So far, Saudi Arabia’s push for OPEC+ restraint appears to be working. If projections of a gradual demand recovery in 2020 are accurate, the Saudis should be able to reaffirm their centrality as market stabilizers.
The nationwide protests that erupted in October 2019 shifted the political landscape and paradigm of Iraqi political participation: Led by motivated Iraqi youth in their teens and twenties with no previous civic experience, they signal a rejection of the post-2003 sectarian patronage system, known as muhassasa, that has failed to deliver security, economic development, or basic services. The protest movement’s spontaneity and authenticity are its core strength; no public figure or party directed the waves of protests across central and southern Iraq.
Over the past decade, the two main pillars of Lebanon’s stability have been the country’s army and its banking sector. Today one of those pillars — the banking sector — has all but fallen and Lebanon is standing on one leg: its army.
Lebanon is on the brink of collapse due to its domestic economic and political crises, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Another failed state in the Middle East would negatively impact strategic U.S. interests in the region. Lebanon requires a thorough reorientation towards stability and renewed socio-economic sustainability which entails fundamental domestic reforms and targeted international support led by the U.S.
As in other countries, not all announced investments come to fruition. But the ratio in Syria is particularly staggering. Of the 118 projects approved by the Syrian Investment Agency in 2018, only 46 percent have taken any serious steps toward implementation as of early 2020.
With the impending U.S.-supported annexation of West Bank territory, Palestinians living in these designated areas stand to lose not only their long-held aspirations for an independent state, but further eradication of their presence — a “spacio-cide” — in support of an Israeli-envisaged demographic and political vision.
The double whammy of the economic fallout of COVID-19 and a lack of sufficient support from international donors is putting enormous pressure on PM Hamdok’s government.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Dara Conduit, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Mark Heller, Syed Mohammad Ali, Gonul Tol, and Guled Ahmed.
Late on June 25, the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service carried out an operation against Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed militia, in the suburbs of Baghdad, detaining militiamen, confiscating mobile Katyusha rocket launchers, and accusing the group of plotting another round of rocket attacks targeting the Green Zone and Baghdad International Airport.
Despite the mixed signals from Israeli and U.S. officials, some form of annexation in the coming weeks or months may be inevitable.
The state is teetering on the brink of collapse as salaries to the public sector dwindle into insignificance.
The digitization of business in the Middle East has enormous implications for the future of regional economies, as well as for education, employment, and beyond. The way this digital transition shapes the region will be influenced by the degree to which policymakers consider this shift in its context and with an eye toward the future, as the opening session of the MEI Cyber Program’s recent conference explored.
Leaders of Arab Gulf regimes now decry the attempt to implement the vision of the Israeli Right, which aims to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. But it is exactly the policies of the Arab Gulf regimes, through their normalization of ties with Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, that directly contributed to the rise of the Israeli Right and made this annexation more likely.
Today marks almost three months of a global shutdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Middle East and North Africa region faces a double whammy from the resulting economic fallout and the sharp decline in oil prices this spring. While Egypt is rightly focused on its short-term response to the crisis, it should take advantage of the international and regional shock caused by the pandemic to change its growth model for the longer term and implement much-needed structural reforms on a variety of fronts.
While the regime and its allies have cast the current crisis as the result of Western sanctions, Syria’s economic troubles are largely due to the regime’s “Assad or we burn the country” policies.