Research & Commentary Results

The long-awaited meeting of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump finally took place on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg, which came at a time of cool relations between Washington and Moscow.

Despite ongoing tensions, the two powers appeared to embrace a constructive approach to their first meeting, focusing on issues where progress is possible, such as Syria.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Randa Slim, Charles Lister, and Mabrouka M’Barek provide analysis on the progress of ongoing negotiations over peace in Syria, rising tensions in Idlib province between Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham, and Tunisia’s lobbying efforts to ensure continued U.S. aid.

The road to Haraniyya, a formerly rural area just beyond the Giza pyramids, is now an eight-lane highway flanked by red-brick buildings packed and stacked as if designed by some demented cubist. But take the exit, cross a canal and tucked behind a wall of residential towers, the Museum of Adam Henein exists in magical contrast, a verdant stronghold of living art, and one of Cairo’s hidden treasures.

Idlib is currently the site of increasing competition between the two most dominant armed coalitions, the al-Qaeda-linked Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (H.T.S.) and Ahrar al-Sham. The province has witnessed limited airstrikes since a de-escalation agreement, which came into effect on May 5, was brokered by Russia, Turkey, and Iran at the Astana talks. Idlib was one of four areas labeled as a de-escalation zone.

With the Islamic State collapsing in Iraq and losing ground in Syria, Iran and its regional proxies see the United States as the primary threat to their influence and ambitions and have stepped up efforts to oust the U.S. military from the region. Through diplomatic outreach – and at times veiled threats – Iranian leaders have been urging the Afghan and Iraqi governments to expel American forces from their countries. Tehran has also deepened its ties with the Taliban and has reportedly teamed up with Moscow to undermine U.S.-led stabilization efforts in war-torn Afghanistan.

This essay looks at five North African states, arguing that the armed forces — for a variety of often case-specific reasons — are actually not as politically powerful and thus influential in foreign policy-making as one might expect. It first discusses the political strength of the military establishments of five North African states — Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt — and then investigates the difference, if any, that the recent Arab upheavals have made in their involvement in foreign policy-making.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Charles Lister, W. Robert Pearson, and Yousef Munayyer provide analysis on ISIS’ continued threat to security despite losing territory, President Erdogan’s upcoming visit to Sudan as a political calculation, and Mohammed Dahlan’s effort to return to Palestinian politics.

Israel and Hezbollah have recently raised the profile of their long quiescent front across the Blue Line border. Warnings have increased that a conflict will soon engulf Lebanon, and perhaps even draw in the United States. Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has threatened to attack Israel’s nuclear reactor at Dimona and Israeli chemical installations in Haifa.

On Sunday, the Iranian military said it had launched six missiles at Islamic State positions in Syria in retaliation for the June 7 attacks in Tehran claimed by the terrorist group. A statement by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) confirmed that it fired medium-range missiles from bases in the western Iranian provinces of Kermanshah and Kurdistan and killed a “large number” of Islamic State terrorists in Syria’s Deir Az Zour province.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Charles Lister, Alex Vatanka, Marvin G. Weinbaum, and Gerald Feierstein provide analysis on eastern Syria as a new hotbed of geopolitical competition, Iranian responses to the Islamic State attack, additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and renewed Saudi succession speculation.

Russia’s claim to have killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an airstrike in Raqqa on May 28 should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. At the time in question, the U.S.-led Syrian Democratic Forces (S.D.F.) were only days away from launching their final assault on the city and there’s no logical reason imaginable why Baghdadi would have risked staying in a surrounded, sitting target. Notwithstanding justified doubts surrounding Baghdadi’s then presence in Raqqa, Russia’s statement also says its strike killed another 330 ISIS fighters – which is almost certainly an absurd claim.

Iranian-supported Shiite militia forces in Iraq and Syria have finally linked up along the shared border between the two countries, Fars News Agency reports.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian war, Turkey has become a critical conduit for international humanitarian operations and life-saving economic support to approximately three million Syrian refugees. Turkey’s decision to restrict various international NGOs from operating within its territory is now disrupting crucial provisions to those in both northern Syria, and inside its own borders.

Six months after the heavily publicized defeat of Syrian rebel forces in Aleppo to the Assad government, the once magnificent metropolis and largest city of northern Syria is still reeling from the consequences of years of violent conflict. The elaborate communal, economic and material threads that for centuries had made up the social fabric underpinning the city’s wealth, as well as its physical and societal integrity, may have been irreparably damaged. Today, much of the city lies in rubble and many of its once proud inhabitants have been reduced to abject poverty.