Outlook for Sustainable Agriculture in North Africa: Report Card Assessment
This report assesses the future sustainability of agriculture across North Africa using a multidimensional approach that considers the dynamics of water, climate, land, and economics. To enable this assessment of sustainable agriculture across the region, the author evaluates water resources reliability, water use efficiency, agricultural land sustainability, and the food sector economy for Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania, and provides recommendations for action.
Unconditional surrender of an adversary is possible only if the victor conducts unconditional war, which the American public clearly was not prepared for in the conflict with Iran. Ending this conflict was always going to entail some compromises. The U.S.-Iran MOU is being oversold by virtually everyone. The tangible parts of it are a ceasefire, sanctions relief for Iran and the reopening of Hormuz. Everything else in the agreement is conditioned to good faith negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
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.
This backgrounder provides an overview of how the Abraham Accords came about, the US interests involved, their economic and strategic consequences, and the prospects for further enlargement going forward.
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.
As the Western Sahara conflict reaches its fifth decade, the territorial dispute remains unresolved and largely unknown. MEI’s Intissar Fakir unpacks the Western Sahara’s complex history and the rival claims by Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. She examines recent developments, such as President Trump’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory and the collapse of a 30-year cease-fire, as well as the core questions that remain unanswered after half a century.
Podcasts
Middle East Focus
MEI’s flagship weekly podcast on US foreign policy and contemporary political and social issues in the Middle East.
MEI Senior Fellow Brian Katulis engages friends, colleagues, and policy experts in casual conversations on the most important happenings in the Middle East.
Holding long overdue elections for the Palestinian presidency and the legislative arm of the Palestinian Authority could be a step toward redressing the Fatah-Hamas conflict.
The consequences of what happens in Idlib could come to define the future of Syria — a country already destined for many more years of instability and suffering.
How we planted the seeds of war with Iran: Decisions made in Washington brought us to this fateful moment
For almost 40 years, American national security officials have looked down the barrel of the gun of war with Iran. I sat in rooms in the White House and Pentagon several times as small groups of senior officials considered what such a war would look like, how it would end, and whether we would be better off for having fought it.
The answer was always the same: It would be highly destructive in several nations, it would end in a stalemate with the Iranian regime in place, and nothing positive would have been accomplished.
The killing of Qassem Soleimani is one of the biggest developments in the Middle East in decades — it far eclipses the deaths of Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in terms of strategic significance and implications.
Just when we thought we had a good understanding of President Donald Trump’s Middle East policy — which boils down to “get out of the region and avoid another endless war there” — he pulls off something dramatic like this.
We must keep in mind that Iran exercises what Barack Obama liked to call “strategic patience.” They pursue strategies and tactics that serve their interests, not emotions. Their interests remain to get Trump to ease off on crippling economic sanctions; to maintain or increase their influence in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon; and to maintain regime security at home. The death of a senior military officer of theirs is significant but doesn’t change their institutional relations, their interests, or their overall strategy.
After a career in the military with a lot of time spent in this region, I have learned that you must respect your adversaries and their ability to hurt us.
In the wake of the airstrike, there have been many calls inside Iraq for restraint among Iraqis and between the Americans and the Iranians, most notably from the Shi’a clerical establishment in Najaf. There is a wide consensus in Iraq that the country should not be at the center of an American-Iranian military fight.
The killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, was a major and unexpected blow to the Iranian leadership. It punctured the aura of invincibility and the hubris that have characterized Soleimani and his colleagues’ behavior.
Soleimani's killing: A turning point, but not necessarily a prelude to war
No one in Tehran can now afford to test the limits of Donald Trump’s unpredictability. He is the man who for years lamented American interventions in the Middle East only to shock the Iranians by killing the leading symbol of Iran’s regional agenda.
Refugees Adrift? Responses to Crises in the MENA and Asia
This essay series explores the human costs and policy challenges associated with the displacement crises in the Middle East and Asia.
In 2014 the UNHCR reported that the number of people forced to flee their homes had exceeded 50 million for the first time since World War Two, and that the exponential increase in the number of those forcibly displaced had already stretched aid organisations and host countries nearly to the breaking point.
Civil Society and Political Transitions in the MENA Region and Southeast Asia
The MENA and Southeast Asia regions have undergone and continue to undergo massive political transitions. Differences in the process and outcomes of their transitions can be viewed through the lens of a “civil society infrastructure” and the qualitative differences in both these regions. This essay series engages a variety of issues regarding the roles and impact of civil society organizations (CSOs) in these two regions during the transition and pre-transition periods as well as in instances where the political transition is completed.
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.
