Research & Commentary Results

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Randa Slim, Paul Salem, Ahmad Majidyar, and Marvin G. Weinbaum provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including President Trump’s comment about keeping U.S. troops in Iraq “to be able to watch Iran,” Pope Francis’s trip to the UAE, the EU’s maneuvers to defy U.S. sanctions on Iran, and intra-Afghan talks in Moscow.

Iraq: Stuck in the middle again

Randa Slim
Senior Fellow, Director of Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues program

This article compares the local responses to the 2012-2018 outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) to that of the Avian Influenza outbreak in Southeast Asia from 2003-2015. How well do countries cope with the spread of new and deadly diseases? Why are some countries better at addressing the problem than others? And, what does this tell us about larger questions concerning states’ abilities to provide public goods (in this case health security) to their citizens and about global systems to prevent pandemics? What this comparison demonstrates is that countries with the ‘strongest’ state capacity to make and implement policy are best able to confront disease outbreaks.

Unlike other cases of repression against Muslims around the world, such as Myanmar, the Gulf monarchies have been silent about the “cultural cleansing” taking place in China’s Xinjiang Province.

Since Sheikh Tamim became emir in 2013, and especially since the diplomatic and economic blockade of Qatar began in mid-2017, Doha and Mexico City have begun to develop an increasingly fruitful partnership.

The launch of King Salman Energy Park, a new megaproject intended to reinforce Saudi Arabia’s position as a global energy hub, reflects a more cautious approach to economic development in the kingdom and foreshadows a less ambitious economic agenda in 2019.

In our first episode of 2019, MEI experts Paul Salem, Charles Lister, Ahmad Majidyar, Randa Slim, Gonul Tol, Robert Pearson, and Gerald Feierstein discuss the significant policy developments and announcements of the past few weeks and outline the major issues to watch in the year ahead.

This article discusses the broad effort by Korean firms — supported by three successive administrations — to enhance their position in the fiercely competitive Gulf regional market at a time when the domestic economy is sputtering.

Eleven MEI scholars weigh in on the key Middle East policy issues for the year ahead.

Eleven MEI scholars run down the major policy developments in the Middle East in 2018.

In our final episode of the year, host Alistair Taylor interviews several MEI scholars on the key events that transpired across the Middle East in 2018 including in the Gulf, Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan. Guests include Paul Salem, Gerald Feierstein, Alex Vatanka, Gonul Tol, and Ahmad Majidyar.

While non-Arab powers have taken the lead in the Syrian crisis so far, Damascus will need to restore political, economic, and diplomatic ties with regional Arab states as it moves into the phase of postwar reconstruction and development.

While OPEC and Russia-led non-OPEC members agreed to cut oil production last week by 1.2 million bpd, Riyadh’s ability to control the cartel and global oil prices is waning.

While Tunisia remains geographically and politically distant from Saudi Arabia, its economic troubles may offer an opportunity for the kingdom to leverage fiscal aid to secure stronger bilateral ties.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts discuss recent and upcoming events including the coming changes in Trump’s administration, Iran’s hesitation in the US-China battle over Huawei , the ongoing Sweden talks on Yemen, results of the latest GCC summit, and questions over the legitimacy of the Afghan elections.

Although Oman has long been a regional mediator with ties to competing powers, it will need to maintain a delicate balancing act between its new strategic partnership with the Israelis and established relations with the Palestinians.