In recent weeks, the Iran-backed Houthis have fired missiles and drones deep into Saudi Arabia, striking high-profile targets, including Riyadh’s airport and Aramco’s headquarters. The attacks follow a rapid Houthi offensive in September to seize key parts of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, which Saudi-backed government forces are now trying to roll back. Fatima Abo Alasrar, an affiliated scholar at MEI and non-resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to unpack the latest phase of the conflict. They discuss what the Houthis want, Riyadh’s calculus and search for allies, and how this campaign ties into Iran’s confrontation with the United States.
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.
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.
Earlier today, double explosions near the Iranian embassy in Beirut killed at least 23, including an Iranian diplomat. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an Islamist group with links to al-Qa`ida, took responsibility for the attack. MEI sat down with its Vice President for Policy and Research, Paul Salem, to discuss the significance of the bombings in Lebanon as well as their regional and global implications.
Tell us about the bombing and the group that claimed responsibility for it.
The rise of the Nidaa Tounes (Call for Tunisia) Party has lifted the hopes of many Tunisians who hold Ennahda, the ruling Islamist party, responsible for the increase in religiously-motivated violence and suspect it of trying to establish a theocracy. Yet a closer look at the platform and rhetoric defining Nidaa Tounes suggests that the self-described “modernist” alternative to the Islamists might not be as inclusive and democratic as its leaders claim, as some of the party’s senior figures advocate the exclusion of Ennahda from politics.
Malaysia and Turkey lie nearly 5,000 miles and seven time zones apart. They have different historical experiences and state structures. The role that religion plays in their public life also differs markedly. Yet Malaysia and Turkey have more in common than is widely acknowledged. Both are newly industrialized, middle-income, predominantly Muslim countries and mid-sized powers in their respective regions. Both are also expected to assume a greater regional and global role in the coming years.
Remarks by National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice
Prepared remarks by National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice at the 67th Annual Middle East Institute Awards Banquet in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, November 14, 2013. (Jump to podcast and photos)
The Egyptian media landscape both before and after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster has been one in which the polemical television personality Tawfik Okasha has thrived. But Okasha, known for his conspiracy theories and strident rhetoric, particularly against the Muslim Brotherhood, has perhaps risen to greater fame and influence recently. With a convergence between anti-Brotherhood positions and Egyptian government policy and public opinion occurring since the mass protests that culminated in Mohamed Morsi’s removal by the military on July 3, Okasha’s views have become more mainstream.
Iran-India relations are far-reaching and multidimensional. However, a variety of issues, including the upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, U.S and Israeli influence over the region, Iran-Israel belligerence, and terrorism all constrain bilateral diplomacy.
The Philippines and Turkey have not fully capitalized on their human resources and strategic assets in order to expand commercial ties and boost cultural exchanges. However, thanks largely to the efforts of a critical mass of Turkish nationals who have formed the backbone of a “constituency” for advancing Philippine-Turkey relations, the tide may be turning. Three recent developments indicate that the groundwork is being laid to pursue a more robust bilateral relationship: 1) the opening of Turkish-owned schools operating both in Manila and in Zamboanga City (southern Philippines); 2) the creation of the Pacific Dialogue Foundation in the Philippines; and 3) the establishment of the Turkish Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines.
Reporting on Egypt since the July 3 ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi has focused on political dimensions and unrest. However, it is the new government’s success—or lack thereof—in meeting the country’s economic challenges that will largely determine whether Egypt returns to stability, just as surely as it was Egypt’s economic woes that underpinned the country’s repudiation of Morsi.
Senior diplomats from the United States, Russia, and the UN failed this week to agree on the details and date for a Geneva II meeting to help resolve the Syrian crisis. UN and Arab League Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had hoped to hold the meeting in late November, but admitted that it might have to be put off until early 2014. Obstacles included disagreement over the participation of Iran and over the role of Syrian president Assad in the process, as well as disunity among the opposition.
Comparative Middle Power Diplomacies: Turkey and Japan
Middle power is an opaque term that involves multiple concepts. Through different conceptualizations of the term, Turkey and Japan are both middle powers. Indeed, widely read textbooks about Turkish foreign policy published around 2000 regard Turkey as a middle power. In the Japanese context, several scholars, including Yonosuke Nagai, Yoshikazu Sakamoto, Nobuya Banba, and Mitsuru Yamamoto, have evaluated the foreign policy of their own country as middle power diplomacy since the late 1970s. Recently, Yoshihide Soeya comprehensively summed up Japanese middle power diplomacy after the 1970s.
Turkey-Singapore Relations: A Manifestation of Turkey’s Growing Interest in SE Asia
The content and scope of Turkish foreign policy has dramatically altered since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. The Asia-Pacific region, which was previously a low priority in Turkey’s foreign policy calculations, is gaining increased space within Turkey’s general strategy and long-term planning, and is seen as vital to the growth of its small to medium sized firms, upon which the wealth of Turkey’s growing middle class is based.
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.
