Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s November 29 remark that Turkey intervened in Syria to topple President Bashar al-Assad has drawn a sharp rebuke from Tehran, Damascus and Moscow.
This essay examines the place of Syrian men in the refugee response, with a focus on the situation in Jordan. It questions the prevailing understandings of vulnerability, and outlines how the assumption that women and children are ‘the most vulnerable’ affects the distribution of aid and services. The essay demonstrates that, contrary to the perceptions of many in the humanitarian sector, work with refugee men is not only necessary, but can be extremely successful. Syrian men can be vulnerable too.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Charles Lister, Yousef Munayyer, and Mabrouka M’Barek provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the Assad regime’s advances in Aleppo, Fatah’s annual conference, and Tunisia’s upcoming conference for its economic plan.
Regime Advances in Aleppo
Charles Lister, Senior Fellow
In a remark that is likely to heighten tension in the Gulf region, the Iranian chief of staff of the armed forces has called for setting up naval bases across on the coasts of Yemen and Syria in the future.
On November 22, a senior Iranian official admitted that more than 1,000 combatants dispatched by Iran to fight alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been killed in the Syrian war.
This essay, which draws upon extensive field research in Libya over the period 2011-2013, seeks to shed light on an under-theorized area of research, namely the forces that challenge an emerging civil society during a political transition. In doing so, the essay makes two contributions to knowledge, first by arguing the value and inevitable role of civil society in a divided or conflict-ridden society, and second by helping readers better understand and unpack the case of Libya’s disrupted and dispersed civil society.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Randa Slim, and Gonul Tol provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the vulnerabilities in Trump’s Middle East policy, Russia’s plan in Syria after Trump’s election, and Erdogan’s hopes for Gulen’s extradition under the next administration.
Read the full article on Foreign Policy.
Late last week, President-elect Donald Trump explained for the first time since his election victory his position on the crisis in Syria. In his remarks, he laid out his determination to ramp up the fight against the Islamic State and to cease support to those fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime:
In this special edition of our weekly briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Robert S. Ford, Eran Etzion, Gonul Tol, Alex Vatanka, and Gerald Feierstein provide analysis on the impact of Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. Presidential Election on the future of Middle East policy, its particular effect on the crises in Iraq and Syria, and how the news has been received across the region, including in Turkey, Iran, and the GCC.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Randa Slim, Robert S. Ford, and David Mack provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including updates on the battles for Mosul and Aleppo, and the potential meeting of Libyan factions currently locked in a stalemate.
Shiite Militias to Join Mosul Battle
Randa Slim, Director of the Initiative for Track II Dialogues
This essay explores the relationship between Syrian refugees and local Lebanese. In particular, it discusses the dominance of the discourse of ‘hospitality’ in the international media depiction of this relationship and in the humanitarian response informed by it. As this essay will show, these tendencies have resulted in the ‘hospitality’ discourse informing and reinforcing the international response to the Syrian refugee influx into and presence in Lebanon.
Tensions between Turkey and Russia are thawing, as both countries appear to be advancing reconciliation efforts. Beginning with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s apology to Russian President Vladimir Putin for downing a Russian jet last year, the nations have shown a political will to cultivate closer cooperation in Syria. But the question remains—how far can the rapprochement in Syria go?
The leadership of the IRGC in Iran has unveiled a new policy of recruiting local volunteers among Iranians to fight on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria.
This is an excerpt of an article published by The National Interest. For the full article, please click here.
