Research & Commentary Results

On Sept. 15, 2020, Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then-U.S. President Donald Trump met on the South Lawn of the White House to sign the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between the two Gulf Arab states and Israel. Morocco followed suit several months later, signing a similar agreement with Israel on Dec. 22, and a week and a half after that, on Jan. 6, 2021, Sudan and Israel also agreed to normalize relations. A year on, these accords have had a significant, if not yet fully realized, impact on the Middle East, affecting everything from geopolitics and economics to tourism and people-to-people (P2P) ties, and they also reflect the changing dynamics in the region and beyond, particularly with the U.S. and China.

Dr. Marvin Weinbaum, director of MEI’s Afghanistan and Pakistan program, joins host Alistair Taylor for a bonus episode responding to the Taliban’s rapid overthrow of the Afghan military and government over the past week.

Amb. Dennis Ross and Karen Young join guest host Gerald Feierstein to discuss the progress of relations between Israel and the Arab world one year after the signing of the Abraham Accords, as well as the agreement’s economic impacts and what role the United States will play moving forward.

The below is an excerpt from the article, “The Geopolitics of Afghan-Iranian Relations,” by Ali A. Jalali, in the Summer 2021 issue of The Middle East Journal. The full article has been made available for free download for a limited time.

أولًا، انتصار طالبان يمثل انتصارًا هائلًا لرواية القاعدة والحركة الجهادية الأوسع. فبعد عشرين عامًا من وقوع الهجمات على الولايات المتحدة، ها هي الولايات المتحدة تُهزَم مرة أخرى وتُجبّر على الانسحاب بشكل مُذَل. سيكون هذا الانتصار بمثابة “برهان على صحة مبدأ” التجنيد الرئيسي للحركات الجهادية المتطرفة لعقود قادمة، ويجب أن نتوقع زيادة جديدة في التجنيد والعمل الجهادي في المنطقة، وزيادة المخاطر على المصالح الأمريكية والأراضي الأمريكية. ومن ثم فعلى الولايات المتحدة العمل مع الحلفاء والشركاء في المنطقة لوقف هذا المد المحتمل.

Charles Lister on what Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban means for the future of al-Qaeda.

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

The Cipher Brief:  Did you ever envision that the U.S. would pull out so quickly or completely leaving the Afghan military on its own without U.S. air support?  

General Votel: I did not anticipate this during my time – but once the President sets a hard departure date – then a fast withdrawal is inevitable.  No Commander wants to accept unnecessary risk with troops on the ground when you are up against a clearly articulated departure date.

“You’re all going to die,” the diminutive, senior U.S. intelligence official observed in matter-of-fact fashion to her stunned Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) hosts. Her rather blunt appraisal was uncharacteristic of the engagement to which the senior Pakistani officials had grown accustomed and cut to the chase: the consequences of decades of Pakistan’s support to the Taliban, violent Kashmiri liberation groups, radical madrassas, and extremist local political groups were coming home to roost.

As Kabul falls to the Taliban, it’s safe to say that this is without a doubt the most significant day for al-Qaeda since 9/11. After two decades of relentless counterterrorism pressure from the United States and allies, al-Qaeda’s central leadership was in dire straits just weeks ago.

Weeks before the official U.S. military withdrawal, Afghanistan is unraveling rapidly as the Taliban continue their swift military advance. They now control more than two-thirds of the country and half of the provincial capitals. With the government’s hold on Kabul in doubt, the Biden administration has dispatched troops to evacuate U.S. citizens from the country. We asked experts and scholars from across MEI to weigh in with their thoughts on the situation and what it means for the country, the wider region, and key international players.

The Afghan government appears to be in a state of precipitous collapse. At least a dozen provincial capitals have fallen to the Taliban in a week. The Taliban now control around 66% of the country.

The debate about whether Afghanistan was worth thousands of U.S. lives and a trillion U.S. taxpayer dollars should have occurred before those lives were lost and the money was spent. The decision to pull out our remaining 2,500 troops was made after all of that was done. That minimal number of troops preserved everything we fought for in the last two decades. We had significantly reduced the risk to our forces and the expense to the U.S. taxpayer. 

It has been a year since the August 2020 announcement of the Abraham Accords, which normalized diplomatic relations between the UAE and Israel. The accords were later signed at a White House ceremony attended by President Donald Trump that September. In less than a year the UAE and Israel swiftly exchanged ambassadors. This was the highlight of the first year of normalizing relations between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi. During their first year the accords also successfully passed the unexpected, brutal test of the 11-day military escalation between Israel and Hamas that began in late May 2021.

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