Middle East Focus

MEI’s North Africa & the Sahel Program Director Intissar Fakir and Guillaume Soto-Mayor discuss Soto-Mayor's paper “Libya, Tunisia, and Niger as Case Studies for Counter-Productive Anti-Migration Policies” - including how EU policies reinforce criminal patterns and empower illicit networks in these areas. 

Ambassador David Hale joins MEI's US-Lebanon Fellow Fadi Nicholas Nassar to discuss his book American Diplomacy Toward Lebanon: Lessons in Foreign Policy and the Middle East. They cover takeaways from his time as ambassador and the state of US-Lebanon and regional diplomacy following the Gaza war. 

Abdolrasool Divsallar and David DesRoches discuss Iran's recent missile attack on Israel, analyzing Iran's offensive and defensive capabilities, uncertainties about Iranian air defense systems, and the impact on deterrence strategy. They delve into Iran's evolving standoff attacks, Israeli retaliatory strikes, Iranian missile capabilities, and the debate on Iran's military willingness and nuclear pursuit. They also mention upcoming works on Saudi defense reform, Iranian foreign policy, and a WMD Free Zone in the Middle East.

On this week's episode, Jehanne Henry, Mirette Mabrouk, and MEI Editor-In-Chief Alistair Taylor discuss Sudan’s civil war and its regional impact. The conflict began on April 15th, 2023, when fighting broke out in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as “Hemedti”). More than a year on, the fighting continues to rage and there seems to be no end in sight to the conflict.    

Experts Thomas Carothers and Vali Nasr discuss the declining rule of law globally and its impact on democracy. They explore the challenges in the Middle East, contrasting Western views and emphasizing accountability. The conversation delves into promoting the rule of law over democracy, citizen activism, and the complexities of balancing top-down and bottom-up approaches in the region.

On this week's episode, Murat Somer - Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul’s Ozyegin University - and MEI Turkey Program Director Gonul Tol join MEI Editor-in-Chief Alistair Taylor to discuss the main opposition party’s surprising victory in Turkey’s March 31 local elections. In what some are calling a “red wave,” the Republican People’s Party (or CHP) notched up victories in both major cities and smaller towns and villages, winning control of Turkey’s 5 largest metropolitan areas and 35 of its 81 provincial municipalities. 

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama and Middle East expert Paul Salem discuss why democracy flourishes in certain countries, analyzing historical, geographical, and cultural factors impacting its evolution. The podcast delves into the Arab-Israeli conflict, the complexities of democracy in the Middle East, the components of a functioning state, moral clarity in conflicts, national identity, and comparisons between authoritarian and democratic systems.

MEI's US-Lebanon Fellow Fadi Nicholas Nassar and Emile Hokayem - Director of Regional Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies - discuss the changing and uncertain rules of engagement between Hezbollah and Israel, and the potential for war between the two following Oct. 7. 

Director of MEI's Arts & Culture Program Lyne Sneige interviews HH Sheik Rashid Al Khalifa - artist, collector and founder of the RAK Art Foundation and a participating artist in MEI's current gallery exhibition "The Sea of Life: Modern and Contemporary Art from The Kingdom of Bahrain"

On this week's episode Tamkinet Karim, Syed Mohammad Ali, and Alistair Taylor discuss the results of Pakistan’s Feb. 8 elections and where things might be headed moving forward. Over the past two years, Pakistan has gone through a particularly turbulent period, following the removal of Imran Khan’s government in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 — a time marked by political instability, intense polarization, a worsening economic crisis, and growing threats to internal security. *Note: This episode was recorded before the formation of a coalition government on February 20, 2024.*