Policy Analysis

On May 24, in the aftermath of the parliamentary elections held earlier that month, Lebanon’s incumbent Prime Minister Saad Hariri was tasked with forming the next cabinet. Nonetheless, while Hariri’s Future Movement remains the biggest Sunni-led party in the Lebanese government, Hezbollah and its allies were able to win the

Wars do not break out in developing countries without armed groups appearing alongside regime forces, and Iraq is no exception. However, the fact that armed Shia factions have united under one banner as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) has been an unexpected development in Iraqi politics. Although adhering to the

In the years since the Arab Spring, Algeria has remained largely insulated from the rapidly-spreading unrest and turmoil affecting the MENA region. Yet dissatisfaction in Algeria is growing, and the country is increasingly facing a recipe for crisis. Depressed oil prices, the demands of a growing youth population, and the

Although there is little official confirmation, reports have emerged that the Sisi government and Muslim Brotherhood representatives have begun attempting a type of reconciliation. Bloomberg first reported in February that the Egyptian government sought reconciliation in order to offset internal differences between the government and former members of the military

The nation-state system in the Middle East is almost a century old and has now witnessed the rise and fall of four “grand narratives”—Modernism, Arab Nationalism, Revolutionary Socialism, and Islamism. These were frameworks that shaped cultural and political understandings of current conditions, as well as the path towards the narratives’

Demonstrations in Iraq have been ongoing since mid-June, both in Baghdad and in more than eight provinces in the south of Iraq. While the improvement of public services delivery is a key demand, protesters are asking for the government to combat corruption in public sector as well. Since 2003, when

Today, Jordan’s government is facing backlash after a long period of corruption labeled a “deep state” system. Citizens are organizing demonstrations rejecting federal decisions to increase taxes and impose further strict rules on the people that would negatively affect their livelihoods. Recently, some political figures have used the term "deep

Political conflict in the Islamic world began between two schools headed by the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib and Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan. A bloody fight for power led to a conflict that still persists today in the form of the Sunni-Shia divide and the Turkish-Arab-Iranian conflict. Defining the current

Next week, President Rouhani of Iran will visit China for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the margins of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Two weeks ago, coincidentally, I spoke in Shanghai at a mid-sized meeting billed as “the first conference on Syria ever held in

Background: The Infallible Israeli Right-Wing As Israel faces an election due in 2019, the factors that have caused the deterioration of the Israeli left will likely inhibit their ability to take the majority from the right-wing Likud. Since 2009, Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu has held onto power as the Prime

To paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own numbers. After a bloody week earlier this month in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, emotions all around the world are running high, with recriminations flying on both sides of the argument regarding whether Israel used excessive

Russia is victorious in Syria. It has succeeded in rescuing the Damascus regime, its difficult yet valuable client, from what seemed to be an unavoidable demise. More importantly, it has leveraged the crisis management of the Syrian conflict to create a regional balance between seemingly incompatible powers — Israel, Turkey

Many debates raged on Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood when King Salman bin Abdulaziz first came to power. Some say that Salman’s ascension represented a revolt against the Brotherhood, while others claimed that some aspects of Brotherhood thought remained influential in the country. In early 2015, the late

Last week the new U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, chose to visit the Middle East within hours of his appointment. He did not stop in Egypt, but the Middle East that the Trump administration aims to stabilize will not be achieved if Egypt becomes engaged in a war with

In an ideal world, Israel, as a Jewish majority state holding on and developing the age-old Jewish civil and spiritual traditions, and home to a thriving Arab community, would sit next to a Palestinian state, home to its Arab majority and to an integrated Jewish community of citizens and residents

As nationwide parliamentary elections, scheduled for May 12, 2018, are drawing closer in Iraq, leaders of the country’s contending electoral alliances are promising to alter the nature of Iraq’s future political dynamics by pursuing non-sectarian policies and agendas that would serve the interests of all Iraqi citizens. The realities and

The battle for the suburbs of Damascus was nearing its end. The regime units — equipped, backed, and supplemented by Russian and Iranian forces — were on the verge of achieving total victory: the defeat of all rebel factions, the expulsion of a population that had demonstrated its lack of

Jordan’s King Abdullah II came to power in February 1999 in the aftermath of King Hussein. For the past nineteen years of his rule, he has kept the kingdom stable, despite the hardships and challenges that the whole Middle East region is undergoing, ranging from radicalism to terrorism. He has

On November 24, 2017, the Islamist movement in Algeria suffered a defeat in the country’s election, reflecting and demonstrating a sharp decline in the popularity of Islamism. The Islamist coalition – composed of three parties: Front for Justice and Development, Islamic Renaissance Movement (Ennahda), and National Construction Movement – only

In his latest piece on Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and Israel, a Saudi writer and General Manager of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies in Jeddah Abdulhameed Hakeem tries to wash Saudi Arabia's hands of the long history of animosity toward Israel. Instead, he holds