Levant

China’s recent multi-sectoral engagements in Turkey suggest that the Black Sea region’s significance is on the rise in Beijing, and under President Erdoğan, Turkey has consistently sought its favor and investment.

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

Lebanon is currently facing an unprecedented constitutional crisis that, if left to simmer, will further worsen the country’s numerous predicaments. Three decades after the Ta’if Agreement that ended the 1975-90 war, officials and warlords failed to implement a real reconciliation that could usher in civil order in a country known for its intrinsic vulnerabilities. Although a diverse society, Lebanon has always suffered from inherent political contradictions and currently agonizes over — among other calamities — major constitutional and political crises that, even though they are engulfed by crumbling socio-economic conditions, remain far more threatening than most imagine. How can the Lebanese put an end to such ongoing deterioration? And can Lebanon’s “business-political” class resolve some of the many crises confronting the country?

مدير برنامج لبنان

The viability of Eastern Mediterranean natural gas resources has long been a source of debate for reasons including cost considerations, market demand, and regional geopolitical tensions. The past couple of years have further complicated the debate, introducing new questions about the role of these resources in supporting post-pandemic economic recovery or helping more advanced markets achieve net-zero policies by replacing coal and other fuel sources (a particularly relevant topic of debate given Europe and Asia are key export targets for East Med gas).

It took the Taliban just three and a half months to undermine a 20-year international effort to build a competent Afghan military. The Afghanistan National Army (ANA) collapsed once it was clear the U.S. was pulling out ground troops and ceasing air support operations after two decades of training and sustainment that cost the American taxpayer approximately $83 billion. When required to stand alone, against a Taliban force, the ANA failed unequivocally. Building the ANA as a mirror image of the U.S. military was strategically and operationally flawed. If they are designed to fight like the U.S. but cannot fight in the absence of U.S. forces, they are ineffective. What lessons should we learn from this and how could our approach be different in the future?

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

As we mark 20 years since the 9/11 terror attacks and the subsequent U.S. interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other protracted elements of the ill-fated and ill-conceived “war on terror,” it is easy to overlook other disastrous legacies of U.S. policy in the post-9/11 era. This is particularly true in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where Washington’s response to 9/11 effectively marked the beginning of the long, tortured death of the Middle East Peace Process, and with it hopes for a two-state solution.

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.

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.

The central media apparatus of the Islamic State group is mis-reporting on the activities of its cells in central Syria. Rather than exaggerating their capabilities, something that it is conventionally assumed to be doing all the time, its Central Media Diwan appears either to be deliberately under-playing them, or, less likely, to be unaware of their full extent, possibly due to communication issues.

Just before visiting Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus in late July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave Serbia an unpleasant surprise. He announced that Turkey would lobby to increase the number of countries that recognized independent Kosovo. Erdoğan stated on July 19, “Now 114 countries recognize Kosovo, and we want that number to increase. We hope that this year at the United Nations General Assembly, at the meeting I will have with [U.S. President Joe] Biden, we will discuss this topic again, that we will work together on the recognition of Kosovo.”