Research & Commentary Results

Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Rally, was convicted of embezzling EU funds and barred from running for office for five years, effectively disqualifying her from the 2027 presidential race. Meanwhile in Turkey, Ekrem İmamoğlu, mayor of Istanbul and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s most formidable rival, was arrested on corruption charges and jailed, just as he was poised to become the opposition’s presidential candidate. Both Le Pen and Turkish officials are now pointing to each other to justify their own actions.

Iran is accumulating enough near-weapons-grade enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon within weeks or months, not years. President Donald Trump, having withdrawn the United States in 2018 from the nuclear deal that would have postponed that possibility, is now appealing for negotiations with Tehran. But in the Middle East, the nuclear question does not concern only Iran.

Just days before Turkey’s main opposition party was set to select its next presidential candidate, the leading contender, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested and jailed, effectively removing him from the race.

After decades of managing tensions through careful balancing, Turkey and Iran now find themselves increasingly at odds following recent shifts in the regional balance of power. With Ankara emboldened and Tehran on its back foot after the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the struggle for influence between the two neighbors and long-time rivals is escalating in both Syria and Iraq and could spread well beyond their borders.

Reflections on a recent visit to Baghdad. Much has changed and ordinary life has resumed in Iraq’s capital, but deep challenges remain.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sought to position Turkey as an energy hub, connecting gas producers to its east and south and markets to the west. Turkey’s geographical position and infrastructure give it an advantage. But becoming an energy center also requires Ankara to dust off a long-abandoned foreign policy approach: “zero problems with neighbors” and the West. Amid changing regional dynamics, Ankara sees an opportunity to achieve that and revive its plans to become an energy hub.

A historic shift may be on the horizon, as Turkey and Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan engage in unexpected peace talks. After 40 years of insurgency and 40,000 lives lost, Ocalan is expected to call for PKK fighters to lay down their arms. However, with President Erdogan’s democratic backsliding and continued crackdown on Kurdish political rights, questions remain about whether lasting peace is possible. MEI’s Gönül Tol explains.

In his second term in office, President Donald Trump faces a Middle East undergoing multifaceted upheaval and an Islamic Republic of Iran currently in its weakest and most isolated position since the founding of the regime in 1979. Yet far from permanently subdued, Tehran continues to move closer to building a nuclear weapon, and it is trying to preserve its regional network of proxies and non-state allies. Trump now faces an important strategic choice on Iran policy. This report analyzes three overarching dynamics: the shifting strategic landscape across the Middle East in 2023-24; the impact of these shifts on Iran and its Axis of Resistance network; and Iran’s current position and standing at home and in the region. It concludes with a series of strategic-level recommendations for the new administration.

A very different Middle East will greet President-elect Trump this month compared to the region he experienced during his first term. However, there are opportunities to advance American interests for a more stable and less conflictual Middle East, which might not require the kind of intense US commitment we have seen over the last quarter-century.

Half a century of rule by the Assad family in Syria collapsed astonishingly quickly after insurgents burst out of a rebel-held enclave and took Damascus in a matter of days. For Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, however, it was not fast enough. He has been waiting for this moment since the Syrian uprising in 2011 and is determined to reap the benefits of Bashar al-Assad’s ousting ahead of Turkey’s 2028 elections.

In most capitals across the Middle East, the news of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fall sparked immense anxiety. Ankara is not one of them. Rather than worrying about Syria’s prospects after more than a decade of conflict, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees opportunity in a post-Assad future. His optimism is well founded: out of all the region’s major players, Ankara has the strongest channels of communication and history of working with the Islamist group now in charge in Damascus, positioning it to reap the benefits of the Assad regime’s demise.

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

Last month, the US electorate voted President-Elect Donald Trump back into the White House. His victory was seen by some experts as part of a global trend and a move towards anti-incumbency attitudes and populism. How will Trump’s rhetoric impact the United States domestically and internationally? Will he govern as a strongman during his second term? What can we expect to be different from his first term?

There is no quick path to limiting or reducing Iranian influence in Iraq. Tehran will react fiercely to American efforts to destroy the militias and zero-out its influence, and it would have multiple avenues to escalate through the porous 900-mile-long border between the two countries. Moreover, domestic Iraqi reaction, especially among elements of the Shi’a population, would be reticent at best and hostile at worst to intensified American military actions. Nor should it be an American goal to stoke a civil war among Iraq’s Shi’a that would give Iran new access points.

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