November 13, 2017 – The crisis between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon and the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri appears to be largely about Yemen, says Paul Salem, Sr. Vice President for Policy Analysis, Research, and Programs at the Middle East Institute.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, contributors Paul Salem, Eran Etzion, Alex Vatanka, and Bilal Saab provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the rising tension between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon over Hezbollah’s presence in Yemen, rumors that an Israeli attack on Lebanon is imminent, the Saudis’ latest attempt to round up collective action against Iran, and the new phase in the Saudi-Iran proxy war following the recent explosion of a pipeline in Bahrain.
Read the full article on the American Interest.
It takes a certain level of political naiveté or blindness to continue to believe that Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned last week of his own volition.
Last weekend’s arrests of prominent Saudi government officials and leading businessmen on charges of corruption has sent shockwaves through Saudi society as well as global center of finance and commerce. The developments also impacted Lebanon, with Prime Minister Saad Hariri announcing his resignation from the Saudi capital of Riyadh. MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Jean-Francois Seznec, and Randa Slim join Paul Salem to discuss these developments.
Read the full article on Foreign Affairs.
On November 4, 2017, Saad Hariri announced live on Al Arabiya satellite television that he had resigned as Lebanese prime minister.
Most of the literature that seeks to explain sectarianism in Lebanon focuses on its history or on the regional and geopolitical dynamics associated with it. Relatively few studies have examined the internal factors that shape the process of sectarianization and sustain sectarianism today. However, if one does not first understand the present dynamics of sectarianism and the material and structural factors that shape it, then exploring the history of the phenomenon in an attempt to locate its “roots” is unlikely to be very illuminating. This essay seeks to shed light on the current political economy of sectarianism in Lebanon so as to advance our understanding of this phenomenon.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Paul Salem, Ruba Husari, Amal Kandeel, and Gonul Tol provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the arrests of numerous prominent Saudi government officials and leading businessmen on charges of corruption, Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri’s resignation, oil prices in the Middle East hitting new highs, the threat to MENA due to rising temperature levels in the region, and the Turkish prime minister’s visit to Washington.
The resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Sunday has sent shockwaves in Tehran. While Iranian leaders and their regional allies try to appear measured and confident, they fear that political instability in Lebanon and a potential war between Israel and Iran’s ally Hezbollah – particularly at a time when Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies are still engaged in the Syrian war – could adversely impact Tehran’s regional ambitions.
Akram al-Kaabi, the leader of Iranian-sponsored Iraqi militia group Harakat al-Nujaba, visited prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric Sheikh Afif al-Nabulsi to discuss regional affairs, Iranian and
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Randa Slim, Yousef Munayyer, Charles Lister, Charles Schmitz, and Alex Vatanka provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including President Barzani’s decision to step down from the KRG, the Trump administation’s silent response to Israeli settlement expansion in Jerusalem , the Armed Syrian Opposition’s attendance of the seventh round of Astana Talks, Saudi foreign minister blaming Iran for lack of progress in peace talks in Yemen, and President Rouhani’s failure to advance the reform cause in Iran.
Iranian officials and state-run media outlets continue to label the recent Iraqi Kurdish leaders’ push for independence as an “Israeli project” aimed at countering Iran’s influence in the region. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nuri Hamedani, a senior Iranian cleric, said this week that Tehran would not “allow a new Israel to take shape in the region.” An article in Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.), echoed a similar view.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Alex Vatanka, Randa Slim, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Yousef Munayyer, and Gerald Feierstein provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Turkish President Erdogan’s visit to Iran, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s efforts to push for dialogue after the Kurdish independence referendum, the pending indictment of Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan, signs of progress in the reconcilliation attempt between Hamas and Fatah, and the Saudi king’s visit to Moscow.
The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee passed two bills today that tighten sanctions on Hezbollah. The bills amend sections of the Hezbollah International Financing Act of 2015. The first bill imposes sanctions on any foreign person that assists a number of key Hezbollah financial, security, foreign relations, and media institutions. The second bill imposes sanctions on persons responsible for use of people as human shields in the 2006 war or thereafter, and names Hezbollah senior leadership among those intended.
On Monday, the new chief commander of Iran’s Army said Israel had a maximum life span of 25 years and that the Jewish state would perish even earlier if it “makes any mistake” over its remaining lifetime. “The notion that the Zionist regime of Israel will not be existing 25 years from now does not mean that it would have a full time span of 25 years to live,” Tasnim News Agency quoted Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi as saying. He also warned that any Israeli mistake would result in the destruction of Haifa and Tel Aviv.
In this week’s briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Charles Schmitz, Jonathan M. Winer, and Yousef Munayyer provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah’s upcoming visit to Washington, recent clashes in Yemen, the French Foreign Minister’s trip to Libya, and the U.N. Human Rights Council’s discussion on Israel/Palestine.