In recent weeks, the Iran-backed Houthis have fired missiles and drones deep into Saudi Arabia, striking high-profile targets, including Riyadh’s airport and Aramco’s headquarters. The attacks follow a rapid Houthi offensive in September to seize key parts of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, which Saudi-backed government forces are now trying to roll back. Fatima Abo Alasrar, an affiliated scholar at MEI and non-resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to unpack the latest phase of the conflict. They discuss what the Houthis want, Riyadh’s calculus and search for allies, and how this campaign ties into Iran’s confrontation with the United States.
Geopolitical influence over trade increasingly rests on controlling the systems that make them work. The Middle East illustrates the stakes. US ports, cable corridors, cloud facilities, artificial intelligence (AI) investments, and maritime routes connect regional economies to global commerce while exposing them to external decisions and disruptions. For the United States, the challenge is to translate technological advantage into resilient networks rather than rely on centrality that can itself become a source of vulnerability and coercion.
Bonus Episode: Previewing Israel’s First Post-October 7 Election
Israel is preparing to hold what may be its most consequential election in decades. On October 27, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face his first electoral test since October 7, 2023. In this bonus episode of Middle East Focus, we present the audio from a recent MEI webinar, hosted in Israel on the eve of the vote. Senior Fellow Natan Sachs is joined by Dr. Shira Efron, Distinguished Chair for Israel Policy and senior fellow at the RAND Corporation, and Neri Zilber, veteran journalist and Financial Times correspondent. They explore what’s at stake in this historic election and how different outcomes could reshape Israel’s domestic politics and the wider region.
Since 1967, Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been a contested feature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ultimate disposition of the settlements and ongoing activity related to their growth have repeatedly defied agreement in negotiations over a resolution to the conflict.
The Houthis are a political-military faction and Zaydi religious movement founded in northwestern Yemen in the 1980s. A key member of Iran’s Axis of Resistance with links to other militant organizations in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, the group has continued to pose a threat to Western interests on a global scale.
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a proposed multinational infrastructure initiative aimed at upgrading connectivity between the three regions through integrated trade, energy, and digital networks. Announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, IMEC is envisioned partially as a counterweight to China’s international infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
After a decade of post-Arab Spring isolation, Turkey’s leaders have recognized that their ambition to position the country as an agenda-setter on the world stage requires active engagement in all directions. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consolidation of executive authority has centralized foreign policy decision-making and tied it to his domestic political priorities, transforming the country’s revisionist approach to one shaped primarily by personal and pragmatic interests.
MEI Senior Fellow Brian Katulis engages friends, colleagues, and policy experts in casual conversations on the most important happenings in the Middle East.
Iran-backed militia groups will receive full military benefits under new decree
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi yesterday issued a decree on the inclusion of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in the country’s security forces, the Iranian and Lebanese media reported. According to the Abadi’s order, the paramilitary forces, also known by its Arabic name Hashd al-Shaabi, will receive equivalent salaries and other benefits as the country’s military personnel under the Ministry of Defense. The PMF forces from now on also can enroll in military colleges and institutions and will be subject to the country’s military service laws and regulations.
U.S.-Russia Dialogue and Preventing Regional Confrontation
Irina Zvyagelskaya, of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and Randa Slim, director of MEI’s Program on Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues, join host Paul Salem to discuss U.S. and Russian efforts to find shared interests in the region, from Syria to Yemen, and to avoid confrontation and escalation.
Saudi-Turkish relations hit a new low point this week after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman referred to Turkey as part of a “triangle of evil” alongside Iran and Islamic extremists.
Regional cooperation in the Middle East: the Baghdad Declaration
Since 2014, the Middle East Institute (MEI) has convened the Middle East Dialogue, a Track 1.5 initiative involving current and former officials and senior experts from across the Middle East as well as from China, Europe, Russia and the United States. These meetings focus on the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and on the principles and architecture of a new regional cooperation framework in the Middle East. At the Dialogue’s most recent meeting in Baghdad, the group issued a consensus document outlining Good Neighborhood Principles for the Middle East.
Russia and Pakistan align their Afghanistan policies
Pakistani foreign minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif’s visit to Russia from Feb. 19 to Feb. 22 was a desperate attempt by Islamabad to woo Moscow into countering mounting American pressure on Pakistan to close safe havens used by the Taliban, most notably the Haqqani network. However, the growing Moscow-Islamabad bonhomie is not good news for Washington’s current Afghan strategy, as it unmistakably signifies changing Russian perceptions and priorities in South Asia.
Khamenei rules out negotiation with West over Iran’s regional role
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said today that the Islamic Republic will not negotiate with the West regarding its presence and policies in the Middle East,
AEIO spokesman: Iran can resume 20% enrichment, builds nuclear-powered ships
Iran can resume 20 percent uranium enrichment within two days using new enrichment machines the country has developed, the spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has said. Behrouz Kamalvandi further warned that if the Trump administration cancels the 2015 nuclear agreement, Tehran will further enhance the scope of its nuclear enrichment capabilities.
Iran-backed Iraqi militia group says it’s “legitimate” to confront US forces
The spokesman of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), an Iraqi militia group with close ties with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanese Hezbollah, described the US presence in Iraq as “illegal” and called for the withdrawal of American troops from the country. His remarks were the latest in a series of similar statements against the US presence in Iraq by Iranian-backed groups in recent months.
Turmoil in Aden over the past few weeks has underlined the existential crisis confronting Yemen. The alliances that have been at the center of the three-year-old civil war—the Hadi government and its Saudi-led coalition of supporters versus the Houthi alliance with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh—have fractured.
IRGC says Iran has tripled missile production in defiance of Western demands
A senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said today that Iran has increased its missile and defense-related production three-fold despite mounting pressure by the United States and its allies,
Japan’s Elusive Quest for a “Balanced Energy Mix” and Middle East Energy Relations
Japan’s energy policy is at a turning point. Seven years ago, the country experienced a devastating earthquake and tsunami that severely damaged the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The accident led to the shutdown of all 54 of Japan’s nuclear power reactors[1] and to a revision of the country’s energy policy.
Reevaluating U.S. security assistance to the Middle East
Since 9/11, American security strategy has focused on building the military capabilities of global allies in order to advance shared goals and address joint threats. In the Middle East, the results of this approach have been mixed at best. Frustration over U.S. security assistance to the region has grown in Washington, as funding and arms transfers to various state and non-state partners have led to unintended consequences, prompting the Trump administration to reevaluate U.S. aid to Egypt, Pakistan, and the Palestinians.
Oil in Iraq: pathways to enabling better governance
Despite setbacks from the war against ISIS, Iraq remains the world’s fourth largest producer of oil, second only to Saudi Arabia among OPEC states. However, the administration of this vital natural resource has been plagued by corruption and disputes over how revenues should be allocated to promote equitable economic growth. The issue has drawn Iraq’s ethnic, sectarian, and political divisions to the surface.
Iraqi Hezbollah calls on Baghdad government to set up US exit timeline
The Iraqi Hezbollah welcomed the latest decision by the country’s parliament to devise a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and accused the American forces of promoting instability in the war-torn country. “America will create new terrorist groups to justify keeping its forces in Iraq,” the milita group said in a statement.
Israel-Egypt gas deal: politics, or business as usual?
On Feb. 19, a consortium of oil companies led by the U.S.’s Noble Oil and Israel’s Delek signed a contract to supply the Egyptian energy company Dolphinus with up to 32 billion cubic meters of Israeli gas over ten years.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
