Research & Commentary Results

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 President Donald Trump, having withdrawn the United States in 2018 from the nuclear deal that would have postponed that possibility, is now appealing for negotiations with Tehran.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.

The work of the Syria Strategy Project and the considerable policy recommendations found in this report present a realistic and holistic vision for Syria’s recovery and reintegration into the international system.

While most media attention was focused on its global economic policy moves, the Trump administration continued to keep the Middle East high on its agenda this past week, with the president sending a letter to Iran’s supreme leader and his team directly engaging with the Palestinian group Hamas. This continued engagement on the region’s top two strategic questions, Iran and Arab-Israel affairs, contrasted with America’s hands-off approach to Syria, which saw some troubling violence.

Syria’s national dialogue, held in Damascus at the end of February, was intended to chart the country’s future, one that would have been unthinkable just three months earlier. However, the process and outcomes of the dialogue were flawed, left critical questions unanswered, and raised new concerns.

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.

Either maintaining Russia’s military bases in Syria or finding an alternative outpost in the Mediterranean will prove extremely difficult for Moscow. And part of the problem with pursuing the latter option, particularly if in Libya, is that it would require a full-on transformation of Russia’s military presence model — from more traditional bases designed to establish deterrence by showing the flag in the region to building up a military and logistical operation inside a security “gray zone.”

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.

It is becoming apparent that negotiations between the new leadership in Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) face significant obstacles due to disagreements over military structure and administrative demands. These issues reflect the difficulty of reaching a mutual understanding between the two parties. As these challenges persist, there is growing talk of a potential military escalation in eastern Syria, amid residents’ fears and international mediation efforts to contain the crisis and achieve progress in the negotiations.

Syria’s first post-Assad protests broke out on Dec. 25 after a video claiming to show the destruction of an Alawite shrine spread rapidly across Facebook. The video was quickly debunked as several weeks old, the shrine only partially damaged, and the damage occurring during the capture of Aleppo city rather than in an act of sectarian vandalism. But those first hours were enough to stir up the widespread fears lingering just below the surface among Syria’s Alawite minority, bringing many Alawites (as well as Sunnis) to the streets to denounce sectarianism.

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.

Under former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the Syrian security sector kept meticulous records of their crimes. The international community must now step up to help Syria’s new authorities secure and protect the documents, provide information to the loved ones of those who suffered in Assad’s prisons, and pursue justice.

On Dec. 8, 2024, Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell. This is a fact, but it woefully understates the enormity, speed, and consequences of what has transpired. The brutal dictatorship that ruled Syria for more than 50 years disintegrated in fewer than 10 days. Celebrations erupted across public squares, thousands of Syrian refugees lined up at the borders of Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon eager to return, and the release of political prisoners fueled hope for a new era after decades of despotism and conflict. However, concerns about Syria’s political future and territorial integrity quickly surfaced.