict has hit Europe’s economy hard and created deep divisions across the continent, even as some European countries play a quiet supporting role to the US. President Donald Trump has called for NATO member states to help secure shipping through the Iranian-blocked Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for international maritime trade. Flanagan and Joja explore the prospects for stepped-up European military involvement, the knock-on effects on the war in Ukraine, and the potential longer-term impact on the future of the US-European alliance.
When the United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran a month ago, the Middle East was plunged into debilitating conflict. Nevertheless, Syria has remarkably just completed its most stable month in 15 years. Damascus and its international partners must capitalize on this opportunity.
Libya’s stability has taken on renewed strategic importance as the impact of the US and Israeli war with Iran reverberates through global energy markets. Sustaining existing Libyan oil production depends on a governing arrangement capable of keeping ports open, pipelines flowing, and revenues distributed without triggering conflict.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are confronting the greatest threat to their economic security and energy strategy since their formation. The economic fallout of the US-Israeli war with Iran is severe, but uneven across the Gulf. So too is each state’s ability to sustain energy exports and protect critical infrastructure—both of which have been targeted unequally by Iran.
The US-Israeli war against Iran has created the largest disruption to global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies in modern history. There is a tremendous amount of economic uncertainty for Gulf states to navigate, and it will reshape the way they engage with one another and with Iran, Israel, and the United States for years to come. But this war has also laid bare how urgently the United States needs to update its own approach toward the Gulf states when it comes to energy.
China’s expanding role in the Middle East is often framed as geopolitical rivalry with other global powers, including the United States, Russia, India, and others; but this lens obscures the strategic subtlety of Beijing’s approach.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat” is a well-known axiom attributed to the ancient Chinese military general and strategist, Sun Tzu. With the Iran war now at the one-month mark, it is evident that the Trump administration failed to outline a clear end state or devise a workable war termination strategy before initiating Operation Epic Fury on February 28.
The results of last month’s elections seemed to crystallize a fundamental divide between two competing visions for Hamas’ future. But the US-Israeli war against Iran has cast a heavy shadow over the group’s leadership selection process, shifting it from a contest between personalities to a wider struggle over Hamas’ strategic identity, ideological orientation, and relationship with the broader Middle Eastern order.
North African states feel the consequences of the US-Israel war with Iran less through direct security risks than through economic shocks that affect long-term stability. The region remains highly exposed to disruptions in global food and energy markets, where price spikes can lead to fiscal pressure, inflation, and social unrest.