The Other MoU: Launching a Europe-Gulf Resilience Initiative After the US-Iran Deal
The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the United States and Iran may have ended one of the most consequential Middle Eastern crises in decades, but it has not resolved the strategic problem it exposed. Whether the 60-day talks it set in motion will produce a final agreement remains far from certain.Yet the central lessons are already clear: Iran has preserved significant leverage, Washington has had to scale back its ambitions, and Europe and the Gulf face the prospect of protracted regional tension. Europe and the Gulf should therefore use the aftermath of the US-Iran deal to articulate their own “other MoU”: a Europe-Gulf Resilience initiative.
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.
Mohammad Reza Sheibani, Iran’s last ambassador to Damascus who has recently returned to Tehran, vowed that Iranian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will remain until the very end.
Senior Iranian Cleric Calls for “Nullifying” America and Expanding Iran’s Influence across Region
On December 18, a senior Iranian cleric claimed that Iran’s influence was expanding across the Middle East and called on the country’s armed forces to “nullify” America’s role and power in the region.
On December 19, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed the Syrian conflict in a phone call. According to the Iranian media, the two leaders discussed ways to coordinate war efforts in Syria.
Training Women as Religious Professionals: Iran’s Shiite Seminaries
The state-run system of women’s religious seminaries in Iran is today probably the most successful in the entire Muslim world. No other country boasts so many women in its institutions of religious learning, and they enjoy popularity not only among Iranian women but Muslim women from all over the world. However, the scope of the religious education on offer for women is nonetheless limited. In this essay, Mirjam Künkler suggests why.
December 8, 2016 – Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, Mary Beth Long discusses the formation of Donald Trump’s foreign policy strategy in the Middle East with host Paul Salem.
After Aleppo, IRGC Calls for Toppling Regimes in Bahrain and Yemen
In its first official reaction to the fall of Aleppo, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) hailed the seizure of Syria’s second largest city as a “divine gift” to the Iranian regime and a prelude to bigger achievements by Iran and its regional proxies across the Middle East.
The governor of Yemen’s Jawf governorate, in north central Yemen bordering Saudi Arabia, told a press conference, December 15, that the Yemeni army had captured “a large number of militias, including Iranian experts and others from Hizballah… ,” according to al-Arabiya. The governor said that the Iranians and Hizballah personnel were providing the Houthi militias with information and support.
A top Iranian religious figure has called on the Shiite minority in Pakistan to “stay united” and remain active and influential in society. Mohammad Hassan Akhtari, who is the head of the Iranian-controlled Ahl-ul Bayt – a Shiite-centric religious propaganda arm of the Iranian state – said that Iran “has no problems with majority of the Sunnis” but that its “fundamental conflict is with Wahhabis.”
Iran Invites Terrorist Group to International Conference It Hosts
On December 15, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani delivered a speech at the 30th International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran. He spoke about the need for Muslim unity to fight “colonialist countries” and the “Zionist regime [Israel]” on the same day Iranian-backed militia fighters massacred Muslim civilians in Aleppo. He also called for collection action to fight terrorism.
A hardline Iranian news site that is controlled by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) continues to seek to incite the Bahraini Shiite population. Quoting a Bahraini activist, the site propagated that the “international posture toward the political situation in Bahrain is merely for show” and aimed to “neutralize the Shiite opposition in the country.”
Iran’s So-Called “Moderates” Back Regime’s Expansionist Agenda
Fatima Zolghadr, a parliamentarian from Tehran and a member of reformist Hope Faction, hailed the fall of Aleppo as a victory for the Iran-led “resistance” forces.
Tehran’s unwavering support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad continues to irk the Turks, according to press reports. On December 16, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yildirim, and Iran’s vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, spoke on the phone. The discussion was ostensibly about Jahangiri’s upcoming visit to Turkey, but also focused on the Syrian civil war.
The authorities in the Iranian city of Shiraz have handed 74 people prison sentences ranging from one to eight years. The so-called crime of those sentenced was to gather for an unauthorized event at the tomb of Cyrus the Great, an ancient Persian king. The event happened in the last week of October and led to an outcry among hardliners. One hardliner, Ayatollah Hamedani, called the event an “anti-revolutionary” gesture that needs to be confronted.
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.
