Research & Commentary Results

Although Syria’s civil war has largely wound down, fighting in Idlib in the country’s northwest has heated up in the last two months. Charles Lister, MEI senior fellow and Director of the Countering Terrorism and Extremism Program, and Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, executive director and co-founder of People Demand Change, join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the ongoing conflict and what impact it might have on Syria’s future.

Reports that the UAE, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, has decided to draw down and reposition its troops should be welcomed and taken seriously. It is not a small or symbolic move, but rather a serious, strategic, and thoughtful military and political decision. If reciprocated by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, it could serve as the long-awaited breakthrough in the five-year-old Yemen war.

With delivery of the Russian S-400 air defense system to Turkey looming, a new crisis in U.S.-Turkey relations is slowly emerging. While it is obvious that Turkey needs a new air and missile defense system given the security risks in its region, it remains unclear why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to acquire the capability from a historical rival and potential adversary instead of through NATO. This decision will likely have major consequences for Turkey and its future geopolitical orientation.

Violence has been flaring up at an alarming rate in the southern Syrian province of Daraa, amid dozens of unclaimed attacks by gunmen. Over the last three months, assassinations, checkpoint attacks, fires, and sporadic clashes have wreaked havoc in the area and signaled a potential return of conflict. 

My colleagues and I at the American Task Force for Lebanon (ATFL) visited the LAF southern headquarters, the UNIFIL headquarters, and the Blue Line, established in 2000, separating Israel and Lebanon. We were encouraged by what we saw.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Alex Vatanka, Gonul Tol, Gerald Feierstein, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Rauf Mammadov, and Robert S. Ford provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Iran’s announcement that it has exceeded its enriched uranium limit, Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400s missile defense system over American objections, an Emirati announcement that it will downsize military involvement in Yemen, the resumption of intra-Afghan peace talks, Russia’s continuing embrace of OPEC+ oil production cuts, and the emergence of potential threats to Tunisia’s democracy.

Since the start of the regime’s military campaign in Idlib last month, a group of Free Syrian Army factions that fought alongside Turkish soldiers has gradually entered the region. This development may balance the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham presence and ultimately help to force the group out of the demilitarized zone, ensuring a continued Turkish-Russian consensus on Idlib.

Despite the risks of war between the U.S. and Iran, a narrow diplomatic opportunity exists. But it is not between Washington and Tehran, but rather between Jerusalem and Tehran.

Although relations between the neighbors have had their ups and downs, Tehran has invested deeply in Iraq, both politically and economically, and these investments will only multiply in the short term. After all, U.S. sanctions on Iran have made Iraq an essential link in Iran’s potential chain of commerce. How such plans play out will put the Iranians, the Iraqis, and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to the test.

Competition for security and energy is at the center of recent developments in the Eastern Mediterranean. Countries from Egypt to Turkey are moving to secure, exploit, and market their (not always fair) share of the game-changing offshore natural gas reserves. Russia, China, and Iran are securing port facilities, and in the case of Russia, drilling rights, in Lebanon and Syria. 

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Guney Yildiz, Nathan Stock, Elizabeth Dent, and Eran Etzion provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including this week’s Bahrain “workshop” on Palestine’s economic development, an opposition victory in Istanbul’s rerun election, the release of a portion of the Trump administration’s Israel-Palestine peace plan, the fracturing of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, and Tuesday’s trilateral meeting between the U.S., Israel, and Russia.

It’s been nearly three years since the Turkish incursion into northern Syria in August 2016, but one central question remains unanswered: What is Ankara’s plan for the area now under its control? This paper examines the complex relationship between local governance and service provision in the Euphrates Shield (ES) area of north Aleppo and the Turkish state. Using secondary sources and interviews with Syrian and Turkish activists and officials, this paper establishes that, first and foremost, Turkey has no coherent policy with regards to local governance in ES.

The U.S. and Iran are locked in conflict. Regardless of the details or culpability regarding the latest attack on two tankers in the Gulf, the conflict is centered on Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign and Tehran’s response that it will not sit idly by while its economy is brought to its knees. Paul Salem sketches out five possibilities for where things might be headed.

The territorial defeat of ISIS in March 2019 was a significant victory in the fight against terrorism, but the struggle to defeat violent extremism is far from over. Ambassador Edmund Fitton-Brown and Charles Lister join guest host Gerald Feierstein to discuss the latest developments in policy to combat regional terrorist threats.

The growing power of paramilitary groups and the response of Bashar al-Assad’s foreign backers illustrates how local skirmishes over smuggling routes can have much broader geopolitical implications as Russia gains ground at the expense of both the regime and Iran.