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.
Paul Salem, Vice President for Policy and Research at MEI, explains the drivers behind the recent flare-up of the Iran-Saudi feud, how it will impact regional issues including Syria, Yemen, and the fight against ISIS, and what the United States can do to help get diplomacy back on track.
Many used to say that unlike other countries that have an army, Algeria is an army that has a country. As 2016 begins, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika—no mere client of the army—has consolidated his authority and empowered his allies in Africa’s largest nation. However, questions about Algeria’s political and economic stability loom large in the new year.
Egyptian Civil Society in Transition—Reflections on Cairo’s Governance
This essay discusses the various barriers that inhibit local communities in densely populated, poor quarters in Cairo from taking action in order to improve the provision of basic services and the overall conditions in these neighborhoods.
In a Middle East already aflame, a fresh feud between Saudi Arabia and Iran threatens to complicate most every major issue from the Iranian nuclear deal to the Syrian civil war to global oil markets.
We were together in Beirut as part of a group of experts, ambassadors, and possibly even former intelligence officers, representing nations “implicated” in the Syria crisis.
Syria was the subject of our discussions over two days, along with the disastrous situation in the Middle East, both presently and the situation to be expected in the future.
The United States Should Prevent an Egyptian Shift to Russia
Roughly five decades since the Soviet foray into the Middle East vis-à-vis the Czech arms deal with Egypt in September 1955, Russia is reasserting its influence in Egypt. The deal marked the beginning of a brief period that saw Moscow serve as the primary military supplier for a number of regional countries that formed an ‘anti-imperialist front’, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria.
The impact of civic associations on urban governance in Iran may be limited as they do not possess an official capacity in a highly bureaucratic and centralized system, and have been suspected of advocating a liberal political agenda. Nevertheless, they have, among other things, succeeded in democratizing the urban agenda.
“Order” in “Disorder”: An Alternative Understanding of Violence and Criminality in Karachi
This essay argues that the conversation about Karachi needs to shift from viewing high levels of criminality as spawning ungoverned urban pockets to understanding how criminality, violence, and informality are shaping its political order. In this order, the state is not a passive player; it bestows and withdraws patronage to non-state actors in pursuing its larger interests. It purposely deregulates public services for some parts of the city and sections of the population. It also possesses the sovereign power to legitimize certain practices and actors, while delegitimizing others. The relationships between state and non-state actors are not driven solely by corruption. They are deeply political in nature, and have evolved over the years in the political, historical, institutional, and economic contexts of Karachi.
U.S. Forces in Sinai Ripe Pickings for Islamic State
Despite its preferences, the United States is quietly increasing and modifying its military deployment in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in response to the growing threat posed by ISIS.
America has long served as a powerful role model for the world, based largely on its commitment to its core principles of freedom, equality, and respect for diversity of opinion and religion. The recent call by Donald Trump to ban all Muslims from entering the United States is an affront to these values, and a threat to America’s domestic tranquility and its standing in the world. In an age where words travel instantaneously across the globe, hate speech can have the same force as actions and policies in shaping opinions abroad. It cannot be ignored.
Protest against Industrial Air Pollution: A Case from Hangzhou City, China
Air pollution has become one of the biggest environment problems in China, causing severe health risks. Residents, especially those living in big cities, are battling air pollution. Their demands for clean air have forced authorities in many Chinese cities to make a decision—shut down the industrial plants responsible for the pollution, or permit them to continue operating to sustain GDP growth. This essay seeks to shed light on how community residents take action to ensure healthy urban habitats through examining the “Warm Home” community’s protest against industrial air pollution in the city of Hangzhou.
On Syrian Talks and Ceasefires: An Open Letter to Secretary Kerry
Mr. Secretary,
No one has worked harder than you to find a way to bring all sides together to stop the Syrian civil war and muster more international action against the Islamic State. But as a former colleague, let me caution that without some major adjustments in its approach to the Syrian peace talks in Vienna, the Obama administration is headed down another dead end.
Filling the Gap or Digging a Void? The Role of NGO-initiated CBOs in Service Delivery in Dhaka, Bangladesh
This essay offers preliminary observations from nine months of fieldwork in Dhaka. It focuses in particular on one organization, a collection of NGO-initiated CBOs across Dhaka—Nogor Bostibashi Unnyan Sangstha (NBUS), or Urban Slum Development Agency—to highlight the complexities of NGO-initiated CBO service provision and encourage debate about how to move forward.
This article was first published in The Hoover Institution’s The Caravan.
Daesh or ISIS does not represent an existential threat to any state except Syria and Iraq. It occupies and controls ungoverned space in the region between Iraq and Syria and in parts of northern Africa; and its self-proclaimed Caliphate has benefited from the seizure of some income producing assets in these areas. Daesh depends on the dynamism of success and expansion, both of which have been in short supply of late.
In 2009 the State Council approved the city’s urban-rural master plan, which includes housing projects that can integrate rural-urban migrants with the urban-registered population, in line with the plan to increase China’s urban population and its domestic consumer market. Minxin Jiayuan (MX) was the first of 21 planned public-rental housing projects in Chongqing to be built. This essay discusses the system of governance and ‘self-management’ that obtains in this complex and others.
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.
