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Randa Slim is a non-resident fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced and International Studies (SAIS) Foreign Policy Institute and was formerly director of the Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program at the Middle East Institute. A former vice president of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, Slim has been a senior program advisor at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a guest scholar at the United States Institute of Peace, a program director at Resolve, Inc, and a program officer at the Kettering Foundation. A long-term practitioner of Track II dialogue and peace-building processes in the Middle East and Central Asia, she is the author of several studies, book chapters, and articles on conflict management, post-conflict peace-building, and Middle East politics.
So far, disproportionate violence by security forces against the civilian protesters has led to the exact opposite of what they sought to achieve, causing protesters’ numbers to swell.
Fourteen MEI scholars weigh in on the key Middle East policy issues and developments for the year ahead.
While yesterday’s vote in the Iraqi Council of Representatives on a decision to remove U.S. forces is not legally binding, it creates dynamics inside the U.S. and Iraq that make a U.S. decision to remove its forces all but inevitable.
Seven MEI experts weigh in with their views on what the killing of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani means for the region
The killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, was a major and unexpected blow to the Iranian leadership. It punctured the aura of invincibility and the hubris that have characterized Soleimani and his colleagues’ behavior.
Twelve MEI scholars run down the major developments in the Middle East in 2019.
The protestors are demanding a radical change of the ethno-sectarian power-sharing system put in place after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Although 350 Iraqis have died to date and close to 16,000 have been wounded, protesters are not going home. Yet, most of the ruling clique is still rejecting the idea of forcing the prime minister to resign.
In Lebanon, the protests have entered their second month with contending parties stuck in a stalemate that is not hurting enough to incentivize concessions from any party. Ruling elites are at a loss what to do.
Only one leader has the moral standing and mass appeal to be able to move Iraq out of the deadly stalemate in which it now finds itself and which may degenerate into more violence and chaos if the status quo is not upended: Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
It remains to be seen how resilient the protest movement is and how long it can remain mobilized for, especially if political leaders refuse to change their stance.
For now, both Najaf and Tehran seemed to have a convergence of interests on preserving the post-2003 political order.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Randa Slim, Alex Vatanka, and Gonul Tol.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Randa Slim, Gerald Feierstein, Alex Vatanka, Robert S. Ford, and Michael Sexton.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Fatima Abo Alasrar, Gonul Tol, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Randa Slim, and Michael Sexton and Eliza Campbell.
