Ragui Assaad

The punishing Israeli response to the Hamas and Hezbollah attacks of October 7 and 8 has devastated Gaza and Lebanon, decimated Hamas and Hezbollah, contributed to the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, and dealt the most serious blow to Iran’s axis of influence in many decades.

The work of the Syria Strategy Project and the considerable policy recommendations found in this report present a realistic and holistic vision for Syria’s recovery and reintegration into the international system.

While most media attention was focused on its global economic policy moves, the Trump administration continued to keep the Middle East high on its agenda this past week, with the president sending a letter to Iran’s supreme leader and his team directly engaging with the Palestinian group Hamas. This continued engagement on the region’s top two strategic questions, Iran and Arab-Israel affairs, contrasted with America’s hands-off approach to Syria, which saw some troubling violence.

United States-Saudi diplomacy is increasingly seeming to take on a transactional flavor, especially with regards to the Saudi mining industry.

Syria’s national dialogue, held in Damascus at the end of February, was intended to chart the country’s future, one that would have been unthinkable just three months earlier. However, the process and outcomes of the dialogue were flawed, left critical questions unanswered, and raised new concerns.

President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress on March 4 doubled down on his disruptive and contentious domestic policy agenda. Foreign policy, including Trump’s approach to the Middle East, was mostly an afterthought. Though he said little about Middle East policy in his speech, Trump’s team is taking an irregular approach on the twin issues of Israel-Arab ties and Iran that may not produce the stability and prosperity it seeks.

In a historic call last week, Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed Kurdish militant leader, asked fighters with his Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) to lay down their arms. The announcement is part of recently launched talks between Öcalan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s nationalist coalition. Ending a 40-year war that left 40,000 people dead is something to be celebrated. But consider why the PKK emerged in the first place and optimism quickly fades. 

Why, then, does Öcalan think it is time for the PKK to lay down its arms?

Ibrahim Dalalsha, founder and director of Horizon Center for Political Studies and Media Outreach, and Shira Efron, research director at the Israel Policy Forum, join host Brian Katulis to discuss policy developments in the devastating war between Israel and Hamas, and how Israelis and Palestinians can work together toward a peaceful resolution of conflict.

The Maximal Miniatures exhibition, a curated collection on display at MEI’s gallery until May 23, 2025, is interested in the ways in which contemporary artists have reinvented the Persian miniature genre with new questions in mind.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sought to position Turkey as an energy hub, connecting gas producers to its east and south and markets to the west. Turkey’s geographical position and infrastructure give it an advantage. But becoming an energy center also requires Ankara to dust off a long-abandoned foreign policy approach: “zero problems with neighbors” and the West. Amid changing regional dynamics, Ankara sees an opportunity to achieve that and revive its plans to become an energy hub.