Six months after the Joe Biden administration launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the biggest issue facing the White House is not the Houthi threat but the US failure to rally partners and allies behind its leadership. Fortunately, since the Houthis waged their attacks on ships crossing the
The United States is under pressure to leave the Middle East for good. US forces are increasingly attacked in Iraq and Syria as anti-US criticism grows. However, US troops are a long way from returning home, especially amid the tit-for-tat between Iran and Israel, the lack of a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, and
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was set to visit Washington in May after a long period of coldness between him and US President Joe Biden. While the cancellation officially occurred due to scheduling issues, disagreements over the Gaza conflict appear to have played a role in this decision. Despite recent momentum in US-Turkish relations, this
While much of the world’s attention was on the ongoing Gaza war, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region was also dealing with unprecedented heavy rainfall in the United Arab Emirates and surrounding countries this month, coupled with record heat waves throughout the region. These events were stark reminders of the climate change challenges
This summer, elections for the Syrian People’s Assembly will be held in the areas controlled by the government under Bashar al-Assad. As the electoral process unfolds, a series of articles will deconstruct the key elements of Syrian elections and their role in legitimizing Baath Party rule. It will also conduct a deep dive into the
Jordanians were shocked to look outside their windows late at night on April 13 and see balls of fire in the sky and remnants of drones crashing across the country. In the lead-up to the news breaking, Jordan had closed its airspace as a precautionary measure, and the Jordanian Air Force reportedly shot down dozens
It’s a crucible of human misery, this tented existence that spills out of shelters, blankets sidewalks, and covers any inch of empty space in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. “They’ve reduced us to the way the world wants to see us,” one of my Gazan companions comments to me. “Miserable, begging, and in tents.”
The civil war in Sudan, which started in April 2023 between Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, commander in chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (better known as “Hemedti”), commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), is approaching its one-year mark. With more than thirteen thousand Sudanese lives lost and 10.7 million people
From the perspective of many governments around the world, Israel moved up the escalation ladder when it razed Iran’s embassy annex in Damascus on April 1. This airstrike killed Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a top Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander, in addition to at least six others in the IRGC’s elite Quds Force, its foreign
Even before October 7, 2023, Jordanian authorities faced considerable pressure. Unemployment across the Hashemite Kingdom had climbed to approximately 22 percent. An Arab Barometer poll showed that 63 percent of Jordanians between the ages of 18–29 were considering emigrating due to economic woes, a higher percentage than nearly insolvent Lebanon and conflict-ridden Iraq. On the
