Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
The dire state of girls and women in Afghanistan under the Taliban, a tragedy that has featured frequently in international media reports in the last two years, came up for discussion in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on September 27. The UNSC convened for an open briefing, followed by consultations focusing on the severe restrictions imposed on the rights of women and girls in the country.
This report provides an interim assessment of the Biden administration’s overall Middle East strategy and examines the strategic opportunities and risks for U.S. policy in the broader region.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Pakistan’s intensifying economic, political, and security instability is not good news for China’s strategic investments. So, what are Beijing’s options?
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
Last week saw a flurry of diplomatic activity between Baghdad and Ankara. The top priorities in the talks were oil exports, the presence of the PKK in Iraq, and Iraq’s water crisis. The outcomes have been unimpressive, but there is an opportunity for Iraq to shake things up and improve its bargaining position, at least on the oil export issue, possibly more.
After the conclusion of the 16-month rule of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), the appointment of a new caretaker government has created uncertainty. This raises doubts about whether Pakistan will smoothly transition to another democratic government or if the caretaker setup will exceed its constitutional mandate.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Two years on from the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, Afghanistan’s neighbors are increasingly concerned that their return to power has emboldened terrorist groups and networks, which are using the hospitable environment to regroup, rearm, and recruit substantially. The main question now for Afghanistan’s neighbors in the region, and the international community more broadly, is just how reliable the Taliban’s counterterrorism assurances to other states really are.
Efforts to reform the Iraqi Kurdish security forces known as the Peshmerga are at serious risk of failing. Tensions between the ruling parties of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region are not new, but the working relationship between the leaders of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has collapsed over the past year. As a result, officials within the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs are no longer capable of preventing the politics of partisan self-interest from consuming the reform project. The prospects for the depoliticization and unification of the Peshmerga have rarely seemed more remote.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Although it has fallen off the international news cycle, Baghdad is booming, high on rising oil prices and full, once again, of neo-Abbasid, petroleum-fueled aspirations. Thanks to new anti-money laundering legislation, funds are being funneled not only into hotels and real estate but also into new cultural enterprises. So what does culture in Iraq look like in 2023?
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.