In recent years Turkey has launched three incursions into Syria and become increasingly involved abroad.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could spill over to Iran’s Azeri minority, setting off a battle the government can’t contain.
With the latest polls suggesting a likely victory for the Democrats in the November U.S. presidential elections, a looming foreign policy crisis awaits a potential Biden administration: escalating tensions with Iran. While the Democrats’ “diplomacy first” approach has won praise across the Atlantic as the solution to deescalating tensions with Tehran, this Western-centric view ignores the changing reality on the ground in Iran. If Biden thinks he can return to the 2015 status quo, he may be in for a surprise.
Landlocked Afghanistan has begun using the Chinese-operated Pakistani port of Gwadar for transit trade — a development Pakistani officials see as marking the start of Gwadar’s role as a gateway port through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Pakistan’s hope to develop the Arabian Sea port into a gateway for Afghanistan, Central Asia, and China’s Xinjiang region has been a long-standing one — and it is misguided. Islamabad should instead focus on local drivers to build the port and use it as a vehicle to develop the impoverished, but resource-rich region of southern Balochistan.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Alex Vatanka, Dima M. Toukan, and Syed Mohammad Ali.
For those following Turkey, there is no doubt about who calls the shots. From the economy and landscape to the arts and sports, everything reflects the will and vision of one man: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. To his supporters and many of his detractors, he is invincible and answers to no one but God. In reality, however, Erdogan has become increasingly reliant on Devlet Bahceli, the head of the hard-right MHP, who is playing a growing role in shaping his policies. And as Erdogan loses ground in the polls, Bahceli’s sway only increases.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Robert S. Ford, Gonul Tol, Paul Salem, Dr. Marwa Maziad, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.
Over the past decade, Iran has made a concerted push to expand its cyber capabilities, an effort in which the IRGC has played a central role. Given the IRGC’s expansive and growing power, scholars, analysts, and many Iran watchers have long thought that at some point it could take over control in Iran, replacing the theocratic government with a military one. As Iran approaches an inflection point over the issue of succession after Ayatollah Khamenei, that day could be coming soon, and the IRGC is well placed to bring about such a transition given the hybrid mix of physical and cyber capabilities that it has developed and perfected over recent decades.
In recent years, China has become increasingly involved in the international arena, including the Middle East. As a rising superpower, China finds itself, time and again, needing to maintain relationships with countries that are hostile to one another. This is particularly true in the Middle East, which is one of the most conflictual areas in the world. China faces a challenge as it seeks to maintain good relations with both Iran and Israel, two of the region’s fiercest and loudest adversaries. How does Beijing manage to do this, and can it continue to do so going forward?
Despite critical differences between the two political regimes that have dominated Iran for nearly a century, there are striking similarities between the Pahlavi monarchy (1925-1979) and the Islamic Republic (1979-present). Like Mohammad Reza Shah, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has built a cult of personality around himself and has engaged in “civilizational thinking” — a preoccupation with defining the eternal essence and world-historical destiny of Iran through references to a glorious (one might say “glorified”) collective past. Nonetheless, the two leaders have interpreted Iranian history in vastly differing ways that serve divergent ideological ends.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Maxim A. Suchkov, Ibrahim Jalal, Eliza Campbell, Alex Vatanka, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.
Last September, at the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani proposed the optimistically named “Hormuz Peace Endeavor” (HOPE). Over the past year, however, Iran’s plan has failed to gain any traction with the GCC states, even as the region’s security environment has fundamentally changed in ways that are detrimental to the Islamic Republic.
On Sept. 9, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu embarked on a three-day trip to West Africa, which included stops in Mali, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau. During his trip, Cavusoglu emphasized Turkey’s support for Mali’s post-coup transition process, struck infrastructure-related commercial deals with Guinea-Bissau, and underscored its commitment to engaging with multilateral institutions, such as the UN and AU, on addressing security challenges in the Sahel.
The agreement with Iran could end up being the first major foray of many that gave Beijing a long reach into the Middle East at the expense of the United States, and even Russia.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Charles Lister, Hafsa Halawa, Bilal Y. Saab, Anthony Elghossain, and Michael Sexton.