This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Randa Slim, Alex Vatanka, and Gonul Tol.
Randa Slim, director of MEI’s Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues initiative, and MEI Senior Fellow Alex Vatanka join guest host Jerry Feierstein to discuss recent regional developments that may be early indicators of an emerging round of diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran, and what renewed talks might be able to achieve.
Over the past few weeks, my colleagues at MEI have debated whether the U.S. should stay in Syria or leave. Here I’d make a different argument: that it doesn’t really matter. The president has already made the decision to leave, and while his aides may have been able to slow roll the troop drawdown, the reality is that Donald Trump has made it clear the U.S. will not disburse any additional resources. Even within the 2020 Democratic field, not a single candidate has advocated increasing resources.
Unlike most other goods, the inflation-adjusted prices of oil and oil derivatives actually became cheaper in the years after the Syrian uprising and the loss of most of the country’s oil fields. Iran stepped in to fill the gap by shipping oil by sea through the Suez Canal. In recent months, however, these shipments seem to have ground to a halt, crippling regime-controlled areas. This paper examines several competing explanations for the slowdown in Iranian oil shipments, explores a range of possible responses for the Assad regime, and takes a closer look at the implications for the regime, its allies, and regular Syrians.
Iran and North Korea both get a great deal of attention from the international community — for all the wrong reasons. Yet while U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un have met several times now, shaking hands, smiling, and posing for photos, Trump has not once met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani or other senior Iranian officials. What accounts for this difference?
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Randa Slim, Gerald Feierstein, Alex Vatanka, Robert S. Ford, and Michael Sexton.
Israel has reportedly expanded its operations against Iran in the Middle East. In July, Israeli and foreign media attributed airstrikes on Iranian targets near Baghdad to Israel. Last week, U.S. officials confirmed that Israel was responsible for the attacks, which mark the first such air raids on Iraq since 1981, when Tel Aviv destroyed Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor.
On Aug. 12, an explosion took place inside an ammunition warehouse in the al-Saqr military base in southern Baghdad, triggering hundreds of mortars and rockets to fire off in all directions throughout urban, populated areas. One person was killed and 29 wounded, as munitions and debris scattered as far as 5 kilometers away.
While some changes may be in the offing, for now most signs suggest that regional leaders should expect neither new opportunities, nor new challenges, but more likely a broad continuity of existing EU policy toward the region.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Arif Rafiq, Ibrahim Jalal, Michael Sexton and Eliza Campbell, and Alex Vatanka.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Fatima Abo Alasrar, Gonul Tol, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Randa Slim, and Michael Sexton and Eliza Campbell.
Revolutionary Guards came to Mehdi Rajabian’s door on October 5, 2013. His crime? Running a music production company — Barg Music — that the Iranian government deemed offensive to Islam and the regime. Barg Music worked with restricted artists in Iran, particularly women, who have been legally forbidden from performing solo since the Iranian Revolution.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region including the Turkish-U.S. crisis meeting in Ankara on Syria, the resumption of U.S.-Taliban negotiations, Trump’s creation of a new “dovish” line on Iran, a rise in Egypt’s poverty levels, Sudan’s democratic transition, the easing of female guardianship rules in Saudi Arabia, and the end of the ceasefire in Idlib, featuring Charles Lister, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Paul Salem, W. Robert Pearson, Mirette F. Mabrouk, Thomas W. Lippman, and Robert S. Ford.
The UAE is reducing its military presence in Yemen and redeploying its forces. This news has spread rapidly, prompting many questions about what it could mean for the continuation or possible conclusion of the war in Yemen. However, the move will not affect the whole country equally.
The fifth generation of mobile phone networks (5G) is poised to become a key enabler of the digitalization of economies and societies. Digital transformation is at the heart of GCC nations’ ambitions to accelerate economic diversification, deliver public services more effectively and efficiently, and promote sustainable growth. GCC ambitions to accelerate the large-scale deployment of 5G dovetail with those of China’s hi-tech giant Huawei, which is competing for market share in infrastructure and smartphones. However, the US push to stymie Huawei’s efforts to expand the reach of its networking technologies has emerged as a potential stumbling block to more extensive ties between that company and GCC wireless carriers and customers.