Trump’s Family Business Deals Risk Further Undermining the Credibility of US Middle East Policy
President Trump’s family businesses are once again in the spotlight as a new financial disclosure showed they earned $2 billion in income in 2025 — a dramatic increase on the year before, with much of it coming from Gulf entities, raising emoluments concerns. Mounting perceptions of corruption, combined with unresolved crises in Iran and Israel-Palestine, are eroding trust among key partners in the Middle East. With the 2026 midterms approaching, these entanglements could represent a major political vulnerability and further undermine America’s already-strained standing in the region.
After the US-Israel-Iran war — and the strikes that followed the cease-fire — the Gulf states find themselves dangerously exposed. Host Alistair Taylor is joined by MEI Associate Fellow Gregory Gause to discuss the war’s impact on the Gulf, their partnership with the United States, and whether the turmoil of recent months will push Gulf leaders to reassess their alliances and international engagement.
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.
Salafism and the Persecution of Shi‘ites in Malaysia
In the last few decades, religious scholars have branded many age-old Malay and Sufi religious practices as wrongful innovations. One of the great casualties of this rising intolerance has been Shi‘ism, whose followers have received some of the most intense criticism. It is widely accepted that these developments have much to do with the rise of Salafism.
The current crisis in Gaza represents the first real foreign policy test for Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Hamas’s rejection of the Egyptian initiative to end hostilities calls into question Egypt’s ability to maintain its decades-long special status as mediator, a role it assumed by virtue of its relations with all parties – Israel and the United States on one hand, and the PLO and Hamas on the other.
The Israeli incursion into Gaza and the ensuing diplomatic efforts to end the violence have revealed Turkey’s waning influence in the region.
The Turkish government has been promoting itself as a potential mediator between Israel and Hamas. The latter’s rejection of an Egyptian ceasefire in mid-July bolstered Turkey’s hopes of playing a key role, as did its inclusion in this past weekend’s Paris summit hosted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
The primacy of ethnic Malays (and by association their adherence to Sunni Islam) has meant that Shi‘i Islam is considered a “deviant” sect in the country. Although official spokespeople regularly claim that the state has no concerns about Shi’a practicing their faith as long as they refrain from proselytizing, adherents face both social and legal restrictions.
When the Nidaa Tounes (“Call for Tunisia”) party was formally licensed in July 2012, it positioned itself as a “modern” alternative to the Islamist Ennahda party. Led by former interim prime minister Béji Caid Essebsi, Nidaa Tounes drew a wide range of people, including supporters of Tunisia’s Destourian (“Constitution”) movement, trade unionists, leftists, and independents, as well as former members of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) party.
Egypt’s Least Bad Option for Addressing Energy Troubles
A proposed deal to export Israeli natural gas through Egypt has the potential to enable Israel’s entry into its first major export markets, help Egypt escape a deepening energy crisis, and welcome the first European players into Israel’s natural gas industry. However, the deal is complicated by political realities and a history of deeply rooted grievances between the two countries, made worse by the recent violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Shi‘a-Inspired Violence in Malaysia: A Possibility?
Ever since the triumph of Iranian Shi’a revolutionaries against the shah in 1979, the Malaysian government has been wary of the dangers of the revolution being exported across its borders. The author argues that rather than oppressing and vilifying indigenous Shi‘a citizens, the state should engage them intellectually, socially, and perhaps even religiously, in the spirit of Prime Minister Najib Razak.
When US commanders in Iraq in 2006 were trying to figure out the best way to approach the burgeoning insurgency, two points of view emerged from the debate.
Sectarian-Based Violence: The Case of the Yezidis in Iraq and Syria
Historically, the Yezidis — an ancient Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious community — have been subject to discrimination and violence. The current status of this community in Iraq and Syria is precarious, at best.
The Role of Civil Society in Countering Violent Extremism in Indonesia
The Indonesian experience suggests that an over-reliance on hard power may actually be counter-productive, inadvertently strengthening rather than weakening the violent Islamist extremists. The author explains the need for an indirect strategy in which calibrated hard power is subordinated to and supplemented by softer measures aimed at diminishing the underlying conditions that give rise to violent extremism.
Amb. Philip Wilcox, MEI scholar and president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, discusses the motivations that led to the current escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas, and why Israel decided to pursue a ground assault in Gaza.
Israel’s ground assault continues an historical pattern of dealing with threats from adversaries. How well has this strategy worked before?
Egypt’s Sexual Harassment Law: An Insufficient Measure to End Sexual Violence
A few days ago, heavy court sentences were imposed on seven men who were convicted of attempted rape, attempted murder, and torture, in a ruling seen by many as unprecedented in Egypt. In the words of one activist, the verdict was “a strong message to all harassers that their actions are no longer tolerated or accepted.”[1] This comes in the wake of the government’s vows to combat the problem of sexual harassment; a new law passed last month criminalized sexual harassment for the first time.
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.
