Read in-depth research, analysis, and commentary from MEI’s fellows and experts on the Middle East.
Of all the fronts in President Trump’s peacemaking agenda, the South Caucasus has delivered the most concrete results. The August 2025 Washington Declaration, signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan and witnessed by Trump, marked an important step toward peace in the region. The two sides initialed a peace agreement and advanced plans to unblock regional connectivity, including through the establishment of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), which would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhijevan exclave through southern Armenia. Implementation of TRIPP has since made notable progress, but construction has yet to start. A breakthrough on those two tracks would, in turn, unlock Armenia–Türkiye normalization, transforming a long-fractured region into an area of trade and interdependence.
Wars don’t just end. They get interpreted, reinterpreted, and turned into strategic doctrine. That is what happened after the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, a conflict that saw the United States back Tehran’s Iraqi adversaries. The war taught Tehran three lessons it never unlearned: that Washington wants the Islamic Republic gone, that Iran stands essentially alone in the world, and that it cannot survive a direct, overt fight with the U.S. and Israel.
Within 48 hours this week, Iran filled six of the most important posts in its battered military and security establishment. Read together with the biographies and mandates behind them, the appointments show how Tehran is drawing lessons from successive wars and preparing for a prolonged period of insecurity, without proving it has abandoned negotiation.
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’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.
MEI Senior Fellow Gonul Tol hosts leading scholars and thought leaders on global democracy trends and the state of the liberal international order.
A common dichotomy that emerges in discussions of Sunni-Shi‘i “sectarianism” in the contemporary Middle East is that of secular versus sectarian. The logic underlining this false duality is obvious enough: a sect is, after all, a subgroup of a religious denomination that exists as a result of theological or jurisprudential peculiarity as shaped by history, politics, and geography. Therefore, logic would suggest that “secularism” is a plausible antonym for “sectarianism:” a temporal, civic approach to public space rooted in modern understandings of the nation-state and its master institutions and the need to separate church from state. As intuitive as this undoubtedly seems, it remains a false dichotomy that misrepresents sectarian identities and sectarian dynamics in the Arab world and overlooks the role played by class, politics, and power in what is ostensibly a religious issue.
This op-ed first appeared in The New York Times on June 16, 2014. Click here to view the full article.
This article was originally posted on Charles Duelfer’s blog.
A possible path ahead is to take advantage of the post-election negotiations and configure a leadership that accommodates Sunni interests. This would by necessity mean someone other than Maliki becoming prime minister.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a Sunni militant group controlling territory spanning the border between the two country’s northern regions, made a rapid advance toward Baghdad this week, seizing control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, and Tikrit, and attacking the refinery town of Baiji. Forces from Iraqi Kurdistan have since moved to secure Kirkuk as the Iraqi central government’s military has fled in disarray. Robert Ford, former U.S.
In a country of deteriorating economic conditions, young Egyptians are using social media to create opportunities and change the way business is done.
Profound changes are occurring throughout the global energy system, including an increase in the production of hydrocarbons in the Americas and a shift in demand in which oil is giving way to gas and, to a lesser extent, coal. How are these changes affecting the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and what might the MENA countries do to meet the challenges posed by this “energy revolution?” Robert Springborg addresses these issues in this MEI Policy Focus.
On the surface, it is difficult to identify the common ground between Korea and the Middle East in terms of religious heritage: Shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity are the major religions of Korea, while Islam predominates in the Middle East. However, rapid globalization and the increased frequency of exchange between Koreans and the peoples of the Middle East are beginning to challenge common assumptions about the religious composition of each region. This essay will describe the history and current status of Islamic expansion in Korea, as well as Korean Christian missions in the Middle East.
Islamic history in Korea and Korea-Middle East relations predate the Korean War by more than a millennium. Yet, many Koreans are not aware of this long history of cultural and commercial interaction. Furthermore, there are widespread misconceptions in Korea about the Middle East and aspects of Islam.
Over the past four decades, economic relations between the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have been focused on two sectors. Given the lack of energy resources in Korea, the GCC countries have provided oil and gas for Korean manufacturing, electricity, transport, and related activities. These countries have also provided Korea with business opportunities in the construction sector, including the building of expressways, seaports, and industrial plants.
This week’s visit to Tehran by the Kuwaiti emir, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, is about more than Iranian-Kuwaiti relations. It might even be a pivotal moment in the shaping of Iran’s ties with the Arab countries across the Gulf. Kuwait, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is acting as a conduit for the collective unease that the GCC’s six member states, particularly Saudi Arabia, have about Iran’s regional policies.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan secured his eighth big win in 14 years when his ruling AK Party won over 45 percent of the vote in local elections on March 30. After facing down corruption charges, mass protests, and accusations of authoritarianism, Erdogan may feel emboldened to run for president in Turkey’s first direct presidential election in August.
Allen Keiswetter is a scholar at the Middle East Institute and an analyst at the law firm of Dentons. This is an updated version of a paper originally published by Dentons-GPS.
Following the recent progress on the Iranian nuclear issue and the subsequent easing of sanctions, South Korean businesses are reengaging the Iranian market. A South Korean trade delegation visited Iran on March 9, 2014 to expand bilateral trade ties in the mining, industrial, and food sectors. On March 17, South Korea’s Finance Ministry lifted a ban, allowing South Korean auto, construction, pharmaceutical, and telecommunications industries to resume trade with Iran, though sanctions remained in the shipbuilding, shipping, and harbor sectors.
The Middle East Institute’s 68th Annual Awards Banquet and Conference
When:
Wednesday, November 19 & Thursday, November 20, 2014
Where:
Grand Hyatt Hotel
Washington, D.C.
Egyptian presidential elections underdog Hamdeen Sabbahi achieved the impossible: he came in third in a two-horse race. The 60-year-old leftist politician and sole rival to the country’s ex-army chief Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi secured just under 757,000 votes in the preliminary count as opposed to Sisi’s more than 23 million votes—as well as to the votes of a last-minute unexpected entrant: the spoiled ballot.
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.