A Post-War Model for Verifying Iran’s Missile Arsenal
This study proposes a model for constraining and verifying Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal by employing a layered Strategic Verification Model with seven components: comprehensive baseline declarations; missile test and launch monitoring; intrusive inspections; quantitative and qualitative limits on missile capabilities; production controls, especially on solid-fuel manufacturing; a robust enforcement and compliance architecture; and regional confidence building measures.
The 2026 Iran war has made Lebanon a core Gulf security concern, and Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar now have a narrow opportunity to curb Hizballah’s influence by leading reconstruction, strengthening Lebanese state institutions, and tying economic re-engagement to reform.
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.
Iran-Backed group: We’ll avenge our casualties by cleansing Iraq of US presence
The secretary-general of Harakat al-Nujaba, an Iraqi militia group with close ties with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), has said that the group will avenge the blood of Iraqi paramilitary forces recently killed in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk by “cleansing” Iraq of the American presence,
IRGC seeking to exploit rising instability in Khuzestan Province
The latest anti-regime protests and internal security problems are more damaging to Iran’s national security than external threats, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, warned today.
Turkey is one month into its military offensive against U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces in the area of Afrin in northern Syria. How is the operation going, and how has the strained U.S.-Turkish relationship been affected? Gonul Tol, director of Turkish studies at MEI, and Amberin Zaman, a journalist and columnist for Al-Monitor, join host Paul Salem to discuss.
The extraterritorial operations Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC-QF) is supposedly a secret special operations unit. Yet, leading commanders of the Quds Force have aggressively been seeking public attention lately.
Report claims Iran deploys military personnel to Afrin to counter Turkish offensive
Dozens of Iranian fighters have joined the ranks of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the northern Syrian city of Afrin to fight the Turkish military and its allies trying to expel the Kurdish forces from the region,
Envisioning Palestine: strategies for Palestinian self-determination
Relations between the U.S. and the Palestinians are in free-fall. The Trump administration’s decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and then cut funding to UNRWA to force the Palestinians back to the negotiating table have been met with mass protests and official recriminations. Meanwhile, peace has never seemed more distant, with a recent poll showing support for a two-state solution at a historic low among both Israelis and Palestinians.
Iran’s negligible role in Iraq’s postwar reconstruction
While donor countries and organizations pledged $30 billion for Iraq’s reconstruction at an international conference held in Kuwait on February 14, Iran – which portrays itself as Iraq’s closest ally – made no financial commitments.
Iran’s allies in Iraq dial up calls for US withdrawal as parliamentary elections near
Several Iranian-supported Iraqi militia commanders and politicians this week called for the withdrawal of American troops from the country, argying that they are no longer needed as ISIS is now militarily defeated, Iranian and Iraqi media reported. A senior official of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), a unit within the Popular Mobilization Force with close ties with Iran’s elite Quds Force and the Lebanese Hezbollah, said today that the paramilitary forces and Iraqi parliament will not allow Washington to keep its troops in Iraq.
China, Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
On the surface, the Chinese reaction to the US decision to effectively recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was clear. Following President Trump’s announcement to transfer the US embassy to the Holy City on December 6, 2017. Several days later, China voted with every other member on the UN Security Council (UNSC) to uphold the international consensus and previous UN decisions on Jerusalem. By going against world opinion, the US arguably looked out of step in relation to the conflict. By contrast, China’s alignment with international public opinion gave it the aura of a potential mediator. This essay considers whether Beijing has the political will and capacity to make a significant positive impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Weekly briefing: Netanyahu faces a whirlwind of investigations
In this week’s Weekly Briefing, MEI experts Eran Etzion, Gonul Tol, and Ibrahim al-Assil provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Benjamin Netanyahu investigations, the impact of Rex Tillerson’s visit to Turkey, and Russia’s presence in Eastern Ghouta.
Ex-IRGC chief threatens to “raze Tel Aviv to ground” if Israel takes action against Iran
The Iranian armed forces will destroy Tel Aviv if Israel makes any wrong moves against the Islamic Republic, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, warned on Monday. “If the Zionist regime intends to take any action against Iran, we will raze Tel Aviv to the ground,” the former chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) added. “We will not even give you the opportunity to escape,” Rezaei said about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech to IRGC commanders.
European powers step up efforts to address Iran’s destabilizing role in region
The Iranian Foreign Ministry reacted angrily to latest statements by France and Britain about Tehran’s hard power strategies that promote instability in the Middle East.
Iranian Navy plans to unveil “new generation of submarines”
The Iranian Navy will unveil a new domestically-built submarine in coming days, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, the chief commander of the naval forces of Iran’s Artesh (regular army)
Tehran stands to lose in Syria’s postwar reconstruction
Tehran appears to be losing the race for Syria’s reconstruction despite all the blood, treasure and political capital the Islamic Republic has invested in the Assad regime’s survival over the past six 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.
