Policy Analysis

Last July, widespread protests broke out throughout southern Iraq as a result of deteriorating services, a lack of electricity, poor water quality, and increasing unemployment. While demonstrations are common during the hot summer months in southern and central Iraq, this year’s protests are markedly more widespread and have continued to

Several weeks ago, I related some general observations from my July trip to Saudi Arabia, in a post titled “ Seeing Saudi Changes Up Close: A Week’s Worth of Surprises.” In this post, I will focus more sharply on specific shifts in the attitudes of at least some influential Saudis

While Kurdish parliamentary elections are scheduled for September 30, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) is facing a number of crises—political, economic, and more broad social issues. These range from inadequate services, a dysfunctional bureaucracy, political fragmentation, widespread distrust among political elites, strong regional intervention, and more. The impact of these

While propaganda plays a major role in forming local and international public opinion, it may also be deployed as a tool of “soft deterrence,” designed to tilt the calculations and military strategies of other countries in another country’s favor. Iran’s financial investment in its media presence, with dozens of satellite

Almost forty years after its inception, the project of the Islamic Republic has failed. Ayatollah Khamenei has in essence admitted that an Islamic state is not complete in Iran. Nor is Iranian society unequivocally Islamic in the manner that the revolution intended: rather the Iranian government merely follows and applies

The continually escalating war of words between Iran and the United States suggests that the Middle East will have much at stake in the coming months as sanctions take effect. The U.S. administration has made repeated assertions that “regime change” and “military action” against Iran are not on the agenda

The nuances of jurisprudential difference between Sunni and Shi’a concepts of jihad have been more or less shaped by the history of the Shi’a community and by the approach of the Shi’a religious scholars to politics. Though the Shi’a concept of jihad has not infrequently aligned with that of Sunnism

The concepts of jihad and the charge of unbelief on a Muslim or non-Muslim known as takfir have evoked mixed and dreaded reactions among many in Western countries, where the concepts often make headlines and are presented without context to those who may not have personal interactions with mainstream interpretations

Protesters in the Algerian province of Ouargla took unprecedented action late last month and boycotted a concert on July 27 by holding communal evening prayers at the concert venue. The protesters hoisted placards condemning the marginalization, exclusion, and discrimination practiced against them for decades. These developed into calls for broader

Saudi Arabia and Iran are not often presented as being ‘in dialogue.’ Yet on January 29, 2018, two former Saudi and Iranian diplomats discussed a host of key issues at the Joint Special Operations University in Tampa, Florida. Prince Turki al-Faisal Al-Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Ambassador

August 26, 2018 — Regional turmoil has forced the generally secretive Druze minority into the limelight. With its leaders losing the influence that has so far protected the community, the Druze must take seriously the threat of disappearing altogether.

On the night of August 11, tens of thousands of Arab-Israelis and Jewish-Israelis marched from Rabin Square to the plaza of the Tel Aviv Museum in central Tel Aviv, protesting the recently passed Nation State Law. The demonstrators held up placards demanding equality, justice, a repeal of the law, and

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

From their establishment in 1957 up to the present time, Kurdish political movements in Syria have focused on demanding national rights for the Kurds, couching cultural rights within a package of political demands. With the outbreak of the Syrian revolt in 2011, the emergence of armed conflict, and the resulting

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the Iraqi state has successfully weathered a series of security crises that united the public against a common enemy. For example, during the war with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Iraqis from different backgrounds joined forces and rallied behind the

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’

The Saudi kingdom’s grinding proxy war against Iran and its allies in Yemen, its long-delayed decision to grant women the right to drive, and most recently its bizarre feud with Canada over arrested Saudi dissidents have all captured international attention and propelled much heated discussion about the country’s internal affairs

In mid-December 2016, a terrorist cell carried out an operation in southern Jordan that began in the desert town of Qatraneh and culminated at the historic site of the Kerak Castle. The attack left four terrorists, four police personnel, three gendarmes, two civilians, and one Canadian tourist dead and dozens

Iraqi media is currently reporting that the Basra protests—which have spread to Wasit, Maysan, Dhi Qar, and Karbala provinces—resulted solely from the energy crisis and rising unemployment. However, the truth is that these major economic and political crises emerged as a result of the increase of Iranian influence in Iraq

After its military defeat in Iraq, the Islamic State (IS) has transformed from a governing entity to a scattered organization. Nonetheless, due to the worldwide spread of extremism, it is still necessary to combat the group’s ideology, which can easily be developed and spread by other extremist organizations. Luckily, the