Through our Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, the Atlantic Council works with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests, build peace and security, and unlock the human potential of the region.

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Meet our blogs

MENASource

MENASource follows movements across the region and provides news and analysis on current events, including a platform for Middle Eastern perspectives, among others, on major issues—economic, political, security, cultural—that are at stake in the post-Arab Spring era.  

IranSource

IranSource provides a holistic look at Iran’s internal dynamics, global and regional policies, and posture through unique analysis of current events and long-term, strategic issues related to Iran.

All commentary & analysis

IranSource

Jan 25, 2019

Israel and Iran Exchange Blows in Syria: A View From Israel

By Shemuel Meir

The January 20 Israeli attack on an Iranian weapons shipment delivery near the Damascus airport in Syria led to a quick and exceptional succession of events that could have easily brought both sides to the brink of war.  Iran reacted with a missile launch at the Golan Heights. Israel then responded with an attack on […]

Iran
Israel

MENASource

Jan 24, 2019

The Egyptian revolution: Eight years later

By Dr. H.A. Hellyer

Eight years ago today, a small group of Egyptians protested against their government. The protest grew, and led to millions of Egyptians coming to the streets across their country, eventually resulting in Hosni Mubarak resigning the presidency.

North Africa

SyriaSource

Jan 23, 2019

Consequences of the US withdrawal from Syria: the French perspective

By Ambassador Michel Duclos

French authorities were undoubtedly upset, if not very surprised, by US President Donald Trump’s sudden announcement of a withdrawal from the northeast of Syria. On several occasions during his talks with President Trump, especially when he came to Washington for a state visit in April 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron was very insistent that the US and their allies should stay, ultimately he did not change the American president’s decision and campaign commitment to end America’s wars abroad.

Syria

IranSource

Jan 18, 2019

What’s Behind the Middle East Summit in Poland?

By Robert Czulda

The US announcement that an international summit on the security and stability of the Middle East will be held February 13 and 14 in Warsaw was as shocking as it was unexpected, not only for Iranians but also for Poles. Poland is an important political and military ally of the United States and Polish energy […]

Iran
Poland

SyriaSource

Jan 17, 2019

The influence of domestic politics on foreign policy in Syria

By Emily Burchfield

On January 13, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israeli forces attacked Iranian weapons warehouses in Damascus the day prior, confirming similar reports by Syrian state media. What is unusual about Netanyahu’s statement is not the content—indeed, Israeli officials previously acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes on thousands of Iranian targets in Syria—but the context. The announcement broke with a “policy of ambiguity” under which Israel refuses to claim responsibility immediately after a specific attack; the rationale being to safeguard against potential retaliation. 

Israel
Syria

IranSource

Jan 16, 2019

Iranian Prisoners’ Hunger Strike Is a Plea for Basic Rights

By Tara Sepehri Far

This week, two well-known political prisoners in Tehran’s Evin prison went on a three-day hunger strike to protest their inability to get urgent medical treatment.  Narges Mohammadi, a prominent human rights defender serving a ten-year sentence for her peaceful activism, suffers from a serious neurological disease that causes muscular paralysis. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a British-Iranian dual national serving a […]

SyriaSource

Jan 15, 2019

Can anything be salvaged?

By Frederic C. Hof

President Trump’s impulsive “out of Syria” tweet of December 19, 2018 may have sacrificed high value, low cost American leverage in eastern Syria for precisely nothing.  Russian, Iranian, and Assad regime alarm that the West would work with local Syrians in areas liberated from ISIS (ISIL, Daesh, Islamic State) to create the long-awaited governance alternative to Bashar al-Assad, family, and friends have all-but-evaporated. 

Syria

IranSource

Jan 15, 2019

How the exiled Iranian opposition may actually Be helping the Iranian regime

By Maysam Behravesh

The Islamic Republic of Iran has no shortage of opposition groups, many with adherents in the large Iranian diaspora. From the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to secular republicans to ethnic separatist organizations, they are all bent on overthrowing the Iranian regime and replacing it with what they claim will be a more inclusive system. Despite this […]

Iran

IranSource

Jan 14, 2019

Japan Strives to Keep Importing Iranian Oil Despite US Sanctions

By Sachi Sakanashi

Japan’s energy policy towards Iran has been an area of struggle for independence from the United States for four decades. Even when Japan tried to pursue its own energy policy towards Iran, the US has generally had the final say. From Japan’s point of view, however, the US stance towards Japan-Iran energy relations has toughened […]

Iran
Japan

SyriaSource

Jan 11, 2019

Winter storm in Arsal, Lebanon devastates vulnerable Syrian refugee communities

By Mohammad Abdulssattar Ibrahim, Tom Rollins, and Madeline Edwards from Syria Direct

A winter storm currently sweeping across the region has hit Lebanon hard, leaving tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in the country without proper assistance and shelter. While flooding has inundated and destroyed informal tent settlements dotting the fields and countryside of the Beqaa Valley—a mostly flat, agricultural lowland with Lebanese mountains to the west and the Syrian-Lebanese border to the east—conditions have been particularly poor in northeastern Lebanon’s Arsal region.

Middle East
Syria
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