Research & Commentary Results

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.

As the Great Game between the United States and China unfolds on a global scale, American and Chinese leaders have to make a choice — will they clash more openly in a struggle to dominate Afghanistan and its neighboring regions or will they rein in their ambitions and jealousies to accomplish goals that benefit themselves and many others?

In July, Morocco marked the 22nd year of King Mohammed VI’s rule and 10 years under the new constitution ushered in by a popular referendum in the aftermath of the 2011 protests. The past 22 years have transformed Morocco, the region, and the world in fundamental ways, yet the country’s politics have continually snapped back to a familiar equilibrium. During these past 22 years Morocco has gone through three distinct phases in managing these internal and external dynamics.

Premeditated political paralysis and the absence of economic leadership have brought Lebanon to its knees. Critical infrastructure has collapsed. Reliable electricity and safe water provision are rare. Hospitals and medical services are crippled by the lack of power, medications, and supplies. Food security is at risk for the majority of the population. Desertions from the ranks of security forces are growing. A nationwide security collapse is increasingly likely. The humanitarian collapse is already here.

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.

One of the most consequential changes in the Middle East’s geopolitical map is happening at the water’s edge. Along the entire eastern rim of the Mediterranean basin, global and regional actors are engaging in a spate of port capacity expansions, new private port construction, and the sell-off of major state-owned ports that will determine who sits atop the region’s global trade flows for decades to come. The international competition to rebuild Beirut’s port is one key puzzle piece in this larger process that is reconfiguring the Levant’s maritime commercial architecture and, as a consequence, the geopolitical contours of the Middle East.

The possibility that the Lebanese government could opt for China to reconstruct Beirut’s port has raised alarm in Washington and European capitals given China’s already outsized commercial port presence in Egypt, Israel, and Greece. Increased Chinese involvement in Lebanon’s port operations could consolidate Beijing’s hold over the commercial connectivity architecture of the Levant. Re-orienting global commercial flows between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia according to Beijing’s priorities would make China’s Belt and Road Initiative a dominant organizing principle in the international relations of the Middle East. The most effective way to offset China’s ambition may be to facilitate Mediterranean rivals France and Turkey to jointly rebuild Beirut’s port.

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.

President Kais Saied’s July 25 decisions to suspend parliament and the government appear to have been largely popular, despite sharp criticism from those denouncing them as a coup, unconstitutional, or a dangerous overstep of his authority. The mass celebrations in the streets that broke out immediately after his televised announcement — in spite of a nighttime curfew — are evidence of the popularity of his moves. Some polling since then, which although unclear in their methodology, also seem to indicate that large majorities approve of Saied’s measures — for now.

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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.

On the first anniversary of the catastrophic explosion at the Beirut port last August, Lebanon is threatened by political discord and economic collapse. The past year has been difficult for the average Lebanese citizen and it has been even worse for the country’s most marginalized communities. The ripple effects of the overlapping political, economic, and health crises have pushed the vast majority of refugees and migrant workers into extreme poverty. These communities now stand on the edge of the abyss.

The future of economic growth in the GCC is looking better than some analysts expected in the depths of the downturn in 2020. What may be different in this recovery compared to previous economic crises in the Gulf is a more limited fiscal policy space, and more variance among GCC countries in their ability to rebound with smart stimulus. As the global economic recovery now strengthens oil demand, taking advantage of this interim period of the global energy transition will mean accelerating government spending in areas where it can make a long-term impact on productivity growth and increased labor force participation among citizens in the private sector, especially women. Some governments will be able to accelerate productivity, including using highly skilled foreign labor and favorable long-term residency regimes, and others will be simply treading water to satisfy immediate demands of their populations.

Tunisian President Kais Saied’s opponents and international commentators more familiar with Egypt have been quick to condemn what they are calling a “coup.” In addition to the need to assess the Tunisian situation on its own unique terms, it may be useful to set aside legalistic and political science taxonomy for the moment and consider instead why many in Tunisia have celebrated the president’s recent decisions.

While Western banks saw their valuations drop substantially during the first 18 months of the COVID pandemic — and have yet to recover — the declines among Saudi banks have been smaller and their valuations are now closer to, if not above, their pre-pandemic levels. Identifying the drivers of this seemingly contradictory trend helps us better understand the shifts within the Saudi banking sector and the growing impacts of policies related to Vision 2030, the country’s long-term economic development and diversification program.