Crude oil is flowing out of the Gulf again, but the market is no better prepared for another disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. It has assembled a temporary system for managing one. Crude exports from the Gulf, excluding Iran, returned to pre-war levels in September, while total Gulf shipments reached 15.5 million barrels a day, more than 80% of the pre-conflict volume.
As a result of the Iran war, Turkish thinking about nuclear weapons appears to be shifting. Iran’s emergent ability to threaten regional states (and possible determination to acquire a nuclear weapon itself), growing concern about Israeli aggressiveness, doubts about US security guarantees, and greater Saudi nuclear autonomy are all pushing Ankara to consider a future nuclear option.
Hizballah: The murderers of elected Lebanese politicians, the killers of peacekeepers, the thugs of the streets they dominated because all other militias had disarmed, the agents of destruction of their own communities on behalf of foreign paymasters reigning 1,000 miles away from Beirut, the brainwashers of children into an ideology of “resistance” that only invited invasion. That’s the Hizballah that today is begging the Lebanese state to return to them the 1,000 pounds of explosives so rudely taken from them by Lebanese soldiers doing their job at a checkpoint in the Bekaa Valley.
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.
Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Erdogan, each under mounting pressure at home, are trying to solve domestic challenges with a tragedy that will have long-term and unpredictable effects — none of them beneficial for the United States and any friends that remain.
Balochistan: From the periphery to the center of attention
With an estimated $1 trillion in natural resources and sitting astride an international crossroads of increasingly critical importance, Balochistan is becoming a stage on which the world’s powers are playing out their ambitions. China, the U.S., and India have all formulated Balochistan policies in the past few years, hoping to utilize the region to achieve wider international goals — and the three countries across which Balochistan is divided, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, have been eager to use it as a bargaining chip for their own purposes.
“Ana Kurdi” — suddenly Israelis are feeling Kurdish
The news of Donald Trump’s sellout to Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit Israel like a lightning storm. Trump has managed to do the unthinkable: unite all Israelis around a geopolitical cause.
Something had to give. Decades of corruption and criminal mismanagement by Lebanon’s ruling elites — the same clique who have governed the country since its independence in 1943 — have finally led to an economic implosion and a social explosion.
Nate Rosenblatt, a fellow with New America’s International Security program, and Aaron Y. Zelin, the Richard Borow Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, join host Alistair Taylor to discuss Tunisia’s struggles with extremism and the factors that led it to become a major source of recruits for ISIS.
Vengeance, repression, and fear: The reality behind Assad’s promises to displaced Syrians
The team of researchers from the Syrian Association for Citizen’s Dignity worked for months under extremely challenging conditions to document the security situation of returnees and those living in areas covered by “reconciliation agreements” in parts of Syria under the control of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The results of that research are stark and the main conclusion is that it is not safe for displaced Syrians to return to Assad-held areas.
While the Turkish military offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria might, once again, bring Moscow and Tehran together tactically in support of Assad’s rule and Syrian sovereignty, the two powers have fundamentally different visions for the war-ravaged country’s future.
Turkey’s cross-border incursion into northeastern Syria has stirred up a hornet’s nest of instability and threats. If left unchecked, this latest “war within a war” will have deeply destabilizing consequences for many years.
The European Commission’s new president and the MENA region: Status quo or change?
European Council President Charles Michel may have the most prestigious political post in the European Union, but the true power lies with the European Commission, the Union’s executive branch, whose president represents the EU abroad. Will the nomination of Ursula von der Leyen, the first woman to hold this post, affect relations between the EU and the Middle East in the years ahead? For her part, von der Leyen has said she will focus mainly on such matters as an “ambitious climate agenda,” a fair social market economy, and safeguarding democratic values in Europe, but the president-elect will also have to address developments in the Middle East. This will not be new territory for her.
In one fell swoop, the U.S. has found itself evacuating a third of the country; breaking away from a 100,000-strong partner we trained and equipped; and watching it surrender to the regime that we have stood against from day one. In the chaos that has ensued, ISIS prisoners have been let loose, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced, and a once relatively stable northeastern Syria has been thrown into a potentially intractable pit of ethnic, sectarian, and political conflict. The consequences of America’s self-destruction in Syria will be felt for many, many years to come.
The biggest losers from President Trump’s arbitrary decision to allow Turkish forces to enter Syria may end up being pro-revolution Syrians and civilians living in Idlib.
Putin reaps benefits of Trump’s Middle East policy collapse
Putin’s visit to Saudi Arabia and the UAE takes place as the U.S. position in the Middle East collapses in the face of a series of misjudgments and “own-goals” by the Trump administration.
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.
