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Sara Sadek is an affiliated researcher and coordinator at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo. She obtained an MA in Refugee Studies from the University of East London. Since 2005, she has worked on various research projects on Iraqi and Sudanese communities in Egypt, contributing to a report on Iraqis in Egypt and recently producing a paper on challenges of integration for Iraqis in Arab states for the Henry L. Stimson Center’s forthcoming volume Transnational Challenges.
Maati Monjib and Rachid Aourraz join guest host Intissar Fakir to discuss the results of Morocco’s Sept. 8 general elections, their context and why they are important, and what they signal about political trends in the country moving forward.
Ross Harrison, Paul Salem, and Randa Slim join host Alistair Taylor to reflect on 9/11’s impact on US policy in the Middle East over the past 20 years and how its legacy has been viewed by the region.
Twenty years ago, on September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacked New York and Washington, killing nearly 3,000 people. The terrorist attacks and their aftermath transformed U.S. policy, giving rise to the war on terror and the military intervention in Afghanistan. On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, scholars and Advisory Council members of MEI’s Countering Terrorism and Extremism Program offer their reflections.
With Iran, American policymakers have often chased phantoms in search of solutions to problems they did not understand. This futile shadow-chase continues when “experts” argue that the U.S. should somehow encourage the break-up of Iran on ethnic or linguistic lines. This idea is simply wrong.
بعد عشرين عامًا من الحادي عشر من سبتمبر: حانت لحظة المراجعة الوطنية
إن انسحاب العسكريين والدبلوماسيين الأمريكيين من أفغانستان خلال الأسابيع الماضية، مصحوبًا بنزوح جماعي مستميت للأفغان المرتعبين، إنما يُعجِّل بلحظة المراجعة على المستوى الوطني. إذ تمتلئ المنشورات الجديدة والتعليقات الصحفية ووسائل التواصل الاجتماعي بإشارات تعيد قراءة وتحليل الماضي – كالقصص الشخصية وكذا التحليلات السياسية – والتي تسعى إلى شرح السياق الممتد لمدة 20 عامًا مرت منذ اللحظة التي ضربت فيها الطائرات المخطوفة أبراج مركز التجارة العالمي والبنتاغون حتى اليوم. والكثير منها يسعى إلى وضع سجل للأداء يحدد مدى المكاسب والخسائر.
Mega-projects and Small Enterprises: Understanding Saudi Arabian Banks’ Role in Economic Development
Vision 2030 promises a transformation of Saudi Arabia’s economy, and the financial sector will be crucial to achieving this. The sector will facilitate private investment focusing on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financing, fund mega-projects, and be a driver for diversifying away from oil. As a result, banks’ role must go from being distributive and largely passive to developmental and active. This article will highlight how the role of the Saudi banking sector has been transformed in the last five years and how its composition is changing to cope.
The Taliban’s post-battle narratives on women’s rights and governance
Unanticipated swiftness of victory can be potentially befuddling, even for the victor. After the Taliban’s dramatic and largely bloodless capture of power, their leadership has struggled to finalize the structure of a government that will rule the country. The group, however, has attempted to use the interregnum period to indulge in a rebranding exercise. Statements issued by its spokespersons in Kabul as well as in Doha indicate that the group does not wish to take revenge on the “collaborators” of the fallen government. Instead, it wishes to form an “inclusive” government, which although it will be governed by sharia, may still have role for former government servants and women. However, this could only be a feeble attempt at building a narrative, which the group will find hard to sustain, even in the short term.
Baghdad, Beirut, and the politics of Lebanon’s power crisis
On July 24, Beirut and Baghdad signed a governmental framework agreement under which Iraq pledged 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil to Lebanon over a full year.
Lebanon’s power crisis is on the agenda, as Arab Gas Pipeline quartet prepares to meet in Amman
These developments come against the backdrop of multiple U.S. hints that Washington is potentially willing to circumvent sanctioning the participating parties under the Caesar Act.
Russia and the digital Middle East: An old game made new?
For over a decade, Russia’s immediate neighborhood has been subject to the vagaries of the Kremlin’s cyber operations. Russia has effectively used cyberspace to advance its adversarial goals, be it through combining cyberattacks with military action during its war with Georgia, or targeting essential power grids in Ukraine. Advancing its cyber capabilities has enabled Russia to reassert its status as a superpower and hit targets anywhere in the world. In recent years, as the use of social media grew, the information war in cyberspace became the Kremlin’s primary tool for discrediting its perceived archenemy: “The West.” The Middle East, with its increasing dependence on social media for news, has also fallen prey to Moscow’s disinformation campaigns. Russia’s main disinformation narratives in the region stem from its Soviet-inherited superpower complex and its broader strategic imperatives on the international stage.
Elisabeth Kendall and Nadwa al-Dawsari join Charles Lister to discuss Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and its place in Yemen’s persistent internal conflict.
