Geopolitical influence over trade increasingly rests on controlling the systems that make them work. The Middle East illustrates the stakes. US ports, cable corridors, cloud facilities, artificial intelligence (AI) investments, and maritime routes connect regional economies to global commerce while exposing them to external decisions and disruptions. For the United States, the challenge is to translate technological advantage into resilient networks rather than rely on centrality that can itself become a source of vulnerability and coercion.
Bonus Episode: Previewing Israel’s First Post-October 7 Election
Israel is preparing to hold what may be its most consequential election in decades. On October 27, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face his first electoral test since October 7, 2023. In this bonus episode of Middle East Focus, we present the audio from a recent MEI webinar, hosted in Israel on the eve of the vote. Senior Fellow Natan Sachs is joined by Dr. Shira Efron, Distinguished Chair for Israel Policy and senior fellow at the RAND Corporation, and Neri Zilber, veteran journalist and Financial Times correspondent. They explore what’s at stake in this historic election and how different outcomes could reshape Israel’s domestic politics and the wider region.
Israel Was Built on Hope. This Election May Be Our Last Chance to Save It
Israel’s national anthem, Hatikva, means “the hope.” Israel is not just another country, but the culmination of a 2,000-year-old dream of national redemption. The rebirth of the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland, just three years after the Holocaust, was a miraculous triumph of hope over all odds.
Today, that hope has been shattered and the elections on October 27 have become the most consequential in Israel’s history.
Since 1967, Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been a contested feature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ultimate disposition of the settlements and ongoing activity related to their growth have repeatedly defied agreement in negotiations over a resolution to the conflict.
The Houthis are a political-military faction and Zaydi religious movement founded in northwestern Yemen in the 1980s. A key member of Iran’s Axis of Resistance with links to other militant organizations in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, the group has continued to pose a threat to Western interests on a global scale.
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a proposed multinational infrastructure initiative aimed at upgrading connectivity between the three regions through integrated trade, energy, and digital networks. Announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, IMEC is envisioned partially as a counterweight to China’s international infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
After a decade of post-Arab Spring isolation, Turkey’s leaders have recognized that their ambition to position the country as an agenda-setter on the world stage requires active engagement in all directions. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consolidation of executive authority has centralized foreign policy decision-making and tied it to his domestic political priorities, transforming the country’s revisionist approach to one shaped primarily by personal and pragmatic interests.
MEI Senior Fellow Brian Katulis engages friends, colleagues, and policy experts in casual conversations on the most important happenings in the Middle East.
While much of the focus on Russia’s foreign policy toward the MENA region is on Syria and Libya, the dire situation in Gaza is another area where Moscow seeks to play a growing role. From Putin’s perspective, Moscow must involve itself in the Palestinian cause in order to further facilitate Russia’s “return” to the region. In practice, this has entailed Moscow and Hamas improving their relations, underscored by numerous visits and communications between high-ranking Russian government officials and Hamas representatives in recent years.
Continuity and Change in US Policies towards the Caspian Region
The U.S. government agenda for Central Asia and the South Caucasus has regularly included a multitude of goals. Whereas in the 1990s, U.S. policy focused on state building, economic development, WMD elimination, and democracy promotion, in the 2000s, counterterrorism rose to the forefront of the U.S. agenda.
Five years on, has the Arab coalition achieved its objectives in Yemen?
On March 26, 2015, the former Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir, announced the beginning of a Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen to curtail Iran’s influence in the country, reinstate the regime of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in Sanaa, and deter the Iranian-backed Houthi threat. Five years on, however, the objectives of Operation Decisive Storm are far from realized, and the situation on the ground is as volatile as ever.
Algeria’s Hirak: A political opportunity in COVID-19?
As Hirak’s primary repertoire of contention has been biweekly protests in key cities, some worry that the COVID-19 lockdown is tolling the movement’s death knell. However, Hirak’s intellectual leaders have long called for supplemental tactics, noting that despite being among the most significant social, political, and cultural phenomena in modern Algerian history, protests alone may no longer be as effective as they once were in extracting meaningful concessions from the regime. Thus, as ill-timed and worrying as this feels for many of the Hirak faithful, the global health crisis may come as a significant political opportunity for the movement.
Whither the MFO? The US presence in Sinai has seen its best days
The Sinai-based Multinational Force & Observers (MFO) will soon celebrate its 41st anniversary. Like most of what the MFO does, recognition will be low key and understated. The MFO has always operated under the radar, but this may soon be changing.
Saudi Arabia’s oil price war could reshape the industry
Saudi Arabia declared a price war against Russia in early March to prove a point: that it can offer an unprecedented supply of 12.3 million barrels per day (bpd), way above the record 11 million bpd it reached in November 2018, and expand its market share at the expense of Moscow. As the coronavirus pandemic brings the world to a standstill, the question is how long it can sustain this war.
As with the rest of the world, COVID-19 is likely to wreak havoc across the Black Sea region in a very short period of time. With the outbreak projected to peak in April or May – and with some predicting the pandemic will last two years and infect 60 to 70 percent of the global population – it is difficult to fathom the potential consequences for this region.
COVID-19 is undoubtedly the biggest health crisis in our lifetime. Pundits around the world, but also a long list of policymakers from Washington to Abu Dhabi to Beijing, wonder about the long-term implications of this deadly pandemic. While there is plenty of speculation about how this crisis might re-balance global power dynamics, other foreign policy implications are more immediately tangible. In the case of the Middle East, the swift support shown by the UAE towards Iran, the most affected country in the region, has been refreshing.
How the coronavirus exposed Israeli occupation's green line
Less than a year after the U.S. State Department removed the term “occupation” from its 2019 human rights report, and just a few weeks after it stopped referring to the residents of East Jerusalem as Palestinians, the coronavirus has exposed the reality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories like never before.
Although press coverage may have shifted almost totally to the worsening global pandemic, the conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya are anything but frozen.
A new challenge to countering insurgency and terrorism
In active threat zones, the capacity to launch major operations will likely be constrained for at least several months once the virus begins its inevitable surge.
Since the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan a hundred years ago, many have argued at one point or another that the country is on the brink of political or economic instability. It seems increasingly true these days, however. The unexpected shock of the COVID-19 pandemic adds even more pressure to the already floundering economy.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
