Featured commentary & analysis


Counterterrorism Study Group

The Counterterrorism Study Group is a forum for former counterterrorism officials to review the latest threats, to understand emerging trends and future predictions, and to explore creative new proposals for improving the effectiveness of current policies and operations.


Podcast series

Listen to the latest episode of the China-MENA podcast, featuring conversations with academics, government leaders, and the policy community on China’s role in the Middle East.


Gulf Security Task Force

The Gulf Security Task Force is revisiting the question of how to best protect US interests in this sensitive, always relevant region. Our goal is to provide US decision-makers with an updated, fact-based strategy for protecting US interests in the air and maritime domain from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, and ensuring Gulf partners’ ability to assume this responsibility, with the assistance and leadership of the United States.

Content

Article

Sep 11, 2014

Column: Coalition Against Islamic State Must Include Iran

By Barbara Slavin

President Barack Obama is right to focus on the responsibility of the Sunni Muslim world to attack and expunge the cancer that is the militant group calling itself the Islamic State (IS). The group’s perversion of Islam in the service of its barbaric goals needs to be confronted first and foremost by those for whom […]

Iraq Saudi Arabia

New Atlanticist

Sep 8, 2014

Yemen: Protests and Mistrust of Government Hamper Another Arab Struggle Toward Stability

Months After ‘National Dialogue’ Opened a Path Forward, Ill-Prepared Reforms Ignite New Turmoil Eight months after Yemen sparked hope for its stabilization with a broad political accord for a new, federal state, that agreement has eroded into massive protests that threaten to undermine the earlier progress. Tens of thousands of Shia tribesmen from Yemen’s Houthi […]

Yemen

MENASource

Sep 2, 2014

Protests in Yemen Expose Weak Governance and Poor Economic Planning

By Danya Greenfield and Svetlana Milbert

Estimates of 10,000 Yemenis protesting in the streets of Sana’a against lifting fuel subsidies have prompted international concern—mostly regarding the Houthi movement’s ability to mobilize such masses in their aggressive game of Russian roulette with the Yemeni government.

Yemen

In the News

Sep 1, 2014

Saab on UAE Participation in NATO Summit

By Bilal Y. Saab

The National quotes Brent Scowcroft Center Resident Senior Fellow for Middle East Security Bilal Y. Saab on how the NATO Summit presents an opportunity for the Alliance to forge a stronger relationship with the United Arab Emirates: 

NATO Security & Defense

Article

Aug 31, 2014

Column: Saudi-Iran Meeting Could Boost Fight Against Islamic State

By Barbara Slavin

To say that there are a lot of moving pieces in the Middle East these days is certainly an understatement. From Libya to Yemen, Gaza to Iraq, outside powers are intervening in complex confrontations that pit religious fundamentalists against secularists, dictators against democrats and ethnic minorities against each other.

Iraq Libya

MENASource

Aug 27, 2014

Podcast: Experts React to Airstrikes in Libya

In the wake of conflicting messages from the United States on reports that the United Arab Emirates and Egypt struck Islamist positions in Libya, MENASource spoke with three Atlantic Council experts to get their reactions to this news.

Libya North Africa

MENASource

Aug 26, 2014

Egypt Has No Good Choices in Libya

The recent revelation that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt were behind the previously unidentified warplanes that struck Islamist positions in Libya has sparked questions on Egypt’s role and its potential options for protecting its shared border with the troubled country—and the consequences of doing so.

North Africa The Gulf

In the News

Aug 25, 2014

LeBaron on Qatari Foreign Policy

By Richard LeBaron

The National quotes Rafik Hariri Center Senior Fellow Richard LeBaron on Qatar’s role in securing the release of American journalist Peter Theo Curtis from Syria:

International Organizations Politics & Diplomacy

In the News

Aug 22, 2014

Greenfield on Yemen’s Houthi Movement

By Danya Greenfield

The International Business Times quotes Rafik Hariri Center Acting Director Danya Greenfield on the Houthi movement in Yemen:

Yemen
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow, April 14, 2013

NATOSource

Aug 15, 2014

Special Summit Series: The United Arab Emirates and NATO

By Bilal Y. Saab

The United Arab Emirates has said and done all the right things to prove that it wants a stronger partnership with NATO.

NATO NATO Partnerships

Experts