Research & Commentary Results

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Robert S. Ford, Paul Salem, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Wa’el Alzayat, and Alex Vatanka provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Algeria’s ongoing political crisis, the 16th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, criticism of the U.S.-Taliban talks by Afghanistan’s national security advisor, international fundraising efforts to aid Syria, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s fading political clout.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Randa Slim, Robert S. Ford, Marvin G. Weinbaum, James P. Farwell, Emadeddin Badi, Guney Yildiz, and Jean-François Seznec provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Baghdad, reconstruction efforts in Syria, the crackdown on militant Islamists in Pakistan, Iran’s cyber attack capabilities, upcoming elections in Libya, Turkish-Egyptian tensions, and Qatar’s $12B loan from bond markets.

Both the U.S. State Department and the American intelligence community have concluded that President Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy toward Iran is not working. Yet, Trump seems determined to carry on. To achieve its stated goal of changing Iran’s policies, the U.S. should adopt a more proportional approach that focuses on Tehran’s most threatening actions, such as its ballistic missile tests.

Theorizing the future of the Arab Gulf states and the broader Middle East requires a proper assessment of the state of power distribution in the region. Is there a new balance of power emerging in the Middle East, or is the distribution of power heading in a more dangerous direction?

The alliance between Morocco and Saudi Arabia has historically been strong, bolstered by shared concerns about regional turmoil in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring protests, but recent tensions have brought bilateral relations to an all-time low. Last month, frictions between Rabat and Riyadh came to the fore when Morocco recalled its ambassador from Saudi Arabia.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Marvin G. Weinbaum, Robert S. Ford, Alex Vatanka, and Birol Baskan provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including a potential agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan, protests in Algeria, Rouhani’s planned trip to Baghdad, and recent Turkish naval exercises.

Following the Feb. 13 truck bomb on members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Sistan-Baluchistan, the government was quick to blame foreign powers. Iranian officials aim to deflect attention from the country’s intractable internal problems, such as the persecution of its Sunni minority, a deep-rooted issue that has often been overlooked by the international community.

Gerald Feierstein, MEI’s senior vice president, discusses the context of the resignation and its implications for Iran’s foreign policy, including the nuclear deal, as well as for its domestic politics.

In this week’s briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Charles Lister, Marvin G. Weinbaum, and W. Robert Pearson provide analysis on Saudi-Pakistan relations, Turkish politics in the lead-up to March municipal elections, and the question of what to do with ISIS prisoners after the group’s territorial collapse.

The suicide attack today, which killed at least 20 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, may have serious implications for the Iranian government’s ability to maintain the legitimacy of its regional intervention in the eyes of the Iranian people.

John Limbert, former Deputy Secretary of State for Iran under the Obama administration, and MEI senior fellows Alex Vatanka and Ahmad Majidyar join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the 1979 revolution and its continuing impact on US-Iran relations and the region.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Ahmad Majidyar, Mirette F. Mabrouk, and Hassan Mneimneh provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, a proposal for constitutional amendments in Egypt, and Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi’s first 100 days in office.

This February marks the 40th anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution and the birth of the Islamic Republic, but for those in power in Tehran, celebrating the victories of the past is easier than dealing with the problems of the present. Challenges abound on all sides.

Geopolitically, the Iranian Revolution did more to transform the Middle East than any other event in the second half of the 20th century. It aimed to restructure not only Iran’s society and political system, but also others across the Islamic world. Refusing to align with either the United States or the Soviet Union in the Cold War, the newly established Islamic Republic sought to create a new geopolitical order in the Persian Gulf and greater Middle East based on a mantra of “neither East nor West.”

This article was published by IranSource on February 6, 2019.

The Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah trilateral partnership has been decades in the making. It pre-dates the Syrian civil war, has strengthened as a result of the war and will likely endure in the post-war years.