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.
Scenarios of Change and Possibilities of Reform in Lebanon
The recent spate of bombings in Beirut underline the degree to which Lebanon has become entangled in the wider regional conflict being fought in and around Syria, but the paralysis of Lebanon’s political institutions indicate an equally deep domestic dysfunction. There is no doubt that part of Lebanon’s problems derive from its difficult geostrategic environment and require external developments and changes, and part of them come from the weaknesses of its domestic political and socioeconomic system and require internal reform.
The Challenges of Transitional Justice in Cambodia
An internationalized transitional justice process has been underway in Cambodia for some years and appears to be nearing a conclusion. This retributive justice process—formally known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and informally called the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT)—was designed to achieve accountability for gross human rights violations between 1975 and 1979, when Cambodia was ruled by a political movement known as the Khmer Rouge. The ECCC has generated useful lessons for other countries that may be considering a similar exercise. This essay will review a few of those lessons, including (1) political obstacles to ensuring accountability for human rights violations; (2) challenges and limitations of the tribunal model; (3) costs and benefits of amnesties; (4) potential alternative justice mechanisms such as truth commissions, reparations, and apologies; and (5) the consequences of justice too soon and justice delayed.
On January 2, only days after a car bomb in Beirut took the life of former Finance Minister Mohamad Chatah and several bystanders on December 27, another bomb struck the capital’s southern suburbs. With initial reports of four dead and 40 wounded, this latest, and possibly retaliatory, attack fits into an ominous pattern as Syria’s conflict spills into Lebanon.
Randa Slim Named Director of MEI Initiative for Track II Dialogues
(Washington, D.C.) – The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to announce that Randa Slim has been named director of the Institute’s new Initiative for Track II Dialogues.
Transitional Justice and the Politics of Lustration in Tunisia
No transitional justice dilemma is more contested in Tunisia than that of lustration and vetting. While trials of former ruling elites, either in absentia or in the courtroom, grab international headlines, the question of how to deal with the tens of thousands of former Ben Ali regime functionaries who were complicit in past abuses yet are not likely to be brought to trial has proven even more politically charged. To be sure, the question over the fate of these potential targets of lustration and vetting continues to contribute to Tunisia’s prolonged post-revolutionary political crisis, as draft laws on lustration and ad hoc leaks from state archives solidify cleavages among Tunisia’s diverse array of transitional political actors.
South Korea has launched various transitional justice measures since democratic transition in 1987, with truth commissions being employed most frequently. With at least ten truth commissions established to date, South Korea has been a leader in such initiatives in the Asia Pacific region. This paper analyzes two of South Korea’s most prominent truth commissions―the Jeju Commission and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)―in an effort to answer why some truth commissions succeed while others do not.
In the eyes of the world, Egypt is Cairo, where political unrest leads the news. With around a quarter of the nation’s 90 million inhabitants concentrated around the capital, in addition to the bulk of wealth and industry, it’s easy to forget the rest of the country, which is what state officialdom has done for decades. For administrative purposes, Egypt is divided into 29 governorates, each with a capital city.
Unrequited Desire: Egyptians' Passion for Justice and Accountability
Egyptians who believed that the removal of President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 would lead to the establishment of a democratic government have faced many setbacks. Youthful revolutionary activists unsuccessfully challenged the power of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) transitional government and the autonomy of the military. The electoral triumph of Islamist parties and candidates in parliamentary and presidential elections in 2011 and 2012 eclipsed weak and inexperienced secular parties and brought to power leaders who failed to ensure adequate representation of political opponents, women, and Copts in key aspects of governing, or to protect Copts from rising attacks. Continuing divisions among opposition forces, along with the roundup of Islamists and other opponents by the military, which engineered the July 2013 removal of President Mohamed Morsi, suggest that the struggle to achieve justice and create an accountable government will be prolonged.
Libya, the ICC, and Securing Post-Conflict Justice
Since questions of post-atrocity accountability began to surface in regard to the “Arab Spring,” there has been interest in the pursuit of international-led justice in countries that have experienced uprisings, such as Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. There were calls for the involvement of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in both Libya and Syria. The ICC has become involved only in Libya. However, this involvement has become mired in struggles that expose the challenges of a system that some regard as simply another expression of a profoundly undemocratic international order.
Egyptian-Russian relations have recently been marked by a substantial increase in diplomatic activity amid a media frenzy over a potential arms deal. These developments have given rise to suggestions that Egypt’s foreign policy is shifting away from the United States and toward Russia—a major realignment given Egypt’s extensive political and military ties with the United States since the 1970s.
Ori Nir of Americans for Peace now will hold a conversation with Akiva Eldar on the current situation in Israel and Palestine.Akiva Eldar is a senior political columnist for Al-Monitor news service’s Israel Pulse. He was formerly a senior columnist and editorial writer for Haaretz and served as Haaretz’s US bureau chief and diplomatic correspondent in the 1980’s. His most recent book (with Idith Zertal), Lords of the Land, on the Jewish settlements, was a best-seller in Israel and has been translated into English, French, German and Arabic.
On Wednesday, December 4, Hassan Laqees, a Lebanese Hezbollah leader who was reportedly involved in the group’s weapons procurement and development, was assassinated south of Beirut. On Sunday, another Hezbollah military commander was killed in Syria, bringing the number of Hezbollah dead in the Syrian conflict into the hundreds.
Salafyo Costa were once the darlings of the media. Featured both in Egyptian outlets[1] and foreign publications such as CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and the Huffington Post,[2] the groundbreaking youth movement founded in April 2011 brought together ultraconservative Salafis, Muslim Brotherhood supporters, political liberals and leftists, and Coptic Christians.
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.
