Outlook for Sustainable Agriculture in North Africa: Report Card Assessment
This report assesses the future sustainability of agriculture across North Africa using a multidimensional approach that considers the dynamics of water, climate, land, and economics. To enable this assessment of sustainable agriculture across the region, the author evaluates water resources reliability, water use efficiency, agricultural land sustainability, and the food sector economy for Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania, and provides recommendations for action.
Unconditional surrender of an adversary is possible only if the victor conducts unconditional war, which the American public clearly was not prepared for in the conflict with Iran. Ending this conflict was always going to entail some compromises. The U.S.-Iran MOU is being oversold by virtually everyone. The tangible parts of it are a ceasefire, sanctions relief for Iran and the reopening of Hormuz. Everything else in the agreement is conditioned to good faith negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
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.
This backgrounder provides an overview of how the Abraham Accords came about, the US interests involved, their economic and strategic consequences, and the prospects for further enlargement going forward.
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.
As the Western Sahara conflict reaches its fifth decade, the territorial dispute remains unresolved and largely unknown. MEI’s Intissar Fakir unpacks the Western Sahara’s complex history and the rival claims by Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. She examines recent developments, such as President Trump’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory and the collapse of a 30-year cease-fire, as well as the core questions that remain unanswered after half a century.
Podcasts
Middle East Focus
MEI’s flagship weekly podcast on US foreign policy and contemporary political and social issues in the Middle East.
MEI Senior Fellow Brian Katulis engages friends, colleagues, and policy experts in casual conversations on the most important happenings in the Middle East.
Trump’s Syria decision was essentially correct. Here’s how he can make the most of it.
President Trump’s Dec. 23 tweet promising a “slow and highly coordinated” withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria may ease the gnashing of teeth among officials and analysts in Washington, but it won’t end the criticism of his decision. That is precisely why the president should view the hullabaloo that erupted after he announced the Syrian pullout as an opportunity to take a number of steps to make the most of his essentially correct, but widely unpopular, move.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, there’s more than just tea brewing in the teahouse
Teahouses are at the heart of Kurdistan’s culture and are linked to the Kurdish collective memory of struggle and oppression, making them a central part of contesting narratives about progress, change, and tradition.
As Syria looks to rebuild, sanctions remain a major barrier to trade and investment
As the conflict in Syria concludes, the next phase will center on rebuilding and will require hundreds of billions of dollars in investment. For now though, sanctions imposed by the U.S., U.K., and EU block money from flowing in.
October going on December: Voters are still waiting for results in Afghan elections
While four million Afghans bravely defied Taliban threats to cast their ballots in parliamentary elections in October, issues with the voting process and the two-month delay in announcing the results are causes for concern, especially with four important elections scheduled for next April.
In our final episode of the year, host Alistair Taylor interviews several MEI scholars on the key events that transpired across the Middle East in 2018 including in the Gulf, Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan. Guests include Paul Salem, Gerald Feierstein, Alex Vatanka, Gonul Tol, and Ahmad Majidyar.
Will Turkey attack the US-backed YPG in the eastern Euphrates?
Whether Erdogan will follow through on his threat of military incursion against the YPG in U.S.-protected areas of Syria depends on the reaction of the international community, the Turkish military, and nationalist voters at home.
ISIS’s charm offensive toward al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
A secret letter recently obtained through an inside source sheds light on ISIS’s efforts to persuade an al-Qaeda affiliate to jump ship, abandon its allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahri, and join Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s ranks.
Aisha Al-Sarihi, visiting scholar at AGSIW, Nadim Farajalla, director of the Climate Change and the Environment program at AUB’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, and MEI’s Amal Kandeel join host Alistair Taylor to discuss how climate change is affecting the Middle East and what can be done to address the issue.
While non-Arab powers have taken the lead in the Syrian crisis so far, Damascus will need to restore political, economic, and diplomatic ties with regional Arab states as it moves into the phase of postwar reconstruction and development.
Would Turkey benefit if the US withdraws from Syria?
For Turkey, the best solution to its “U.S. problem” might seem like an American withdrawal from Syria, but such a move could create new and potentially more complicated problems for Ankara.
Syria's Republican Guard: Growth and fragmentation
The Syrian Republican Guard (RG) has served as the backbone of the regime’s fighting forces since protests first broke out across the country in 2011.This report uses publicly available Facebook posts to piece together the history of the five regiments, six brigades, and 46 battalions identified as now belonging to the RG. Featuring an order of battle, command structure, and battalion commander profiles, this report stands as the most comprehensive record of the RG to date.
New OPEC+ deal shows Saudis’ oil-market grip continues to slip
While OPEC and Russia-led non-OPEC members agreed to cut oil production last week by 1.2 million bpd, Riyadh’s ability to control the cartel and global oil prices is waning.
China’s footprint in the Middle East has grown significantly over the past two decades. China’s widening and deepening relations with the region has coincided with a change in the international environment. China’s increasingly extensive diplomatic, commercial and cultural activities in the Middle East has drawn this distant and unfamiliar country into the daily lives of the people of the region to a degree that is unprecedented and likely irreversible. This, then, begs the question: What views do the people of the Middle East hold regarding this rising global power and relative “newcomer” to the region? Drawing on Zogby/University of Maryland and Pew Research Center survey data, this article offers some preliminary observations that address this question.
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.
