Research & Commentary Results

The MENA Energy Recap is a quarterly review of key energy developments that took place in the Middle East and North Africa region from January to March 2025 and what they signal for the months ahead. The Recap views these developments through the lenses of policy and strategy, energy security, and markets.

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 President Donald Trump, having withdrawn the United States in 2018 from the nuclear deal that would have postponed that possibility, is now appealing for negotiations with Tehran.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

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.

President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress on March 4 doubled down on his disruptive and contentious domestic policy agenda. Foreign policy, including Trump’s approach to the Middle East, was mostly an afterthought. Though he said little about Middle East policy in his speech, Trump’s team is taking an irregular approach on the twin issues of Israel-Arab ties and Iran that may not produce the stability and prosperity it seeks.

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.

Afghanistan’s neighborhood is in the midst of a consequential restructuring of its security architecture. Key regional actors Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and China have been continuing to adjust their defense plans and security partnerships to meet the growing threats posed by domestic and cross-border terrorism. At the same time, these four countries have also been looking for new ways to fill the vacuum in southern Asia left by the United States military’s departure from Afghanistan.

With the signing of a presidential memorandum on Feb. 4, the administration of Donald Trump has returned to a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, but circumstances have changed drastically since the policy of intensified sanctions was originally crafted during his first term. Regional geopolitics will present the White House with a new set of variables, while changes in the petroleum markets will affect how the administration approaches sanctions on oil exports.

Nearly three years on, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has reshaped trade and investment in the energy sector, leading to an increase in Gulf imports of Russian oil and a sharp rise in the region’s hydrocarbon exports to Europe as well as further fueling the growth of Gulf investment in renewable energy projects located in and targeting the continent.

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.”

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.

The Middle East and North Africa has the potential to become the world’s largest renewable energy-producing region. Compared to the immense scale of its resources, renewable energy is virtually untapped at present. This study maps the emerging regional trends in renewable energy development and MENA renewable energy supply chains across North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Levant. The most successful MENA nations in developing their renewable energy resources to date are doing so through the establishment of green energy ecosystems, in which the development of utility-scale renewable energy infrastructure is coordinated with that of robust offtake markets and the establishment of commercially viable storage and transportation mechanisms to service them.

Morocco is a regional leader in renewable energy development. The country’s success stems from its multi-faceted green energy ecosystem that is giving rise to international renewable energy export supply chains based on production of green hydrogen, in the form of green am-monia, as well as phosphates, other minerals and metals, fertilizers, agri-food products, and electric vehicles. As rising green industrial manufacturing and green agricultural production are becoming drivers of long-term, private sector employment, a synergy is emerging between Mo-rocco’s efforts to expand its already significant renewable energy sector and its objective of in-creasing the number of women and young people engaged in formal employment.

Within the next 25 years, the Middle East and North Africa will be a global leader in renewable energy production and a hub for international renewable energy supply chains. Morocco, the UAE, and Jordan are spearheading the regional trend to develop green energy ecosystems in which renewable energy is used, in part or entirely, to power the manufacture of intermediate and finished goods for export.

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has provided several strategic opportunities for Iran to increase its foothold in the Greater Black Sea Region. A closer analysis of Iran’s deepening footprint there is necessary to inform how the next administration in Washington and the new European Commission can strengthen and better coordinate their policy responses.