US President Donald Trump recently proposed that Syria intervene militarily against Hizballah in Lebanon. Is that a good idea? This episode of Middle East Focus features a recent MEI Virtual Briefing. Director of Communications Zeina Al-Shaib is joined by Ambassador David Hale, MEI Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow and Charles Lister, MEI Senior Fellow. Together they examine the prospects and implications of renewed Syrian involvement in Lebanon, the potential impact on US relations with both countries, and how evolving dynamics in Lebanon and Syria could reshape the regional balance of power and affect countries such as Turkey and Israel.
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.
Social Change Amidst Terror and Discrimination: Yezidis in the New Iraq
Originally posted August 2008
On August 14, 2007, in the largest single terror attack during the war in Iraq, over 350 Yezidis were killed and two entire villages completely destroyed, leaving over 1,000 families homeless. The two villages, Qahtaniya and Jazeera are located in the Sinjar Mountains, an area in northwestern Iraq that is hotly contested by Sunni Arab insurgents, Kurdish peshmergas, US-led coalition forces, and several minority groups.
Palestinian Refugees from Iraq in Critical Need of Protection
Originally posted July 2008
“The twice-displaced Palestinian refugees are one of the worst-off groups in a country full of desperate people. … They have no country to go to, no valid travel documents, no protectors inside Iraq, and hardly anyone prepared to support them outside either. … It is to everyone’s dishonor that these human beings are still rotting [in border camps] and — worst of all — in Baghdad where one or more is being murdered virtually every day.”1
Kirkuk: Constitutional Promises of Normalization, Census, and Referendum Still Unfulfilled
Originally posted July 2008
Many people view Kirkuk as a microcosm of all of Iraq. The ancient city counts among its inhabitants significant numbers of almost all of Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups — Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Sunnis, and Shi‘ites. The last semi-reliable census of Kirkuk’s population, from 1957, indicated a slight majority of Turkmen in Kirkuk City and a majority of Kurds, followed by Arabs, in the province as a whole.
Nur, an Iraqi refugee who has been in the States for four days, is dipping parsley in a china cup of salt water in Bethesda, Maryland. The salt water signifies tears shed over slavery and displacement; the parsley stands for spring and hope. Another interpretation likens the act in the Passover Seder to a biblical moment of betrayal: Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and dipped his striped garment in blood to feign his death.
Preface to Iraq's Refugee and IDP Crisis: Human Toll and Implications
Originally posted July 2008
In the comparatively short time since the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1920, the country has experienced successive waves of forced migration. Yet the magnitude of the forced displacement of Iraqis from their homes since 2003 is unprecedented. In addition to the still dire humanitarian situation are the potentially far-reaching negative implications of the refugee/IDP crisis for the future of Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.
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.
