In recent weeks, the Iran-backed Houthis have fired missiles and drones deep into Saudi Arabia, striking high-profile targets, including Riyadh’s airport and Aramco’s headquarters. The attacks follow a rapid Houthi offensive in September to seize key parts of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, which Saudi-backed government forces are now trying to roll back. Fatima Abo Alasrar, an affiliated scholar at MEI and non-resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to unpack the latest phase of the conflict. They discuss what the Houthis want, Riyadh’s calculus and search for allies, and how this campaign ties into Iran’s confrontation with the United States.
Hizballah: The murderers of elected Lebanese politicians, the killers of peacekeepers, the thugs of the streets they dominated because all other militias had disarmed, the agents of destruction of their own communities on behalf of foreign paymasters reigning 1,000 miles away from Beirut, the brainwashers of children into an ideology of “resistance” that only invited invasion. That’s the Hizballah that today is begging the Lebanese state to return to them the 1,000 pounds of explosives so rudely taken from them by Lebanese soldiers doing their job at a checkpoint in the Bekaa Valley.
Deadlock in Gaza and the West Bank at a Breaking Point
A year after world leaders gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh to mark the end of the war in Gaza, Israel controls about 70% of the Strip, Hamas retains its arms, and reconstruction has yet to begin. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, record settler violence and settlement expansion are colliding with a Palestinian Authority on the brink of fiscal collapse. Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Associate Fellow Tahani Mustafa to discuss why the Gaza peace plan is deadlocked, an increasingly emboldened Israel in the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas’s postponement of Palestinian elections, the Palestinian Authority’s deepening economic crisis, and what role the US could play.
Five years of horrendous conflict in Syria has given birth to a menacing array of threatening and destabilizing repercussions. From the rapid proliferation of terrorist groups, to mass civilian displacement and an international refugee crisis, not to mention the disintegration of a major nation state at the heart of the Middle East, the consequences of the conflict’s apparent intractability are clear for all to see.
The Battle for Aleppo: Political and Security Repercussions
August 8, 2016 – A conversation with MEI Senior Fellow Charles Lister on the siege of Aleppo and the dynamics within Syrian opposition groups. Hosted by Paul Salem, vice president for policy and research at The Middle East Institute.
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.
