Shahmahmood Miakhel

The selection of the interim Afghan government led by Mullah Hasan Akhund has the unmistakable stamp of Pakistan’s security establishment. Islamabad has always wanted the international community to believe that the Taliban are a nationalistic Pashtun force that has a legitimate claim to rule the country, but the manner in which the new government has been announced is a testament to the fact that the Taliban are also a proxy force for Pakistan

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.

Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.

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.