Rebecca Anne Proctor

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Birol Baskan, Eran Etzion, Alex Vatanka, and Marvin G. Weinbaum provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including recent regional summits in Mecca to discuss Iran and the Qatar crisis, Benjamin Netanyahu’s gambit to retain power in Israel, and escalating hostilities between the Pakistani military and the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement.

Sometime in June the UN Security Council will vote to approve another six-month renewal of the mandate of the 1000-strong UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) deployed in the Golan Heights. For more than four decades, the UN Security Council has unanimously renewed the mission’s mandate to maintain the ceasefire between Israel and Syria, but this will be the first time it has come up for a vote since President Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the area of the Golan Heights on March 25th.

Shamila Chaudhary, Michael Kugelman, and Marvin Weinbaum join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the political situation in Afghanistan following the expiration of President Ashraf Ghani’s term in office, presidential elections in September, the state of US-Taliban talks and the intra-Afghan dialogue.

The launch of General Khalifa Hifter’s campaign to retake Tripoli in April has intensified Libya’s political upheaval and created the conditions for a potential resurgence of ISIS. The onset of the Libyan civil war in mid-2014 gave rise to a power vacuum that enabled the group to establish an initial presence in Libya, and while ISIS was eventually driven out at the end of 2016, the current political instability could give it an opportunity to regroup and re-establish itself — with major ramifications for the country and the broader region.

As fighting rages across the last opposition-held province of Idlib, the war in Syria has reached its brutal endgame. The Syrian army’s offensive, launched in early May, will not be quick, but rather marks the start of what will likely be a prolonged, violent, and ultimately costly campaign. If the first few weeks of the operation are anything to go by, resistance will be fierce — fiercer than initially expected — and as the world’s attention shifts toward Idlib, the stakes are now higher than ever.

Our current Arab World is suffering from a “future deficit,” in that ambitious dreams for an alternative and profoundly better future have been shoved aside in favor of the short-term goals of maintaining stability and security, and avoiding civil war or state collapse—all worthy, but not transformative long-term objectives in themselves.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, contributors Nabil Fahmy, Guney Yildiz, Paul Scham, and Elizabeth Dent provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the state of US-Iran tensions, Turkish-Russian disagreement on Idlib, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s apparent inability to meet the deadline to form a government, and Iraq’s proposal to take custody of captured ISIS fighters awaiting trial.

Political and economic transitions are seldom, if ever, compartmentalized processes, insulated from regional and global influences. On the contrary, they are often informed and shaped by exogenous forces and the policies of external actors, including states and international organizations. How can external actors develop interventions that are more likely to be well received and thus support transitions to democracy?

MEI’s Randa Slim and Paul Salem join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the Institute’s conflict resolution program and how Track II diplomacy—or unofficial meetings between adversarial groups—has supplemented state-to-state diplomacy and become a transformative experience for many of its participants.

Over the past few months, an awkward courtship has been going on between Iraq and its two most polarizing neighbors, as Tehran and Riyadh attempt to convince Baghdad of the merits of their respective orbits. While both sides make compelling points, the fact is that Iraq is exceedingly happy to occupy the middle ground, geopolitically and economically, between the two regional powers.

Approximately 10,000-20,000 Afghan men, mostly from the Hazara ethnic group, have fought in Syria in support of the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Organized by Iran and led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other affiliated groups, they have gathered under the banner of the so-called “Fatemiyoun” Division. This is the story of one of those men, Mohammed Jalil Dinsta, told through selections from his writings, alongside relevant analysis.

As Turkey aims to expand its influence throughout the Sunni Muslim world, President Erdoğan is playing up the historic ties and strategic partnership between Turkey and Pakistan. It remains to be seen, however, if this alliance will evolve beyond mere symbolism.