Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
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.
Speaking at a public event earlier this month, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi made the surprise announcement that the next step in the country’s economic reform agenda will include the removal of bread subsidies. He becomes the latest in a long line of presidents to target the bread subsidies that provide cheap sustenance to a country of (now) over 100 million people at a huge cost to the state, although none of his predecessors ever successfully managed to remove or significantly reduce them.
الدولتان في الشرق الأوسط اللتان تتمتعان بأعلى توقعات نمو لعام 2022 هما إسرائيل ومصر. وتقدر مؤسسة فيتش سوليوشنز أن الناتج المحلي الإجمالي على مستوى منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا سينمو بنسبة 3.6% في عام 2021، بعد انكماش بنسبة 4% في عام 2020. هنا نجد أن مصر وإسرائيل هما الدولتان الوحيدتان في المنطقة اللتان يُتوقع نمو اقتصادهما بما يتجاوز حجم مستويات ما قبل كوفيد-19.
At the dawn of the Biden era of American foreign policy, a more mature, realistic Saudi foreign policy is emerging to match the shifting signals from Washington. In some measure, the Saudis are readopting elements that traditionally characterized their policy preferences before the meteoric rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
The two countries in the Middle East with the highest growth expectations for 2022 are Israel and Egypt. Fitch Solutions estimates that MENA-wide GDP will grow by 3.6% in 2021, after a contraction of 4% in 2020. Egypt and Israel are the only countries within the region expected to grow their economies beyond the size of their pre-COVID-19 levels for 2021.
Since late June, Russia has expanded its diplomatic involvement in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) dispute between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. While Russia has offered technical assistance to the GERD’s conflicting parties, it has refrained from inserting itself into the Nile dam dispute as a mediator and instead balanced the views of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in multilateral fora. Russia’s balancing strategy has been positively received in Sudan and Ethiopia but has created latent frictions with Egypt. Russia has persisted with this non-interference policy, as it has largely prevented a spillover of tensions over the GERD to other areas of cooperation with Egypt and believes that its position will help consolidate its partnership with Ethiopia.
In June 2021, southern Syria once again dominated the headlines when the regime laid siege to the Daraa al-Balad area of Daraa city. A few days after the monthlong siege, an agreement to end the escalation collapsed and the Syrian army’s Fourth Division spearheaded a major military push in the area. Intense clashes broke out as groups of unreconciled rebels violently repelled the advancement of Syrian military forces. Armed confrontations spread into eastern and western Daraa amid heavy bombardment via missiles, artillery, and mortar shells, marking the deadliest and most intense fighting in Syria’s south-west since the conclusion of the 2018 “reconciliation” agreements.
Despite being largely low-key and limited in nature, ties between pro-Al Qaeda jihadists operating in Indonesia and Syria respectively continue to exist. Recent activity involving Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and other militant Indonesian groups illustrates the potential security risks from this nexus, which should not be overlooked.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
The subject of Western sanctions on Syria is a divisive one among analysts and policymakers interested in ending the misery of the country’s citizens. The division comes at a time when, more than ever, the country needs a comprehensive policy that ends the agony of most Syrians. This study assesses the effectiveness of the sanctions imposed on the regime of Bashar al-Assad by conducting a comprehensive review of their history, evaluating shortcomings in the current setup, and recommending ways to move forward.
EU institutions and individual member states remain committed to the peaceful settlement of the Syrian conflict, but after 10 years the question of what to do next seems most pressing. Will the EU be a passive bystander, idly watching the actions of other international players like Russia, China, Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or will it take on a more active role? And what would such a role look like?
As a Lebanese actor ideologically tied to Iran, Hezbollah has multiple allegiances and objectives that do not always align symmetrically. Hezbollah’s regional activities are a reflection of the group’s increasingly close alignment with Iran, rather than the interests of the Lebanese state or citizenry. Today, Hezbollah’s regional adventurism is most pronounced in its expeditionary forces deployed in Syria and elsewhere in the region, but no less important are the group’s advanced training regimen for other Shi’a militias aligned with Iran, its expansive illicit financing activities across the region, and its procurement, intelligence, cyber, and disinformation activities. Together, these underscore the scale and scope of the group’s all-in approach to transforming from one of several Lebanese militias into a regional player acting at Iran’s behest.