Syria’s Path Toward Stabilization — and How the US Can Help
After more than 50 years of brutal dictatorial rule and 13 years of civil conflict, the first year of Syria’s transition has been complex, imperfect, and fraught with difficulties. However, despite some significant challenges, Syria is clearly stabilizing. To sustain this progress, the United States must remain engaged.
The United States is Israel’s closest ally, and its support is a central pillar of Israel’s national security. The US provides Israel access to purchase advanced weapon systems, ammunition and weapon emergency supplies in times of war, intelligence sharing, opportunities for cooperation in defense technology, and crucial diplomatic cover at the UN Security Council and elsewhere. It also provides Israel with regular security aid, to be spent in the United States, currently at an annual rate of $3.8bn (under an MOU that expires in 2028). Since October 2023, the US also offered active military support, in a break from the historical norm. It contributed substantially to Israel’s defense against Iranian ballistic missiles, in conjunction with Arab regional partners, and bombed nuclear sites in Iran in support of Israel’s campaign in the “12 Day War” of June 2025.
Freedom’s arrival in Syria remains deeply fragile. Even as the country’s new rulers gain diplomatic recognition, goodwill, and early relief from Western sanctions, Syria itself is still fractured—geographically, socially, and institutionally.
Syria’s transition still faces a formidable array of challenges — from the implementation of the deal to integrate the SDF into state structures and the military, to the economy, reconstruction, transitional justice and accountability, refugee returns, and geopolitical tensions with Israel. However, a steady and significant decline in violence offers perhaps the most encouraging and consequential metric.
Whenever Iran is shaken by nationwide protests, as it was just last month, analysts and activists are consumed by the same two questions: will the country’s regime finally fall, and what will come next if it does? Answers abound.
Integration or conflict in northeastern Syria? Ten key points to consider
After 10 months of US-mediated talks failed to achieve an integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces into Syria’s transitional state, hostilities erupted in early January. US diplomacy stepped in to try to calm tensions and force through the integration of the SDF’s Kurdish core into the Syrian state. Here are 10 key takeaways and indications of where things could go next.
Ankara’s double win: Kurds, Israel, and the new Syria
Whether the truce between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces holds or collapses will have major implications for neighboring Turkey, which has long-standing interests in Syria, but recent developments already point to a win for Ankara.
This bonus episode of Middle East Focus features an excerpt from a recent MEI Virtual Briefing recorded on January 20. Director of Communications Zeina Al-Shaib is joined by MEI Affiliate Fatima Abo Alasrar and Associate Fellow F. Gregory Gause III to discuss the dramatically changing dynamics in Yemen’s civil war. Last month, Yemen emerged as a focal point of rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Southern Transitional Council, a UAE-backed southern separatist movement, has disbanded in recent weeks, following fierce clashes with Saudi-backed forces. In the conversation, Alasrar and Gause analyze the political, security, and socio-economic shifts affecting Yemen’s internal dynamics and what all this means for regional stability.
The Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict: A strategic concern for the US
Pakistan’s relationship with the Afghan Taliban has shifted from open sponsorship in the 1990s to a silent partnership following 2001 to alienation and belligerence since 2021. Their current conflict, which comes at great cost to both countries and seems to have no easy military or political resolution, also poses a threat to the stability and prosperity of neighboring states. Although American strategic interests in the region greatly diminished following the United States’ military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the region’s altered political dynamics have prompted a growing American engagement with Pakistan and tentatively with Afghanistan. At the same time, the US has become a factor in how both Islamabad and Kabul have come to form their national security strategies.
Breaking News Brief: Damascus and the Syrian Kurds Come to Blows
MEI Senior Fellow Charles Lister joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to unpack the latest developments in Syria, as a tenuous cease-fire takes hold after several days of intense fighting between the Syrian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Their discussion explores the drivers of the conflict, the prospects for a lasting deal that would integrate the SDF into the Syrian military, as well as the role and perspective of key external actors, including the US, Turkey, and Israel.
Brian sits down with Behnam Taleblu, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, to unpack the ongoing protests in Iran and what this moment reveals about the long struggle between the state and the street. They discuss the regime’s brutal crackdown, the prospect of US intervention, and what both could mean for the future of the Islamic Republic. The episode centers on agency, imagination, and the possibilities facing Iranians at a critical juncture in the country’s history.
What Ankara sees in Riyadh — and why it still needs Abu Dhabi
As the rivalry between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi sharpens in Yemen and beyond, Turkey has begun edging closer to Saudi Arabia, sparking claims that a new regional order is taking shape: a Turkey-Saudi axis backed by a NATO-like defense architecture, implicitly aligned against Israel and the United Arab Emirates. This reading overstates the case.
