Research & Commentary Results

The 20-point plan for Gaza introduced before the war with Iran began has languished, with no meaningful recovery, reconstruction, Hamas disarmament, governance transition, or Israeli withdrawal. The diplomatic pivot back to Gaza in late July and early August suggests that the Iran war’s stubborn persistence may be causing the US and regional actors to seek wins on other fronts.

The American-Israeli campaign against Iran that began in February 2026 resulted in a regional conflict its authors never intended. The war’s chief product is not what the United States and Israel destroyed, though that was significant, but what Iran proved: that it holds a strategic lever over its neighbors, the world economy, and the US.

Algeria and Morocco have long been at odds, but recent diplomatic moves may signal a widening geopolitical split in North Africa. Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Senior Fellow Intissar Fakir to unpack Algeria’s decision to sever diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and Morocco’s warming relations with both the UAE and Israel. They also explore linkages between these diplomatic shifts and the Western Sahara conflict, Moroccan domestic concerns, particularly in light of this week’s elections, as well as broader regional stability.

Turkey has become a major player in Africa, with a particularly strong footprint in the Horn. While economic and energy interests’ matter, one sector now stands at the center of Ankara’s regional activism: defense.

Brian is joined by Amb. (ret.) Yael Lempert, Vice President for Outreach at MEI, to discuss her career in diplomacy and the importance of US diplomatic efforts abroad. She shares stories from postings across the Middle East in Baghdad, Cairo, Tripoli, Jerusalem, and Amman and examines how her personal and professional experiences shaped her approach to the work. Together, Brian and Yael discuss the realities of life in the Foreign Service, the core tenets of American diplomacy, and why it matters in today’s Middle East.

North African governments have sought to remain outside the US-Iran conflict, regardless of their differing alignments and preferences. Geography insulates them from the fighting, but not from the consequences. That duality is the region’s predicament: what makes North Africa useful to others is what leaves it exposed.

In many ways, the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the war in Gaza that preceded it seem transformative. After decades of shadow warfare, Iran and Israel have now attacked each other’s homelands directly. And Israel and the United States have joined forces in a genuinely novel way to wage war against Iran.

For more than a decade, assessments of Chinese strategy in the Middle East and Africa have focused on assets, including the ports Chinese firms own, the pipelines they finance, and the networks they build. This lens has produced familiar maps of Chinese “footholds” and debates over future military bases, but ownership alone reveals less about influence.

The more useful question is not what China owns, but how Chinese firms become embedded in the operational and digital systems that keep trade corridors moving. Influence derives not from controlling infrastructure outright but from participating in the governance of the networks that move goods, data, finance, and information across them.

This report considers the lack of Palestinian political agency as a driver of regional insecurity that must be resolved before wider conflicts can be settled. The author analyses the conditions that contributed to the destruction of Palestinian political capacity, including Israeli policies, Palestinian shortcomings, and exploitation by Iran, and makes recommendations for an Arab strategic initiative.

This summer, brutally hot temperatures, deepening water scarcity, and spiking fertilizer costs have put North Africa’s agricultural sector under intense pressure. Host Alistair Taylor is joined by Mohammed Mahmoud, CEO and founder of the Climate and Water Initiative and lead for Middle East Climate and Water Policy at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health, to unpack the region’s food and water security challenges. Drawing on Mahmoud’s new report card on agricultural sustainability in North Africa, they explore the diverging picture across the region, why some countries have weathered the strain better than others, and what it will take to build a more resilient and secure food system.

A year and a half into Donald Trump’s second administration, the Middle East is far from where the president had hoped or expected it would be.

President Trump’s family businesses are once again in the spotlight as a new financial disclosure showed they earned $2 billion in income in 2025 — a dramatic increase on the year before, with much of it coming from Gulf entities, raising emoluments concerns. Mounting perceptions of corruption, combined with unresolved crises in Iran and Israel-Palestine, are eroding trust among key partners in the Middle East. With the 2026 midterms approaching, these entanglements could represent a major political vulnerability and further undermine America’s already-strained standing in the region.

Much work lies ahead, but the June 26 agreement is a rare act of constructive statesmanship in the Middle East.

This report assesses the future sustainability of agriculture across North Africa using a multidimensional approach that considers the dynamics of water, climate, land, and economics. To enable this assessment of sustainable agriculture across the region, the author evaluates water resources reliability, water use efficiency, agricultural land sustainability, and the food sector economy for Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania, and provides recommendations for action.

When the Strait of Hormuz closed in March, fertilizer prices spiked within weeks, triggering a food security crisis across North Africa and the Sahel. Host Alistair Taylor is joined by MEI Senior Fellow Intissar Fakir to explore what it means for the region, unpack the link between food security and regional stability, and assess how the strait’s reopening could impact those affected.