Western Sahara, a sparsely populated territory on the Atlantic coast of northwest Africa, is the site of one of the continent’s longest-running territorial disputes. The conflict dates to Spain’s withdrawal from the territory in 1975, after which Morocco Algeria, and Mauritania vied for control over the former colony.
Egypt, which is not party to the war on Iran, has become a target as well as an intermediary in the conflict. As a result, the war has affected Egypt’s future calculations, particularly in three major areas: its economy, its security, and its regional alliances.
Algeria and Morocco have long been at odds, but recent diplomatic moves may signal a widening geopolitical split in North Africa. Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Senior Fellow Intissar Fakir to unpack Algeria’s decision to sever diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and Morocco’s warming relations with both the UAE and Israel. They also explore linkages between these diplomatic shifts and the Western Sahara conflict, Moroccan domestic concerns, particularly in light of this week’s elections, as well as broader regional stability.
Moroccans head to the polls on September 23 in a parliamentary election that is meant to formally close the chapter opened during last year’s Gen Z 212 protests. The demonstrations, which erupted almost exactly a year ago, drew attention to the mismatch that exists between Morocco’s economic and geopolitical ambitions, and the stark reality of its lagging domestic development.
When President Xi Jinping arrived in Cairo this week for his first state visit to Egypt in a decade, trade, investment and geopolitics were inevitably high on the agenda. But Xi also made something else unusually prominent: culture.
Brian is joined by Amb. (ret.) Yael Lempert, Vice President for Outreach at MEI, to discuss her career in diplomacy and the importance of US diplomatic efforts abroad. She shares stories from postings across the Middle East in Baghdad, Cairo, Tripoli, Jerusalem, and Amman and examines how her personal and professional experiences shaped her approach to the work. Together, Brian and Yael discuss the realities of life in the Foreign Service, the core tenets of American diplomacy, and why it matters in today’s Middle East.
This summer, brutally hot temperatures, deepening water scarcity, and spiking fertilizer costs have put North Africa’s agricultural sector under intense pressure. Host Alistair Taylor is joined by Mohammed Mahmoud, CEO and founder of the Climate and Water Initiative and lead for Middle East Climate and Water Policy at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health, to unpack the region’s food and water security challenges. Drawing on Mahmoud’s new report card on agricultural sustainability in North Africa, they explore the diverging picture across the region, why some countries have weathered the strain better than others, and what it will take to build a more resilient and secure food system.
Within weeks of the Strait of Hormuz closure, fertilizer prices began to rise sharply. Tanker traffic through the strait, which handles one-third of the global fertilizer trade, fell by 90%. Across North Africa the impacts are multiplying, and this is having ripple effects for the Sahel in the south, adding to food price inflation, migration pressures, and the erosion of state legitimacy. The situation underscores how food security is a governance issue compounded by geopolitical crisis.
While Egypt is not in the direct line of fire in the US-Israeli war with Iran, its economy is acutely vulnerable to the conflict. In addition to the rising energy prices and shortages that have affected much of the world, it also struggled with issues that reflected its economy’s own underlying structural vulnerabilities.
The Abraham Accords have represented a remarkable shift in U.S. Middle East policy. They reframed Arab-Israeli normalization as a result of shared interests – within the Middle East and directly with the US, rather than as a byproduct of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Signed in September 2020, on the last leg of the first Trump administration, the Accords brokered by Washington normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, followed by framework agreements with Morocco and Sudan. From the American perspective, the Accords were intended to break decades of diplomatic stagnation in the Middle East in order to establish a regional framework aligned with American strategic objectives.
Thousands of Tunisians marched in the capital last week against what they called ‘injustice and repression,’ accusing President Kais Saied of cementing one-man rule through the police and judiciary. The protest is part of a wider wave of unrest—journalists, NGOs, fractured political parties, doctors, bankers, and transport workers all say Saied has turned the country into an open-air prison and demand relief from Tunisia’s deepening political and economic crisis.
On October 31, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution centering Morocco’s autonomy plan as the basis for resolving the Western Sahara conflict. The UN vote and comments from United States Special Envoy Steve Witkoff suggest President Donald Trump wants another headline foreign policy “peacemaking” win. But the opportunity for the Trump administration is bigger than just resolving the Western Sahara issue. It could unlock an opportunity for Morocco-Algeria reconciliation that could integrate the wider Maghreb economy, reduce migration into Europe, expand energy cooperation, and enable stronger Sahel counter-terrorism coordination.
US President Donald Trump started off his week by flying to Israel and Egypt to mark the Gaza cease-fire and release of the last remaining Israeli hostages. But as these positive developments unfolded in the Middle East, the Trump administration’s overall agenda remained weighed down on other fronts.
Hundreds of young Moroccans are protesting across 11 cities since September 27 under the banner “GenZ 212.” The central trigger behind the demonstrations has been a deep popular frustration with Morocco’s persistent inability to deliver on its development plans and promises. This sort of broad disaffection will be challenging for the government to address quickly and credibly.
In this episode of Middle East Focus, hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Senior Fellow Mirette F. Mabrouk to unpack the growing tensions over the recently inaugurated Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Nile.