Middle East & North Africa Archive

Since legislative elections were held in December, Kuwait has seen continued infighting between the National Assembly—where opposition lawmakers are heavily represented—and members of the Cabinet, who are appointed by the emir and also have parliamentary seats. The prolonged standoff has ground the legislative process nearly to a halt, preventing the government from passing measures to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, including a law that would allow the state to borrow badly needed funds on international markets. Kuwait is unique among Gulf Arab monarchies in that it has relatively free elections and an active legislature that can […]

While tensions between Israel and Iran have been omnipresent in the Middle East for decades, the prospect of open military conflict between the two countries has never seemed closer than it does now. Over the past few months, the two rivals have escalated an undeclared naval war featuring unclaimed attacks on Israeli- and Iranian-owned ships. At the same time, Israel has continued its air strikes on Iranian weapons shipments transiting across Syria, and a damaging explosion on April 11 at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility was widely attributed to Israel. All of this comes against the backdrop of U.S. President Joe […]

For more than three months, Turkey has been rocked by rolling protests centered in Istanbul. Following President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s controversial appointment of businessman Melih Bulu as the new rector of Bogazici University in January, students and professors began holding rallies to denounce the pick. They see Bulu as an outsider and lackey for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish abbreviation AKP, and argue that his unilateral appointment is an unacceptable attempt to undermine the independence of one of Turkey’s most prestigious academic institutions. The scope of the demonstrations widened rapidly, as participants vented their frustrations with […]

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Middle East Memo, which takes a look at what’s happening, what’s being said and what’s on the horizon in the Middle East. Subscribe to receive it by email every Monday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it. What does the Middle East have to do with the spectacular launch, crash and burn of the European Super League? Though indirect, the influence of Gulf Arab state backers’ financial largesse on European soccer played a major role in the shifts that gave birth to the […]

Last week, just two days after U.S. President Joe Biden announced his decision to withdraw the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the humanitarian community commemorated the death of Marla Ruzicka, a humanitarian hero from the early years of the war there. A college student when the Twin Towers fell, Marla recognized that the U.S. invasion would weigh hard on civilians, and rather than watch from afar, she bought herself a ticket to Afghanistan to do something about it. Landing in Kabul, Marla set about making friends with U.S. soldiers, expatriate aid workers and local Afghans alike. More […]

The recently finalized 25-year comprehensive cooperation agreement between Iran and China has been referred to in the media as a “game-changer,” a “breakthrough” and a “major geopolitical shift,” but in reality, it is much ado about nothing. Signed with great fanfare on March 27, during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Tehran, the deal does provide Iran with a political and rhetorical win in the context of its ongoing negotiations over the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal. Beyond the optics of the agreement with China, though, the substance follows the same playbook that Beijing and Tehran have developed […]

It is easy to forget how quickly outsiders’ ideas about places like Yemen changed during the early days of the Arab Spring uprisings that began a decade ago—and how quickly those new impressions faded when the uprisings did not deliver rapid transformation. Such short memories are proving costly for Yemeni women, who gained a place at the political table during and after the 2011 protest movement that ousted then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s autocratic regime, only to be shunted aside amid the violent conflict and international indifference that has plagued the country since. With a cease-fire deal reportedly in the offing […]

Editor’s note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Middle East Memo, which takes a look at what’s happening, what’s being said and what’s on the horizon in the Middle East. Subscribe to receive it by email every Monday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it. As negotiations over the future of the Iran nuclear deal finally began in earnest in Vienna last week, reports emerged of direct talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran, seemingly reflecting a potential shift in regional dynamics. The meetings were purportedly hosted by Iraq, a country whose […]

Right after last month’s general election in Israel, the fourth in two years, the remnants of the country’s center-left parties were unofficially absorbed into a newly formed political concoction called the “change bloc.” In politics, the term “change” is usually invoked to suggest a difference in policies or convictions from the status quo, but in this case, it refers to a single event: ending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year rule. To achieve this goal, the change bloc brought together politicians so ideologically distant from one another that it is hard to imagine them forming a book club, let alone a […]

Water, an essential resource to sustain human life, not to mention agriculture and many other economic activities, has long been in short supply across the Middle East—the driest region in the world. But now, population growth, rapid urbanization, economic development and climate change are putting new pressure on the water supply. In light of these trends, Middle Eastern nations are looking to new technologies and regional partnerships that might help them adapt to a new era of severe water scarcity. According to the World Bank, the Middle East and North Africa region is experiencing population growth at a rate of […]

Some things haven’t changed in seven years. One of the first pieces I wrote for WPR was on the prospects for transitional justice in Syria someday, roughly three years into a civil war that still hasn’t ended today. The news hook back then was the appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee of a former Syrian military photographer, hidden under a blue hoodie and identified only as “Caesar.” He had defected from the regime and smuggled a trove of roughly 55,000 photographs out of Syria, documenting the deaths of some 11,000 prisoners killed in Bashar al-Assad’s jails—many showing signs of […]

When it comes to armed drones, is smaller and more precise necessarily better? The question came to my mind upon seeing the news that the U.S. Air Force just successfully test-launched a new weaponizable drone, the ALTIUS-600, making it the smallest drone in operation. Even more remarkably, this tiny aircraft was launched from the second-smallest-drone, the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie, while the Valkyrie was in flight. There is nothing objectionable about the development of mini-drones. One could even argue they would be improvements, in humanitarian terms, over the use of the much larger Reaper to deliver 500-pound bombs in allegedly “precise” […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive Africa Watch by email every week. The latest attempt by Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia to negotiate a resolution to their decade-long dispute over Addis Ababa’s controversial dam project on the Nile River’s largest tributary failed this week, bringing the region closer to a crisis. Tensions were already high heading into the meetings in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, with Egyptian officials warning that it was the last chance to reach an agreement […]

TEL AVIV, Israel—As the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, Benjamin Netanyahu has dominated the country’s politics for over a decade. Despite his ongoing trial on corruption charges, he made a bid for yet another term in last month’s elections. He did not succeed, but neither did any of his rivals, resulting in what the Israeli mainstream media are calling the “imbroglio.” It is the same logjam that triggered the vote: Neither the pro- nor the anti-Netanyahu bloc secured the parliamentary majority needed to form a stable governing coalition. The election also did little to alter Israel’s rightward trajectory on […]

Editor’s Note: Every Monday, Managing Editor Frederick Deknatel highlights a major unfolding story in the Middle East, while curating some of the best news and analysis from the region. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive Middle East Memo by email every week. A former crown prince is under house arrest, accused of a plot to apparently destabilize the kingdom. He denies all that and has instead vowed to defy the orders to keep him quiet at home. He has already shared one video with the media and another audio message to his supporters online, declaring his innocence and […]

Before Benjamin Netanyahu’s long tenure as prime minister, the longest in Israel’s history, Israelis delineated their parties’ political contours on the basis of ideology. That started changing as Netanyahu’s hold on power stretched over the years, despite him acting in ways that some found offensive, counterproductive and possibly criminal. He has now fully reframed Israel’s political divisions, which became starkly apparent in the most recent election, the country’s fourth in just two years. Traditionally, Israelis differentiated their political views by roughly categorizing themselves and their parties between right and left. As in many other countries, the distinction is based on […]