Research & Commentary Results

Iran’s attempts to achieve cyber dominance both within the MENA region and around the world have been well documented, particularly its efforts to spread pro-Iranian messaging and “tell Iran’s story.” This strategy is shaped by the challenging international context facing Tehran, which is suffering economically under U.S. sanctions and largely constrained from purchasing weapons under a recently expired U.N. arms embargo.

Ongoing conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Yemen are expected to continue to destabilize the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in 2021. However, technology will likely add another layer of complexity to these conflicts and reshape the region throughout the 2020s. When the Arab Spring began a decade ago, the biggest challenge facing long-standing Arab autocrats was grappling with the power of social media and the rise of online political opposition by tech-savvy millennial activists. In the 2020s, however, regional governments are now facing a new set of emerging technologies that will shape not only domestic politics but also regional geopolitical dynamics. These advancing technologies include: drone, cyber, and space technologies.

باحث ومدير برنامج الفضاء الإلكتروني بمعهد الشرق الأوسط

One underrecognized aspect of Houthi operations that the recent FTO designation brings under scrutiny is their online presence. Ansar Allah maintains accounts on YouTube and Twitter, with 26,300 followers and 16,800 followers respectively. It also has an active group with over 22,000 participants on Telegram, an instant messaging service legally headquartered in London with servers in Dubai. The group even has its own official website.

The Biden administration will face a number of major challenges in the Middle East over the next four years, from great power competition and climate change to cybersecurity and refugees and migration. But what realistically can it achieve in that time on the policy front? To better understand what’s possible, we asked 10 experts from across MEI to weigh in with their thoughts.

Keeping up with and making sense of the flood of information about the COVID-19 pandemic is a challenge. It doesn’t help that much of that information is misleading, often by design. The “infodemic” surrounding the coronavirus, described as such by the World Health Organization (WHO) as early as February 2020, “spreads faster and more easily than the virus” itself. A recent joint statement by WHO, UN, UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO, UNAIDS, ITU, UN Global Pulse, and IFRC noted grave consequences. It is “undermining the public health response and advancing alternative agendas of groups [and] individuals,” in ways that “cost lives … and threaten long-term prospects for advancing democracy, human rights, and social cohesion.”

Rapid and unprecedented transformation in the Middle East, whether political, social, or technological, is forcing governments to reckon with enormous changes. Many governments are responding by attempting to pursue two contradictory paths forward — cyber sovereignty and digital transformation — and they might end up not achieving either.

Richard A. Clarke, the first US “Cyber Czar”, joins guest host Patrick Howell O’Neill, cybersecurity senior editor for MIT Technology Review, to discuss the state of defensive and offensive cyber capabilities across the Middle East, how it is impacting conflicts in the region, and steps the incoming Biden administration can take to reinvigorate US cyber programs.

Iran’s internet shutdown last year was an exercise of its digital power that had been years in the making. Since 2013, the Iranian government has invested heavily in developing its domestic internet known as the National Information Network (NIN). With critical internet infrastructure under its control, the Iranian government can isolate its citizens from the global internet by filtering content, restricting communications, and controlling which platforms they can use.

It’s difficult to look at the Middle East and consider its future optimistically. Much of the analysis of the region centers on crisis and collapse. There is plenty of both, fueled by wars and civil conflicts, poverty, extremism, and more. Given the human toll, focusing on all this is natural. It is also necessary if solutions to deeply rooted problems are ever to be developed, leading to a better future.A related risk is becoming blinded to “weak signals” — early indicators of what could become features of potential alternative futures. Weak signals are developments that are emerging outside the dominant norms and trends of today. In the Middle East, probably the most dominant norm is the inability of governments throughout the region to provide security and prosperity for their citizens. The COVID-19 pandemic is making this even more apparent, and markedly worse. It is not just the obvious failed states — as Steven Cook recently observed, “sometimes state failure is a more chronic condition.” But in the midst of this — and fueled by it — there is evidence of activities at the local level to create what is missing. Could these be signals of a future different than the one it is so easy to expect for the region?

This new white paper distills the findings of the Middle East Institute panel “State of Play for Middle East Cybersecurity Leaders,” a discussion held in September 2020 about the unique threats, best practices, and corporate landscape in the Middle East and North Africa region.

The (UAE is laying the groundwork for regional supremacy in AI. By fostering a web of novel institutions and partnerships, the Gulf state aims to augment its capacity to execute lofty AI policy initiatives. Further signaling its resolve, Abu Dhabi is lavishing the nascent sector with a host of incentives: financial privileges, office space, and even health care coverage. The embrace of AI comes as the UAE is cultivating emerging technologies as a means of boosting and diversifying its rentier economy, as well as signaling its innovation capacity and viability as a global trade powerhouse.

Tech platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google have come to play a central role in questions of free speech, governance, and human rights in the Middle East. In particular, the question of content moderation — how platforms create and enforce policies which determine what kinds of user-generated content are and are not permissible on their services — has become a focal point of these discussions.

Over the past decade, Iran has made a concerted push to expand its cyber capabilities, an effort in which the IRGC has played a central role. Given the IRGC’s expansive and growing power, scholars, analysts, and many Iran watchers have long thought that at some point it could take over control in Iran, replacing the theocratic government with a military one. As Iran approaches an inflection point over the issue of succession after Ayatollah Khamenei, that day could be coming soon, and the IRGC is well placed to bring about such a transition given the hybrid mix of physical and cyber capabilities that it has developed and perfected over recent decades.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Maxim A. Suchkov, Ibrahim Jalal, Eliza Campbell, Alex Vatanka, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.