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3 days ago | 
tcf.org | Veena Ali-Khan |Thanassis Cambanis
The Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance” has suffered a year and a half of withering setbacks. Now, its future is more uncertain than ever before. Faced with the most serious threat in its history, the alliance’s core groups—Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen—are turning back to basics: local power. The Axis of Resistance spans a wide variety of states and sub-state groups that share some common enemies. But not all members are equally aligned.
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3 weeks ago | 
tcf.org | Veena Ali-Khan |Thanassis Cambanis |Aron Lund |Sam Heller
The demography of both Lebanon and Syria is in flux, after the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Thousands of people are now on the move, inside the two countries and across their shared border—in both directions. Since Syrian rebels toppled the Assad government on December 8, hundreds of thousands of people have crossed the Syrian–Lebanese border—both Syrian refugees in Lebanon returning home, and Syrians and Lebanese escaping the new Syria.
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1 month ago | 
tcf.org | Sajad Jiyad |Nicholas Danforth |Veena Ali-Khan |Thanassis Cambanis
Donald Trump has quickly made it clear that the guiding light in his relationships with Arab countries of the Gulf will be his trademark transactionalism. In the first days of his new term, he announced that he was entertaining the idea of Saudi Arabia being his first foreign destination—if the Kingdom helped bring down oil prices and increased its investments in the United States to $1 trillion.
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1 month ago | 
tcf.org | Sam Heller |Nicholas Danforth |Aron Lund |Veena Ali-Khan
American relations with Turkey have always contained contradictions. As Donald Trump embarks on another four years of foreign policy transactionalism, it’s hard to know what U.S.–Turkey trend will win out: a deepening authoritarian embrace with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or increasing enmity grounded in opposing regional goals and cultural prejudice. Either way, the results will almost certainly be bad. But even in this grim moment, there are small opportunities.
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Nov 18, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Thanassis Cambanis |Sajad Jiyad |Peter Salisbury |Veena Ali-Khan
Many Middle Eastern leaders welcomed Donald Trump’s election victory, convinced that Trump policies would better serve their regional interests. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly rooted for Trump. And while authoritarian leaders in Saudi Arabia and Egypt had warmed to the Biden administration, they historically prefer Republican leaders who dispense with even rhetorical demands for human rights.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Thanassis Cambanis |Dalia Hatuqa |Veena Ali-Khan |Sam Heller
The Biden administration says it supports “limited” Israeli military operations in Lebanon. But for Lebanese who are desperately fleeing Israeli attacks, watching their country be destroyed, or hearing the thump of airstrikes and whirring of drones overhead—well, Israel’s war doesn’t feel particularly limited. And there’s little reason to believe it will remain limited, as Israel presses its ground offensive in southern Lebanon and both U.S. and Israeli aims become more expansive.
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Sep 16, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Dalia Hatuqa |Veena Ali-Khan |Thanassis Cambanis |Lana Tatour
More than two decades after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and three years after the United States formally ended its combat mission there, the American military has still not left. The 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq are a small fraction of the 160,000 stationed there at the height of the American occupation, but even now, Washington operates with minimal coordination with Iraqi authorities.
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Jul 15, 2024 | 
tcf.org | Veena Ali-Khan |Sam Heller |Thanassis Cambanis |Sajad Jiyad
Big Ideas, Clear PoliciesProgressives have been kept busy for far too long trying to stop terrible U.S. foreign policies, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq and ongoing forever-war counterterrorism policies that have come to define America in the Middle East. But the progressive vision for America’s role in the world goes far beyond repairing the damage wrought by careless forever warriors and indifferent isolationists.
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Jan 16, 2024 | 
foreignpolicy.com | Veena Ali-Khan
United States Middle East and North Africa In the not-too-distant past, Saudi Arabia would have cherished the opportunity for a joint U.S.-U.K. strike targeting Houthi strongholds. After all, Riyadh fought a brutal war against the group for almost a decade.
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Nov 19, 2023 | 
al-monitor.com | Veena Ali-Khan
November 19, 2023 As Israel’s offensive in Gaza grinds on, World War III in the Middle East has not yet erupted. Iran’s allies have exercised relative restraint, and nobody has a desire to fully escalate. However, a single misstep could spark a broader conflagration. Already, the Houthis launched a barrage of ballistic missiles and drones that appear to be targeting Israel. Also, Iran-backed allies in both Syria and Iraq have claimed attacks on US positions there.
