Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs

The current crisis has important lessons for both United States and Iranian policymakers as they consider what relationship they want to have with Iraq: not just the Iraqi political class, but the Iraqis in the street, who represent—in some cases more closely than the Iraqi political class in Baghdad—the 80 percent of Iraqis who are under forty years old.

The news on November 29 that Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi will resign is unprecedented in post-2003 Iraq. Many questions must be answered before his successor is appointed, and in the meantime, we can expect unrest to continue.

At midnight on November 15, the Iranian government announced it was hiking petrol prices by at least 50 percent. Although the government justified the measure—itself part of badly-needed structural reforms—as a means of generating cash handouts for 60 million of the country’s poorest citizens (or 75 percent of the population), it triggered large-scale protests across […]

The idea of a ‘Russian resurgence’ in the Middle East set against a perceived American withdrawal has captured the attention of policymakers and scholars alike, warranting further examination.

The objective of the United States in Syria must be a full political transition from criminal, terrorist rule by family and entourage to a consensual, legitimate system featuring rule of law. Its achievement would, barring unanticipated regime collapse, take years of patient, focused, and disciplined effort.

Executive Summary The future of northeast Syria is unsettled after eight years of civil war and the US intervention to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). It also faces the various divergent interests of powerful external actors, including Russia and Turkey. In mid-April 2019, the Atlantic Council, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, and the Foreign Policy […]