Levant

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has thus far enjoyed a fragmented opposition and utilized polarization to cement divisions. However, the introduction of a hyper-presidential system after the 2017 constitutional referendum and Erdoğan’s 2018 election victory have provided the necessary impetus for the opposition parties to form an alliance. This paper charts Turkey’s autocratization under AKP rule, addresses the strategies adopted by its political opposition, and maps out the opportunities and risks they face in the run-up to the June 2023 presidential elections.

As the Turkish Republic enters its centennial year, it seems to be at an inflection point. What has been the impact of the AKP’s rule and how might the opposition change Turkey’s direction if they manage to come to power? In this series of papers, seven prominent Turkish scholars weigh in on these questions, thinking about this from a wide variety of perspectives and focusing on a range of specific fields of policy, explaining how we got to the current juncture and where Turkey might go from here.

Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.

As welcome as recent moves toward Iranian-Gulf détente have been, extensive obstacles continue to stand in the way of a real and sustained relaxation of tensions, cause by what international relations scholars call the “security dilemma.”

Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.

My week of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials and analysts in mid-September has left me groping for a coherent through line in the story about today’s Middle East. It’s the best of times and the worst of times, depending on where one sits.

Technology represents one potentially fruitful area where the I2U2 member states — Israel, India, the U.S. and the UAE — could cooperate together, expand their format to include more countries, deliver tangible results, and avoid agitating other global and regional powers.

Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.

Two years after the signing of the Abraham Accords, progress in developing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors has achieved mixed results, opening up some greater cooperation in the security sphere but failing to change Arab publics’ minds due to the lack of movement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

شهدت مدينة الحسكة شمال شرق سوريا يوم 22 أغسطس الحالي توزيعا لمنشورات وملصقات مناهضة للنفوذ الإيراني في المدينة، حيث ظهرت الملصقات في عدة مناطق حساسة وسط المدينة في المنطقة المعروفة بـ “المربع الأمني” التي تخضع لسيطرة جيش النظام السوري وميليشيات الدفاع الوطني التي أصبحت تخضع لنفوذ إيران.

On Aug. 22, the northeastern Syrian city of al-Hasakah was inundated with leaflets condemning creeping Iranian influence in the area. The printed messages were plastered around several highly sensitive locations in the city center, including the local branch of the Ba’ath Party, the neighborhoods of al-Matar and al-Mahatah, as well as near the Great Mosque and market streets.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine renewed focus on Moscow’s earlier military intervention in Syria, which often became framed as a “testing ground” for the weapons and tactics it now employs against Ukrainian cities. But crucially, the Russian forces backing Assad’s embattled regime also understood the importance of rebuilding the broken Syrian security forces into more effective fighting units.