Read in-depth research, analysis, and commentary from MEI’s fellows and experts on the Middle East.
In an August 9 interview with Axios, when asked about the endless swings of the Iran standoff, he shrugged it off as familiar territory. “It’ll work out in the end. It always does. It’s like a chess game.”
Behind the rhetoric sat a harder fact.
With sanctions repealed, Syrian policymakers must ensure that growing volumes of credit reach beyond the narrow political and commercial networks that have generally dominated Syrian finance. That will require a credit strategy aimed at sectors and regions historically excluded from formal finance. Syria’s specialized state banks offer an imperfect but ready-made mechanism to do so.
President Donald Trump’s disdain for strategy extends to process: mass National Security Council firings and reliance on a tiny circle of advisors have left the interagency policy process dormant amid the Iran war. The result is improvised, damaging moves like the Strait of Hormuz toll scheme. Reviving a professional, deliberative policy process is essential.
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.
The Dec. 30 vote at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) regarding Israel reflected once again that the international community does not generally accept the Israeli narrative regarding the Palestinian issue. It also highlights that the Palestinian issue, while not a top priority on the global agenda, is still one of concern around the world.
Six and a half years ago, international governments and organizations successfully negotiated the “Grand Bargain,” an agreement that the largest international non-governmental organizations would allocate 25% of their humanitarian funding to small NGOs. Nowhere was the deal more hotly anticipated than Jordan, where the Syrian refugee crisis compounded existing problems of workforce participation and water scarcity.
On today’s episode, Middle East Focus kicks off the new year with Danny Hajjar, whose newsletter Sa’alouni El Nas brings diverse music and perspectives from the MENA region to inboxes worldwide. Interviewing Danny is Fadi Nicholas Nassar, U.S.-Lebanon Fellow at the Middle East Institute, Director of the Institute for Social Justice and Conflict Resolution, and Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Lebanese American University (LAU).
While cryptocurrency may offer Iran the opportunity to bypass sanctions and boost trade, it is by no means a panacea for such outcomes and comes with a host of obstacles, such as price volatility, economic uncertainty, energy consumption, and evolving regulation.
Listening to students and young professionals is instrumental in understanding the Ukrainian perspective. A series of interviews, conducted in summer 2022, centered around their identity as Ukrainians, how the war is impacting their lives, and how they viewed Russia and the West before and after Feb. 24, 2022. The participants in these interviews have only known an independent Ukraine, and their negative feelings toward Russia will not improve anytime soon.
A series of damaging Iranian hacks of Albania’s critical digital infrastructure over the summer pushed Tirana to break off bilateral diplomatic relations. Iran has regularly responded to sanctions or perceived provocations through cyberattack campaigns, as was visible in the case of Albania, guilty in the Iranian authorities’ eyes for the accommodations it has given to the anti-regime group MEK .
Cost estimates for Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction already exceed many hundreds of billions of dollars. Given the Western world’s slowing economic prospects, Ukrainian elites admit that China looks increasingly likely to have a role in helping finance and rebuild Ukrainian infrastructure. But Chinese involvement comes with economic and security risks.
Now entering their fourth month of defiance, the people of Iran continue to protest the regime of Ali Khamenei. Since protests began in September, the crackdown by security forces has become increasingly severe and the government has now begun executing protesters. According to figures from the Human Rights Activists News Agency, as of Dec. 15, nearly 500 protesters have been killed and almost 20,000 people have been arrested.
The latest U.N. IPCC report details the alarming changes that Mediterranean countries will experience in the coming decades due to climate change, highlighting three critical areas — warming and droughts, declining ecosystems, as well as socioeconomic and public health risks.
Ten of the most important or far-reaching events and trends that dominated the MENA region in 2022.
Recommended readings selected by MEI’s book review editor from reviews published in this year’s issues of The Middle East Journal. Subscribe to MEJ to read full reviews of these and other new publications exploring the history, culture, and contemporary issues shaping the modern Middle East and North Africa region.
As Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine turned into protracted positional and attrition warfare, often speculative reports emerged about the imminent reduction of the Russian military presence in Syria. Several factors may explain the changes in the Russian military presence in Syria and its future.
With COP27 concluded, we asked experts from across MEI, some of whom attended the meeting, to offer their perspectives on the developments that came out of the conference and what it means moving forward, especially for the Middle East and North Africa.
Kremlin-linked oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the notorious Wagner Group PMC, is taking power away from the traditional Russian military establishment and fostering President Putin’s dependence on his resources and advice. This trend will undoubtedly propel the escalation of the war in Ukraine and possibly inflict irrevocable damage to the future utility of the Russian Armed Forces.
Competition for jobs was high in Georgia even prior to the influx of Russians. So the arrival of tens of thousands of working-age, often high-skilled individuals from an antagonistic country could, if it has not already, lead to further frustration among Georgians.
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.