There are signs of a thaw between Algeria and France, nearly two years after the onset of the serious diplomatic crisis between the North African nation and former colonial power. Ambassador Stéphane Romatet may soon return to lead France’s diplomatic mission in Algiers, as both countries have taken concrete steps on the diplomatic front. However, there appears to be no real political strategy in Algeria for redefining its relationship with France, with the risk that progress in the current favorable moment could lose momentum and end with the two countries stuck in a new limbo.

Over recent months, Algeria has softened its positions on issues related to the colonial past. In particular, on March 9, the Algerian parliament approved an amended law condemning French colonial rule, removing provisions that had called for France to issue official apologies and broad compensation. The Algerian Senate had called for the removal of these provisions, saying that they did not reflect President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s official approach. The amended law helped to at least partially ease the long-standing dispute with France.

Additionally, during these months, Algeria and France resumed high-level communication. For example, in February, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez traveled to Algiers for a two-day visit, restoring contact with the Algerian government within the framework of security cooperation. And on March 15, Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf and his French counterpart Jean-Noël Barrot talked cordially on the phone after nearly a year of no contact.

These are positive signs, suggesting an abatement in the crisis, which began when France expressed support for the recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. Algeria reframed that move within the context of claims related to French colonial rule—an issue that remains sensitive and never fully resolved. During the crisis, France recalled its ambassador, so the announcement that the French ambassador would return to Algiers is a positive signal, opening the door to a more balanced and constructive bilateral dialogue, especially in light of the importance France holds for the Algerian economy.

At the same time, however, Tebboune’s openings risk being little more than symbolic, without the initiation of a more decisive and profound revision of the bilateral relationship, which remains burdened by the often-inconsistent posture of Algerian institutions toward the former colonial power. Algeria has not matched its recent diplomatic progress with a coherent political strategy, leaving the relationship with France vulnerable to renewed stagnation and uncertainty. It is also unclear whether the thorny issue of the Western Sahara will continue to be a central point in dialogue with France as well as, more broadly, France-Morocco relations, which have grown in scope and intensity over the past two years and are now certainly not negotiable in the context of a renewal of relations with Algiers.

Further complicating Algeria-France relations is the unstable nature of regional alliances, strongly influenced by the Trump administration and increasingly assertive Israeli policies regarding Gaza and Iran. Algeria is closely observing the growing friction between French President Emmanuel Macron, US President Donald Trump, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, believing that French foreign policy contains elements of alignment with Algerian positions. No less important is the emerging energy crisis, which opens up opportunities for further cooperation with European countries and with France, in that Algiers could play a leading role in helping major European countries diversify their suppliers of oil and gas.

Algeria is also actively engaged in developing the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline linking Nigeria to the Mediterranean through Niger, which could significantly help meet European energy demand—if the project can finance its high development costs and bolster against insecurity in the Sahel. Algeria could seize on the opportunity of the pipeline and use it to consolidate economic relations with France—although deeper layers of the Algerian “pouvoir” could condition such a partnership on a revision of French positions on Western Sahara, running the risk of bringing relations between the two countries to another abrupt halt.

Additionally, Algeria’s ongoing efforts to restore its regional influence in the Sahel may prove a critical factor in the relaunch of Algeria-France relations, particularly as Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali currently maintain very poor relations with Paris. Algeria is looking toward the Sahel in an effort to rebuild a network of Sahel partners capable of isolating Morocco. It is also looking to re-establish Algiers’ primacy, in looking to strengthen ties with countries that have rocky relations with or outright oppose France, the United States, and Israel.

Such an orientation is likely, in the short term, to bring the issue of Western Sahara back to the center of Algerian discourse, potentially placing France in a position in which it must weigh its renewed relationship with Morocco against the uncertain opportunities offered by Algeria.

Karim Mezran is the director of the North Africa Initiative and a resident senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council.

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But it was hardly the first escalation. The day the United States and Israel attacked Iran, February 28, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and allied Shia militias launched the most sustained barrage of missiles and drones the Kurdistan Region has ever absorbed. In the first seventy-two hours, more than seventy projectiles struck or were intercepted over Erbil. Targets included Erbil International Airport, the newly opened US consulate general (the largest US consulate in the world), Peshmerga headquarters, and the Harir Air Base. On March 12, a Shahed drone killed French Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion and wounded six soldiers at a coalition training base. A separate strike hit an Italian military installation, prompting Rome to temporarily pull its personnel. By late March, over four hundred separate strikes had hit the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). The Khor Mor gas field preemptively shut down gas supplies, triggering electricity blackouts across multiple governorates.

These incidents are part of an established pattern that predate the current war. Throughout 2025, Iranian-backed militias conducted a sustained drone campaign targeting Kurdish energy infrastructure. In February, a kamikaze drone struck Khor Mor during critical energy negotiations with Baghdad. In July, drones targeted the Sarsang oil field shortly before its American operator was scheduled to finalize a new agreement, resulting in a halt of its production of 30,000 barrels per day. In November, another attack on Khor Mor destroyed a newly completed liquefied natural gas facility and reduced electricity generation by nearly 80 percent. The targeting is systematic and intentional, conveying that Tehran can jeopardize Kurdish economic stability, disrupt Western energy partnerships, and impose costs without facing significant consequences.

The sovereignty that isn’t

Baghdad typically responds to proposals for direct US air defense assistance by asserting that such measures would violate Iraqi sovereignty. However, sovereignty is meaningful only when a government can effectively protect its territory and population. Baghdad lacks sufficient control over its federal territory to prevent Iranian missile strikes on Erbil, ongoing proxy drone campaigns against Kurdish energy infrastructure, or attacks on coalition facilities. The government has not established a monopoly on the use of force, as Iran-aligned militias operate both within and outside formal state structures without restriction. Regardless of these distinctions, the outcome remains unchanged.

Following the February strikes, Kurdish leaders Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani urged Baghdad to implement substantive measures to halt militia attacks, emphasizing that their restraint was not unlimited. While Baghdad issued condemnations, it did not intercept any attacks. When a government repeatedly fails to fulfill its duty to protect its territory, the legitimacy of its sovereign veto over external defensive assistance is undermined. The primary violation of Iraqi sovereignty is not the potential deployment of a US-supplied shield in Erbil, but rather Tehran’s accurate assessment that it can strike Iraqi territory without consequence.

The Taiwan precedent

The United States has established a precedent for addressing similar challenges. The Taiwan Relations Act obligates Washington to provide Taiwan with defensive arms and to maintain the capacity to resist coercion. Since the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003, Taiwan has been treated as a de facto Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA) for the transfer of defense articles and services. The KRI presents a direct parallel: It is a self-governing entity where the recognized sovereign claims exclusive control over defense, faces a hostile power employing both conventional and proxy tactics, and is unable to acquire necessary defense systems due to its lack of sovereign status. If the United States were to designate the KRI as an MNNA for air defense, it would provide the KRI priority access to foreign military sales, streamline the US review process for arms sales to KRI, and circumvent the bureaucratic obstacles imposed by Baghdad’s procedural veto. This approach would not alter Iraq’s borders but would acknowledge the existing reality.

What the shield looks like

The goal is not to duplicate Israel’s layered air defense architecture, but rather to develop a credible deterrence system tailored to the specific threats faced in northern Iraq: armed drones, loitering munitions, short- and medium-range rockets, and the ballistic missiles deployed by the IRGC in January 2024 and 2026. A US package should include counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar systems, counter-drone platforms, Shahed-type devices, integrated radar, hardened command-and-control infrastructure, and the selective deployment of Patriot batteries at critical locations.

The events of February demonstrated the effectiveness of existing US air defenses in Erbil, which intercepted most incoming projectiles and minimized damage to US facilities. However, these systems do not provide comprehensive coverage for the broader Kurdish population and infrastructure. The fatal March 24 attack highlighted this gap, as Peshmerga bases in Soran remain outside the US defense perimeter. Establishing a Kurdish air defense layer constitutes an extension of force protection, particularly as the KRI now hosts the majority of US forces in Iraq following withdrawals from other Iraqi bases.

How to get there

Legislative mechanisms are available to address these needs. Section 1266 of the fiscal year (FY) 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) required the Pentagon to develop a plan to equip and train Peshmerga forces, including air defense provisions, but both deadlines were missed. The FY2026 NDAA, enacted in December 2025, allocates $343 million to the Counter-ISIS Train and Equip Fund for partner forces in Iraq and Syria, which could be adapted to support site defense, radar, and short-range intercept systems for the Peshmerga. The SPEED Act, included in the same legislation, reduces Pentagon acquisition timelines from eight hundred days to approximately five months and facilitates the deployment of commercial and military-off-the-shelf systems. Section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act grants the president drawdown authority for unforeseen emergencies, a mechanism previously used for Ukraine and Taiwan. Congress should establish a KRI-specific air and missile defense line item in the next appropriations package, with notification to Baghdad but without granting Baghdad veto power.

Washington faces a choice: continue to defer to Baghdad’s procedural objections while Iran conducts unimpeded strikes on Kurdish territory or acknowledge the strategic reality and take decisive action. The former approach results in inaction, while the latter helps establish deterrence. The recent missile strike on the Peshmerga’s 7th Division has eliminated any remaining ambiguity. Washington should send a message to Tehran that Erbil is no longer a vulnerable target and to Baghdad that sovereignty entails responsibility rather than an unconditional veto. Where this responsibility has not been met, Washington should be prepared to act.

Yerevan Saeed is a nonresident senior fellow with the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. Saeed is the Barzani scholar-in-residence in the Department of Politics, Governance & Economics at American University’s School of International Service, where he also serves as director of the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace.

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The solution his planners devised was elegant in its simplicity: a pipeline running southwest from the oil fields of Basra, through the Jordanian desert, terminating at the Red Sea port of Aqaba. From there, Iraqi crude could reach global markets without passing through a single contested chokepoint. The project was announced, studied, negotiated over, and quietly abandoned. It has been revived since but derailed at different moments by war, occupation, insurgency, and internal Iraqi politics. This cycle repeated itself, with remarkable consistency, for four decades—and the Basra-Aqaba pipeline was never built.

Now the bill for that failure is coming due. This time, Aqaba is not the end of the answer. So long as the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz remain similarly volatile, a pipeline that stops short of Egypt and the Mediterranean trades one vulnerability for another.

A warning unheeded

When Iran moved to close the Strait of Hormuz following the outbreak of conflict with the United States and Israel, Iraq had to face what its planners had known since 1983: that an estimated 90 percent of its crude exports flow through a waterway it has no power to protect. The consequences cascaded almost immediately. Baghdad began shutting production at its largest fields—Rumaila and West Qurna 2—making the deepest cuts in a generation, not because of any direct military threat to the fields themselves, but because southern storage facilities (designed for operational throughput rather than long-term holding) simply ran out of space. In the absence of viable alternative export pipelines, estimates suggest that Iraq is losing between $260 million and $280 million in revenue each day.

Despite over a decade of talks, construction on the Basra-Aqaba pipeline never meaningfully advanced. The failure to advance the project had no single cause: It can be attributed to the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, the US invasion, ISIS’s territorial expansion, and even resistance by pro-Iran Shia factions in Baghdad, who opposed the pipeline on the grounds that it would bring Iraqi oil into proximity with Israel.

Now, Baghdad is improvising. After acrimonious negotiations—and a formal threat of legal action from Baghdad accusing Erbil of breaching the Iraqi constitution—Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government struck a deal on March 17 to restart crude flows through the long-dormant Iraq-Turkey Pipeline to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. Exports resumed at an initial capacity of 250,000 barrels per day, with the two sides agreeing to form a joint committee to oversee operations and return revenues to the federal treasury. That figure is a rounding error against the roughly 3.5 million barrels Iraq was exporting daily before the crisis.

With output from Iraq’s main southern fields having already plunged 70 percent, the northern pipeline restart, even if volumes climb in coming weeks, recovers only a fraction of lost export capacity. The Basra-Aqaba pipeline, had it been completed to its phase one capacity of 2.25 million barrels per day, would have offset the majority of what the Hormuz closure took offline, providing a genuine and immediate alternative without the dormancy, the standoff, or the frantic eleventh-hour diplomacy. A second phase, running from the Iraqi city of Haditha to Aqaba with an additional capacity of one million barrels per day, would have brought total corridor capacity to 3.25 million barrels—nearly matching Iraq’s pre-crisis export volumes in their entirety. Instead, with the northern pipeline restart, Iraq is celebrating a partial fix to a problem that should never have been left unsolved.

Egypt’s compound exposure

There is a dimension of this crisis that has received far less attention than it deserves, and it runs through Cairo. When the Basra-Aqaba pipeline discussions gained momentum in 2016, Egypt was formally brought into the conversation with the longer-term vision of positioning Cairo as an active hub in a land-based Gulf energy corridor reaching Mediterranean and global markets. The original Basra-Aqaba proposal, designed to terminate at Jordan’s Red Sea port, had by then been expanded to include Egypt—extending the corridor’s ambition westward to the Mediterranean. That vision was soon shelved along with everything else. Egypt now finds itself absorbing the costs of the current crisis from every direction at once, with none of the structural revenues that corridor integration would have provided.

The picture is one of compounding fragility. Suez Canal revenues, which had been projected to recover toward eight billion dollars in 2026 following the Gaza cease-fire, are once again under pressure as major carriers weigh the risk calculus of Red Sea routing against the longer but safer passage around the Cape of Good Hope. At the same time, Israel has halted natural gas flows from the Tamar and Leviathan fields to Egypt, a supply that the country had come to rely on for both domestic consumption and liquefied natural gas (LNG) re-export revenues. Egypt’s budget for this fiscal year was calculated assuming oil at seventy-five dollars per barrel, a figure that now bears little relationship to market reality, forcing the government to chase spot LNG cargoes at elevated premiums it can ill afford.

Meanwhile, Egypt faces $27 billion in external debt service due in 2026 against roughly $53 billion in international reserves. An estimated two billion to six billion dollars in foreign holdings of Egyptian government debt instruments has already exited the market, renewing pressure on a currency that took years of painful International Monetary Fund­–guided adjustment to stabilize.

Against this backdrop, Egyptian Mediterranean ports have quietly become an improvised transit lifeline, with cargo being offloaded and moved overland to Red Sea ports for onward delivery to Gulf destinations. Egypt is already performing the corridor functions that a formal Basra-Aqaba-Egypt pipeline architecture would have institutionalized, only now it is doing so informally, without the infrastructure investment, long-term agreements, or revenue arrangements that would make the role sustainable. The country’s geographic value is being recognized in a crisis that its economy is simultaneously struggling to survive.

A foundation without a roof

The corridor logic, however, has never been purely theoretical—nor has it lacked institutional foundation. Since 2019, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan have convened a series of trilateral summits under the Amman-Baghdad-Cairo framework, with energy integration and pipeline connectivity among the agreement’s explicit pillars. The precedent runs deeper than recent diplomacy. During the Iran-Iraq War, Jordan served as Iraq’s primary import-export conduit while Egypt supplied over a million laborers to fill jobs vacated by Iraqi conscripts—making Iraq, at that moment, Egypt’s single largest source of remittances. These three countries have an economic interdependence that keeps reasserting itself in moments of regional stress, and they have been trying, with the tools available to them, to give it permanent form. The summits exist. The framework exists. And the political will among the three governments, however constrained by Baghdad’s internal divisions, Amman’s fiscal limits, and Cairo’s institutional pressures, has proven more durable than the results suggest.

Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt should build the pipeline, extend it through Egypt to the Mediterranean, and treat it as the strategic infrastructure it has always been. The financing question, which has too often been regarded as a reason to delay rather than a problem to solve, is more tractable than it appears. It is the politics, not the funding, that has always been the harder obstacle. Iraq has already allocated federal budget funds for the first leg and structured the second phase for private investment. The missing ingredient is the sustained engagement of international partners—Gulf sovereign wealth funds, multilateral development institutions, and Western governments with a direct interest in regional energy stability—willing to bring the institutional weight that transforms a framework agreement into a pipeline in the ground.

Every year the Basra-Aqaba-Egypt corridor remains unbuilt is a year in which the region’s most crisis-tested economic relationships remain hostage to infrastructure that was never completed. Iraqi planners understood the problem in 1983. The pipeline that they all agreed was necessary has still never been built, and the region is paying the price. Until it is, the next crisis will find the same vulnerabilities in the same places.

Maisoon H. Kafafy is a senior advisor to the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs, where her work focuses on Middle East and North Africa security, regional cooperation strategies, and geoeconomics.

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The argument over Maliki is loud and politically charged. The intra-Kurdish rift has been quieter—but is a far more structural issue.

The deadlock over the premiership is, at its core, a matter of internal balance within the Coordination Framework, the governing coalition of Shia parties that nominated Maliki, and Maliki’s personal ambitions. But in the end, the chosen prime minister must serve the interests of the Coordination Framework. The Iran war, and the existential threat it posed to the Islamic Republic, made Tehran’s allied militias in Iraq more insistent on having a prime minister they approve of. That can be anyone among many candidates in the Coordination Framework’s political ranks. Whether Maliki, caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, or another Coordination Framework figure becomes prime minister matters—particularly for Iraq’s relations with Washington and the tone of its governance. But it is not a fundamental question about the architecture of power in Baghdad.

The dispute between the KDP and the PUK, by contrast, strikes at the heart of a decades-old power-sharing arrangement that has underpinned Kurdish politics since the 1990s. That makes it a far bigger obstacle that must be overcome before Iraq can form a new government.

A deal that kept the peace

After the Kurdish civil war of the mid-to-late 1990s, the two rival factions in the conflict—the KDP and the PUK—emerged as uneasy equals. The peace that followed was not built on trust alone; it was built on a relative balance between the two sides’ territorial control, local support, and military strength.

That balance evolved into a strategic agreement signed in 2006 that lasted more than a decade and kept the peace in the Kurdistan region following the fall of Saddam Hussein. The understanding—essentially between Jalal Talabani of the PUK and Masoud Barzani of the KDP—was clear. The KDP would dominate the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil, taking its presidency, but the PUK would nominate the region’s vice president. The PUK, in turn, would take the lead in Baghdad, with Talabani serving as president of the Federal Republic of Iraq. At the same time, the two parties would split the premiership and parliamentary leadership on a rotating basis and split the rest of the ministries and senior positions evenly.

This arrangement reflected the political reality at the time. The two parties were roughly equal in weight. Each controlled its own territory and security forces. Each commanded loyalty from a distinct constituency. The fifty-fifty split was not simply symbolic; it was an equilibrium that prevented renewed conflict. And for years, it worked.

New competition and electoral drift

That equilibrium began to erode in the aftermath of the 2009 Kurdistan regional elections and the 2010 Iraqi general elections. These elections marked the last time that the KDP and PUK formed a joint electoral alliance.

The rise of the Gorran (Change) Movement in 2009 marked a dramatic shift in the electoral landscape as it carved for itself a large chunk of votes and seats in both the Kurdistan regional and Iraqi parliaments. The PUK suffered splits and the emergence of new competition within its territory, since Gorran was a PUK offshoot, diluting its electoral weight. Meanwhile, the KDP retained cohesion and continued to perform strongly in regional and national elections, resulting in a steady divergence in electoral strength between the two parties. The KDP now consistently outperforms the PUK in both regional and national contests.

In regional elections, the KDP/PUK balance shifted from a parity of 30/29 in 2009 to 38/18 in 2013. The gap grew wider, to 45/21 in 2018 before settling at 39/23 in the latest election in 2024.

The national level showed a similar pattern. The balance changed from 25/21 in favor of the KDP in 2014, to 25/18 four years later in 2018. The KDP improved its standing again in 2021 as the balance reached 31/17. In the November 2025 election, the KDP outperformed the PUK 27/18.

From the KDP’s perspective, the logic is straightforward: Why maintain a fifty-fifty split when the numbers no longer justify it? The PUK sees things differently.

Two competing logics of power

For the KDP, elections are the metric that matters. Seat counts determine legitimacy. Deadlocks over the presidency should be resolved through votes—whether in the Kurdistan parliament or among Kurdish representatives in Baghdad—because the KDP knows it has the numerical advantage.

For the PUK, elections are only one dimension of power. Territorial control, military capability, and alliances matter just as much, if not more. Even if it were to lose every seat, PUK officials have suggested, it would retain security forces, territorial influence, and strategic partnerships. That, in their view, justifies preserving its share of power.

Within the Kurdistan region, this divergence spawned repeated troubles over the past decade. The regional premiership rotation system envisaged in the 2006 agreement collapsed after just one rotation in which the PUK’s Barham Salih was prime minister from 2009 to 2012. The KDP has refused to share the premiership ever since.

In 2015, this dynamic led to a regional government crisis when Barzani refused to step down from the presidency after his term expired. The electoral divergence also contributed to infighting over the Iraqi presidency in 2018. And it created today’s standoff over the formation of the national government.

This clash of logics is at the heart of today’s crisis. The KDP wants a recalibration based on ballots. The PUK wants continuity grounded in balance—based either on its historical strength or by reinvigorating itself through new alliances—and hard power. Neither side is inclined to concede.

Why this matters for Baghdad

Electing a president is a prerequisite for designating a prime minister. Kurdish parties are supposed to coalesce around a joint candidate for the Iraqi presidency. That was relatively easy when Talabani was alive and the PUK and KDP adhered to their strategic agreement but has since become significantly more difficult. If the KDP and the PUK cannot agree on a candidate, the process stalls before it even reaches the premiership.

And the standoff in Kurdistan had already persisted for a full year before the current deadlock emerged in Baghdad. The Kurdistan region held parliamentary elections in October 2024 yet it still has not formed a new government. Almost eighteen months later, the region continues to operate under a caretaker cabinet, and its parliament has struggled to convene. The paralysis in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah feeds directly into the paralysis in Baghdad.

Indeed, the KDP’s surprising decision not to object to Maliki’s nomination despite their long history of hostility—helping set the stage for the current standoff—may well have been based on the expectation that Maliki would return the favor by backing the KDP’s presidential candidate, Fuad Hussein.

This is not a temporary disagreement over personalities. It is a renegotiation of the fundamental terms of Kurdish power-sharing. Such renegotiations are slow, fraught, and potentially destabilizing.

Maliki: Loud but manageable

Contrast this structural political conflict with the controversy over Maliki. His nomination drew criticism domestically and abroad, raised concerns in Washington, and stirred anxieties about Iraq’s political direction. But procedurally, it is easier to resolve than the Kurdish dispute. US President Donald Trump’s public repudiation of Maliki created an awkward situation. Maliki and the Coordination Framework risk losing face if they acquiesce to Trump’s demand to replace Maliki. There is, however, a fairly easy offramp—let parliament end Maliki’s third term before it begins.

The prime minister-designate must form a cabinet and win parliamentary approval. If negotiations fail, the nominee can fall in parliament, as happened in 2020 with Mohammed Allawi and Adnan al-Zurfi. In such a case, the system can simply absorb the failure and move on to another candidate without losing face. In any case, the controversy over Maliki does not threaten to fundamentally alter the distribution of power between Iraq’s main political factions. The Kurdish dispute does.

If the KDP and the PUK cannot agree on the basic rules of coexistence—on how to divide authority in the region and how to represent Kurdish interests in Baghdad—then every subsequent step in the federal process becomes more complicated.

The risk of prolonged stalemate

The longer this standoff continues, the greater the temptation for some actors to seek pathways to bypass consensus arrangements that have defined, and at times paralyzed, Iraq’s post-2003 politics. For better or worse, that could destabilize this system.

Resolving the Kurdish impasse will require flexibility from both sides. The KDP may need to temper its maximalist reading of electoral gains. The PUK may need to acknowledge new political realities. Influential external actors, including Iran, which favors the PUK and distrusts the KDP, will also need to avoid obstructing compromise. None of that will be easy.

The argument over who becomes prime minister may dominate headlines. But the deeper story—the one that will determine how quickly Iraq forms a government—has been unfolding within Kurdish politics for nearly eighteen months. Until the KDP and the PUK settle their dispute over the terms of power-sharing, Baghdad will likely remain stuck in limbo.

Omar Al-Nidawi is a nonresident senior fellow with the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and the director of programs at the Enabling Peace in Iraq Center.

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A closer look, however, reveals a shift in the battlefield dynamic over the past twenty years that often gives weaker militaries more tools to offset stronger adversaries. Cheap drones, open-source satellite imagery, and cyber tools give weaker states such as Iran new ways to hold superior militaries at risk, while forcing them to expend munitions and resources at far greater cost. And despite deep capital markets, a strong innovation base, and a growing defense tech sector in the United States, costs remain high and development timelines remain long due to an ornery requirements process, misaligned acquisition incentives, and bureaucratic inertia. The Pentagon’s challenge is to rapidly field innovative, lower-cost technologies alongside its exquisite capabilities, ensuring each is used where it delivers the greatest advantage.

Consider the overwhelming firepower with which the United States initiated combat operations in 2003. Joint Direct Attack Munitions, aircraft carrier strike groups, and stealth bombers remained out of reach for Iraqi defenders. US bases in the region were also largely untouchable; while Iraqi Scud missiles inflicted serious damage in the first Gulf War, US missile defense systems proved highly effective during Operation Iraqi Freedom, leading to a decisive end of initial combat operations after just a few weeks of fighting, the following insurgency notwithstanding. Much has changed since then, especially with the proliferation of low-cost drone technology, at which Iran has become adept. By producing and exporting the Shahed-136 drone to Russia for use in Ukraine, Iran has refined both the technology and doctrine behind these systems.

The result is a weapon that forces the United States to intercept $30,000 drones with $2-million defensive systems—while still inflicting casualties in the opening salvos of a conflict. Iran’s combination of ballistic missiles and low-cost drones threatens to swiftly deplete defensive systems, leaving US, Arab, and Israeli targets vulnerable to attack. Additionally, Iranian-aligned groups in the region, such as the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Iraq, or even the much-weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon, can employ much of the same low-cost weapons to stretch and harass American and Israeli troops, broadening the battlespace across the region and striking civilian traffic and infrastructure to impose global costs to a growing conflict.

While the United States will continue to enjoy unquestionable military overmatch, both the United States and Israel enjoy another advantage over the terrorist regime in Tehran and its regional proxies: a deep pool of innovation, capital markets, and industry ready to produce in support of national security and defense. While there will always be a place for exquisite weapons systems and precision munitions, cheaper and more attritable weapons systems must be part of the fight to both adequately and economically defend against some of the systems being employed by Iranian forces, as well as weapons the United States might encounter in a future Pacific conflict. The Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) drone is one example of the United States leaning into more cost-effective weapons, a rare case of reverse-engineering the Iranian Shahed. Other novel and emerging technologies changing the battlefield today include autonomous ground systems, artificial intelligence-driven counter-drone weapons, and energetics (such as propellants and explosives) for artillery strikes.

For example, autonomous ground vehicles armed with counter-drone weapons or sensors could be cheaply and effectively deployed across the Middle East to defend US bases as well as civilian oil infrastructure, allowing soldiers and civilians to take cover while autonomous systems remain exposed and engage incoming drones. This would obviate the need for expensive missiles to take down low-cost drones, allowing the United States to keep its high-cost systems in reserve for bigger targets that may yet be on the way.

In addition to hardware, the United States has a strong advantage over Iran in big data, computing power, and software. US systems are far more networked than they were twenty years ago. Intelligence collection and analysis is now supported by artificial intelligence. Open-source imagery solutions provide the United States with more options to locate enemy capabilities and stockpiles.

Supported by deep capital markets and institutional investors, the United States dominates the defense tech landscape—and will continue to do so. That means it’s up to the Department of Defense and the services to send a strong demand signal. Unless leaders are willing to employ proven innovative systems at scale, the United States will continue to rely on older, slower, and far more expensive weapons systems both in this fight and in the next.

From Nagorno-Karabakh to Ukraine to Iran, drones and loitering munitions have repeatedly demonstrated how inexpensive systems can reshape the battlefield. Now the United States must adapt in order to remain the world’s premier fighting force. The technology is already here. The question is whether policymakers have the vision and the flexibility to deploy it.

Nic Adams is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He also advises frontier technology firms on strategic communications, business development, and government relations. He previously served as a professional staff member on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and as a commissioned US Army officer.

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A financial disruption in Egypt would reverberate not only across the Middle East and North Africa but potentially across global markets as well. Egypt’s economy is large, systemically important within the region, and interconnected with global financial flows. In addition, for the United States in particular, Egypt holds significant geopolitical importance as a partner for stability in an already volatile region.

Egypt’s macroeconomic fundamentals illustrate why investors are watching closely. The country carries a substantial external debt burden while simultaneously managing significant domestic fiscal pressures. This combination makes the sustainability of financing conditions particularly important during periods of heightened geopolitical risk and market uncertainty. History shows that financial crises rarely remain contained. The Mexican peso crisis of 1994 and the Thai baht devaluation of 1997, which triggered the Asian financial crisis, both began as localized currency events but quickly propagated across markets, asset classes, and national economies.

In the event of a financial crisis, Egypt may be forced to weaken its currency to preserve its reserves and maintain creditworthiness. However, a weaker currency would increase debt servicing costs in local currency terms and likely push inflation (already at 13 percent) even higher. This could create a negative feedback loop between currency weakness, inflation, and fiscal pressure.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the fifth and sixth reviews of Egypt’s Extended Fund Facility arrangement and the first review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility, allowing authorities to draw the equivalent of about $2.3 billion on February 25, right before the conflict in Iran began. 

The IMF’s advocacy and support for Egypt should be augmented by policymakers in the United States and other nations such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. It is important to signal confidence to the marketplace for Egypt now, before market forces begin to cascade into a more challenging outcome.

“Egypt is a resilient society with highly entrepreneurial and talented people,” James Harmon, chairman of the US Egypt Enterprise Fund and former chairman of the US Export-Import Bank, told me. “Just a week before the current conflict in the Gulf, the IMF expressed confidence in the progress being made in Egypt’s economy. Egyptian policymakers are implementing the right reforms and executing them effectively. That said, current events, largely outside Egypt’s control, are creating unexpected economic pressures that warrant careful monitoring. Given Egypt’s significance to the region and to the United States, it is important to support Egypt now.”

Below are several key macroeconomic indicators that highlight Egypt’s current financial position. These figures are sourced from the IMF and the Institute of International Finance and are estimates or forecasts.

External position

• Total external debt: $169 billion (approximately 40 percent of GDP)
• External debt service due in 2026: $27 billion
• Projected current account deficit (baseline assumption): $15 billion
• International reserves: $53 billion (approximately five months of import cover)

Domestic and fiscal position

• 2026 fiscal deficit: 1.427 trillion Egyptian pounds ($27.2 billion, or 6.8 percent of GDP)
• Total government expenditures: 4.396 trillion pounds
• Interest payments: 2.3 trillion pounds (more than half of total expenditures)

Egypt’s balance of payments outlook is driven largely by three variables: oil prices, tourism revenue, and remittances from Egyptians working abroad. The interaction of these variables will ultimately determine the trajectory of Egypt’s current account deficit and therefore its need for external financing.

To assess the uncertainty surrounding these variables, I performed a Pearson–Tukey analysis for each. This technique uses a three-point approximation, typically the fifth, fiftieth, and ninety-fifth percentiles, to estimate the expected value of a variable. In practical terms, this method combines pessimistic, baseline, and optimistic scenarios to estimate the most likely outcome. The accuracy of this approximation is measured in standard deviation units.

In reality, Egypt’s external balance is influenced by a much wider set of factors, including several offsetting dynamics. For example, while this framework considers the impact of higher energy prices on Egypt’s import bill, it does not incorporate the potential benefits of higher energy prices on Egyptian energy exports. The objective here is not to produce a precise forecast but rather to frame key uncertainties and illustrate how shifts in a few critical variables could affect Egypt’s external position.

The results suggest that under current market conditions, Egypt’s external position has become increasingly sensitive to global oil prices. While tourism and remittances traditionally act as stabilizing inflows, the magnitude of the oil shock now dominates the balance of payments outlook. In periods of geopolitical stress, when oil prices tend to rise and tourism tends to fall, these dynamics can reinforce one another.

Oil prices have a direct effect on Egypt’s external balance because the country remains a net importer of energy products. For the purposes of this analysis, I assume a baseline oil price of $75 per barrel. The Pearson–Tukey estimate produces an expected oil price of approximately $108 per barrel, implying an increase of roughly $33. As a rule of thumb, each $10 increase in oil prices raises Egypt’s energy import bill and worsens the current account balance by approximately $2.5 billion. Thus, the expected oil price shock would deteriorate Egypt’s external balance by roughly $8 billion.

The projections indicate that Egypt’s current account deficit will increase from roughly $15 billion to $24 billion. This analysis suggests that Egypt’s external position is correlated to regional instability. Small shocks are manageable, but simultaneous shocks across remittances, tourism, and oil prices can create exponential stress.

A current account deficit widening from a projected $15 billion to approximately $24 billion suggests that Egypt retains the capacity to manage its external balances, though with limited margin for error. This is particularly notable in the context of Egypt’s approximately $54 billion in international reserves and the $27 billion in external debt service due in 2026.

The chart below illustrates how Egypt’s current account balance responds to changes in oil prices and tourism revenues.

Taken together, these figures highlight the structural pressures facing Egypt’s fiscal and financial system. While the country is not currently in crisis, its reliance on continued market confidence and external financing leaves it exposed to shifts in investor sentiment.

In periods of geopolitical stress, markets often look for the first point where macroeconomic vulnerabilities begin to surface. Given its scale, financial linkages, and sensitivity to oil prices, tourism, and remittance flows, Egypt occupies a unique position in the regional economy. Should financing conditions tighten or external shocks intensify, stress in Egypt could serve as an early signal that broader financial instability is beginning to emerge across the region.

Khalid Azim is the director of the MENA Futures Lab at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. 

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The NATO campaign in Libya in 2011 is often remembered as a case of operational success followed by political collapse. But that framing misses the deeper problem. The campaign did not fail because NATO airpower was ineffective. It faltered because military success was never clearly connected to a viable political end state. Libya’s experience highlights three intervention design challenges that remain relevant as policymakers assess the trajectory of the Iran campaign.

Define the political end state

The Libya intervention is an example of how quickly strategy can drift when political goals are unclear or evolving during a campaign. NATO’s mission began under the objective of protecting civilians, authorized by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. However, as the operation progressed over seven months, the campaign increasingly aligned with the objective of removing Muammar al-Qaddafi from power. Protecting civilians, coercing a regime into negotiations, and enabling regime collapse all have unique strategic designs. A coercive campaign aimed at bargaining might focus on limited military pressure and political off-ramps. A campaign that anticipates regime collapse must plan for the far harder task of establishing political authority after the conflict to ensure a degree of stability.

In Libya, that distinction was never fully resolved. Once Qaddafi fell, the coalition had no shared strategy for how Libya’s political transition would be organized, how security would be restored, or which institutions would carry the state forward. Authority quickly fragmented across militias, regional actors, and weak interim governments, leaving the post-revolutionary state unable to consolidate control.

The lesson for the Iran war is not about regime change itself. It is about clarity of purpose. If military operations aim to coerce Iran’s leadership, policymakers must define the conditions under which pressure stops and negotiation begins. If military action risks destabilizing the regime more fundamentally, then the question of political succession and institutional continuity cannot be treated as an afterthought. Then Major General David Petraeus’s dictum during the Iraq war, “Tell me how this ends,” remains an appropriate question to consider.

Align the coalition’s goals

Coalition politics can shape the trajectory of an intervention as much as military capability. In Libya, NATO presented a unified front during the air campaign, but participating states held different views about the campaign’s purpose and limits. Some governments treated the intervention as a narrowly defined civilian protection mission, while others saw it as a pathway toward removing Qaddafi.

These differences did not prevent military coordination, but they complicated strategic alignment. Coalition members pursued different lines of effort, and responsibility for planning Libya’s political stabilization remained diffuse. Regional endorsement from the Arab League helped legitimize the intervention, yet the endorsement did not resolve disagreements among intervening powers about the campaign’s long-term goals.

For the Iran intervention, coalition management extends beyond military interoperability. The United States, Israel, and any supporting international partners must align on what success actually looks like. If one actor seeks deterrence, another seeks coercive bargaining, and another hopes the campaign weakens the regime beyond repair, strategy will inevitably drift.

Control escalation

The Libya campaign also illustrates both the power and the limits of airpower. NATO air strikes were effective in halting Qaddafi’s advances and shifting the battlefield balance toward opposition forces. From a purely operational standpoint, the campaign achieved its immediate objectives. Yet tactical success did not produce a stable political outcome. In Libya, the military campaign accelerated regime collapse without establishing a credible framework for what would replace it.

Interventions that rely heavily on airpower also face a familiar escalation dilemma. Once outside powers intervene, the logic of the campaign often shifts toward securing decisive outcomes on the ground. As intervening powers relied on Libyan rebel forces to sustain military pressure on the regime, those actors gained leverage within the coalition’s strategy. External support strengthened particular militias and factions, shaping the political trajectory of the conflict.

The central question for the Iran intervention is whether military operations are embedded in a strategy that manages escalation and defines credible stopping points. Without clear political limits, even a limited campaign can expand beyond its original objectives.

Designing the Iran intervention

Libya’s central lesson is not that intervention inevitably leads to instability, nor that airpower is strategically ineffective. The deeper lesson is that military effectiveness cannot compensate for weak intervention design and understanding of politics. When outside powers use force to shape political outcomes, they inherit broader strategic responsibilities and unstable politics. They must define the political end state they seek, align coalition partners around a shared strategy, and establish credible escalation controls while considering how military pressure will interact with the political institutions that must ultimately sustain order.

The current debate about Iran would benefit from focusing on those questions. Whether Iran resembles Libya is ultimately beside the point. What matters is whether policymakers have absorbed the intervention design lessons from the Libya experience. Military operations can alter the trajectory of a conflict, but without a strategy that connects military pressure to political order, tactical success can quickly give way to strategic uncertainty.

Frank Talbot is a nonresident senior fellow with the North Africa Program within the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. He previously served as the Middle East and North Africa team lead in the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations and managed the economic/sanctions file for the State Department’s Libya Desk.

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Getting involved in the Iran war will not yield the same domestic and international benefits for the Houthis that attacking Israel and Red Sea shipping during the Gaza war did, and fighting in the Iran conflict could pose greater risks. The Houthis’ involvement in the Gaza war elevated them on the international stage and allowed them to capitalize on broad support among Yemenis for Palestinians at a time when their population was growing restless. But Yemenis are much more reticent about supporting Iran—a state with ample resources that many Yemenis see as yet another foreign power meddling in their country. On top of this, Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the current war means that Houthi involvement could disrupt the Saudi-Houthi détente that has been in place since 2022, potentially plunging Yemen back into an active war with Riyadh.  

If the Houthis do decide to insert themselves into the Iran war, it could be because they have decided that détente is no longer in their interests. Therefore, Houthi involvement in the Iran war could reignite the Yemen war after four years of relative calm, with significant implications for Yemen and the region.

Three scenarios for Houthi involvement in the Iran war

The lowest-risk option for the Houthis would be to resume attacks on Israel. While the vast majority of Houthi missile and drone attacks against Israel during the Gaza war were intercepted or failed to reach their target, the group has demonstrated that it can penetrate Israeli airspace. Indeed, Houthi strikes on Israel have inflicted dozens of casualties and damaged Ben Gurion Airport. This scenario would invite renewed Israeli airstrikes on Yemen, which were militarily and economically costly for the Houthis but also help rally popular domestic support. Israeli strikes against Hudaydah Port were particularly damaging for the Houthis, as the port is an essential lifeline for the import-dependent country and a source for illicit Houthi oil revenues. At the same time, the Houthis have demonstrated considerable resilience to air strikes, having now withstood heavy air campaigns for most of the past decade. While an Israeli strike killed some political leadership in Sanaa, Houthi military leadership and the true power brokers within the movement remain untouched.

The second option would be for the Houthis to resume attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea, which could potentially threaten their détente with Saudi Arabia. Disrupting commercial shipping is far easier for the Houthis than striking Israel, given their strategic location along the Bab el-Mandeb maritime chokepoint. The Houthis sank multiple commercial ships during the Gaza war using a combination of drones, missiles, and manned and unmanned boats. And the risks posed by their attacks nearly halted passage through the Red Sea and Suez Canal in 2023. Attacking the Red Sea would be both more impactful and far riskier for the Houthis in 2026. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed because of the Iran war, Saudi Arabia is relying on its facilities along the Red Sea to maintain some oil exports—most of which are going to Asia and would typically transit south toward Yemen. Absent the Red Sea route, Gulf oil flows could grind to a halt after a couple more weeks of war. Given this, Saudi Arabia is likely communicating to the Houthis that attacks on Red Sea shipping are now a red line and could invite a Saudi military response. The Houthis have a tendency to test red lines, so they could conduct minor Red Sea attacks and then pull back if they determine doing so would break their détente with Saudi Arabia. Alternatively, the Houthis could seek to exploit heightened Saudi fears over disruptions in the Red Sea to extract new concessions from Riyadh.

The third and most consequential option would be for the Houthis to resume attacks on Saudi Arabia and/or the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This could potentially unfold in combination with attacks in the Red Sea and ground offensives inside of Yemen aimed at seizing control of Yemen’s oil and gas resources and weakening the internationally recognized Yemen government. In doing so, the Houthis would effectively reignite the Yemen war. If Saudi Arabia or the UAE decides to respond militarily to Iran’s attacks on civilian and economic infrastructure in both countries, the Houthis could use that retaliation to argue that it was the Gulf countries that broke the détente, not the Houthis. If the Houthis decide to go this route, they will have been driven primarily by their calculations over the situation inside of Yemen, not the war in Iran.

Shifting sands inside Yemen

The Houthis agreed to a United Nations-mediated truce with the Yemeni government in April 2022 after a series of costly Houthi offensives failed to gain control of the oil and gas resources in Yemen’s Marib governorate. While approximately 75 percent of Yemen’s roughly 35 million people live under Houthi control, the Houthis do not control any of Yemen’s oil and gas resources. The Houthis have used illicit oil sales, aggressive taxation, and a stranglehold on economic activity to fund the movement’s military buildup, but northern Yemen faces a perpetual economic crisis that threatens the viability of Houthi control over the long term. That crisis has grown more acute as Houthi detentions of aid workers and other harassment forced the World Food Programme to stop food distributions in the northern part of the country in January, leaving Houthi-controlled Yemen increasingly isolated.

The April 2022 truce and the Saudi-Houthi backchannel talks that grew out of it signaled a shift in the Houthis’ approach. After failing to secure a sustainable revenue source and cement their control over Yemen through military means, they sought instead to do so through negotiations. The Houthis remained hopeful that Saudi Arabia would force the internationally recognized Yemeni government to accept a deal that gave the Houthis control over most of the country’s resources, even after the Houthis started their Red Sea campaign and were re-designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States in March 2025. Fears over such a deal may have been one factor motivating the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) to seize territory from other government-affiliated factions in December.

Following the STC operations and amid escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Saudi leadership decided to redouble its support to the internationally recognized Yemeni government, giving it hundreds of millions of dollars in new economic support and centralizing its military command. This could signal a shift in the Saudi approach: When the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), the Yemeni government’s executive body, was formed in 2022, Riyadh seemed to view it as a negotiating body for future peace talks with the Houthis. Now, the Saudis are bolstering the PLC as an effective governing body in a manner that—if successful—could present a direct threat to the Houthis.

If the Houthis assess that the Saudi approach has shifted and that a deal is no longer viable, this could lead them to resume the war. The Houthis could determine that, with the Yemeni government still reconstituting and Saudi Arabia distracted by Iranian attacks, now is the time to launch a military offensive to seize Yemen’s oil and gas resources. Some Yemen analysts have begun warning that the Houthis appear to be mobilizing for a ground war, including via mass recruitment campaigns.

The consequences of reigniting the Yemen war

While Yemen remains a persistent source of regional instability, the civil war and Houthi cross-border attacks against Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been on pause for the past four years. Even before the April 2022 truce, the Saudi-led coalition had significantly scaled back its operations inside the country. Not since 2018 has Yemen witnessed large-scale conflict and coalition campaigns attempting to unseat the Houthis. If the Yemen war reignites, it would open another major front at a time when the Middle East is already reeling from war. For Yemenis, this would deepen the country’s humanitarian crisis, which would be even further exacerbated by the lack of food aid. Renewed Houthi attacks would also present a serious tactical challenge for Saudi Arabia, as Riyadh would be forced to direct already limited air defenses against attacks from both its south and the east.

By expanding the number of actors involved in intertwined conflicts across the Gulf, an active war inside Yemen could also make it significantly harder to find off-ramps and broaden the consequences of a war that is already certain to change the region for years to come.

Allison Minor is the director of the Project for Middle East Integration with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs. She previously served as US deputy special envoy for Yemen and as director for Arabian Peninsula affairs at the National Security Council.

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Energy markets, however, have reacted more strongly. Natural gas prices have spiked, reflecting the physical disruption and impairment of certain Gulf-based processing facilities. Oil prices briefly crossed the psychological threshold of one hundred dollars per barrel, while shipping in and out of the Strait of Hormuz slowed dramatically. Monday’s comments by President Donald Trump suggesting that the conflict may be nearing an endpoint subsequently brought oil prices back near ninety dollars per barrel, underscoring how sensitive energy markets are to perceptions about the duration of the conflict.

Predicting market movements in moments like this is extraordinarily difficult, and it would be unwise to offer precise forecasts. Instead, two variables deserve particular attention.

The first variable is time. Energy demand tends to be relatively inelastic in the short run. Homes still need heating, vehicles still require fuel, and factories must continue operating. As a result, when disruptions occur in energy supply chains, markets tend to focus less on demand destruction and more on the persistence of supply constraints.

If supply disruptions persist, prices tend to rise. Higher energy prices often feed into inflation expectations, which can ultimately influence monetary policy. Central banks may respond by tightening financial conditions, which in turn can affect interest rates, currency valuations, and economic growth. In this way, what begins as a geopolitical disruption in energy markets can gradually propagate through the broader global economy.

The second variable is uncertainty. Financial markets can absorb significant shocks when the strategic path forward is reasonably clear. What markets struggle with is ambiguity. When investors lack clarity about the trajectory of a conflict or the potential for escalation, they demand a higher premium for bearing risk. This manifests through elevated volatility, wider credit spreads, and shifts toward perceived safe-haven assets.

These same two variables, time and uncertainty, play a central role in how financial markets price geopolitical risk.

Option play

One way to understand this dynamic is through the lens of options pricing. An option is a financial instrument that gives its owner the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price. The two most important determinants of an option’s price are time to expiration and volatility.

Consider the global economy as the underlying asset. A geopolitical shock introduces the possibility of downside outcomes. Investors respond by seeking protection against those outcomes, which conceptually resembles buying a put option. A put option allows its owner to sell an asset at a predetermined price, even if the market value falls significantly below that level.

The analogy can be framed in the following way:

Within this framework, both time and uncertainty influence how markets price risk.

From a time perspective, prolonged disruptions in energy supply shift the aggregate supply curve of energy and place upward pressure on prices. Rising energy costs can alter inflation expectations, which in turn shape monetary policy responses and influence economic growth.

From an uncertainty perspective, several variables widen the distribution of possible outcomes: disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, escalation of military conflict, supply-chain fragmentation, regional instability across the Middle East and North Africa, and the possibility of broader social or civic disruptions.

Importantly, a put option increases in value not just because the underlying asset has already moved, but because the range of possible outcomes has widened. In other words, the probability distribution around future outcomes becomes more dispersed.

This provides a useful way to interpret current market behavior. Long-dated geopolitical options are effectively being repriced. Markets are not simply reacting to realized economic losses; they are responding to the option value of uncertainty.

What policymakers can do

In practical terms, this means that policymakers themselves can influence how markets price geopolitical risk.

First, they can reduce the duration of the disruption. If Trump sticks with his assessment from Monday, the expected timeline of the conflict shortens. In options terminology, the maturity of the geopolitical risk contract declines, which reduces the premium investors demand.

Second, policymakers can reduce uncertainty by articulating a clear strategic framework. When governments provide credible clarity regarding objectives, escalation thresholds, and pathways toward de-escalation, the volatility parameter embedded in market pricing declines.

Both mechanisms would serve to lower the effective price of what might be called a geopolitical put option on the global economy.

Ultimately, financial markets are not just reacting to the immediate shock of conflict. They are pricing the duration and uncertainty surrounding it. Understanding how these two variables interact provides a useful framework for interpreting market behavior and for understanding how policy decisions themselves can shape the financial cost of a geopolitical risk event.

Khalid Azim is the director of the MENA Futures Lab at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. 

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For decades, discussions of regime change in Iran have conjured warnings of chaos. Policymakers frequently invoke the specter of Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan, expressing a preference for the devil they know over the uncertainty of transition. This posture has allowed the Islamic Republic to consolidate power—financially, militarily, and technologically—while continuing to suppress dissent at home.

Simultaneously, critics argue that the Iranian opposition is too fragmented to present a viable alternative. Yes, the opposition spans ideological, generational, and ethnic lines. Monarchists, federalists, republicans, reformists, labor organizers, and others often share grievances but lack Western standards of coordination.

Assessing Pahlavi

That raises the question of whether Pahlavi could be a unifying figure. One common criticism is that Pahlavi would replace one form of authoritarianism with another—the turban with a crown. This ignores Pahlavi’s repeated and consistent public position as a transitional figure—a bridge, not a destination. Pahlavi has asserted that he seeks to bring Iran to a free and fair referendum where the people select their political system.

He has not ruled out monarchy, but he has also refused to predetermine Iran’s future structure outside of a democratic process. This distinction is often overlooked. 

This criticism also reflects Western discomfort with monarchy rather than Iranian political realities. Iran’s long historical connection with monarchy remains part of its political memory, and for some citizens it continues to carry hope and legitimacy. Dismissing this sentiment outright risks projecting Western assumptions and values onto a different culture.

Some critics focus on Pahlavi’s lifestyle or lack of governing experience. Yet such standards are applied inconsistently. Around the world, leaders often rise through public appeal, inspiring campaigns and family legacy, rather than administrative résumés. Young inexperienced candidates become mayors; socialites with prominent names are appointed to offices; many dwell in lavish lifestyles without comparable scrutiny. 

In Iran the hypocrisy runs even deeper. The Iranian government routinely and arbitrarily disqualifies candidates on standards such as loyalty to the supreme leader. Those in power extend the privileges of the kleptocratic system to their families—many living abroad where they flaunt their extraordinary wealth. Those who enforce strict social and modesty codes are frequently exposed violating them privately–offenses that would bring severe punishment upon ordinary citizens–yet these double standards rarely dominate the international commentary.

Some have criticized the harsh tone of Pahlavi’s supporters as a reflection on his personality. While there is an undeniable tone of anger from many activists, there is evidence that Iran’s cyber army is fueling these tensions, posing as fake monarchists. Pahlavi has repeatedly admonished the rude tone. Nonetheless, it appears that populist tone of discourse is a phenomenon of today’s global political landscape. Although the hostile and disrespectful tenors are repulsive, Pahlavi himself has never engaged in such behaviors and has always discouraged it.

Perhaps the most persistent criticism of Pahlavi is that he lacks organization or boots on the ground. Recent developments complicate that narrative. Over the past several years, initiatives associated with his camp have included policy planning efforts such as:

1. The Iran Prosperity Project, extensive day-after plans for transition of power and governance;
2. The July 2025 Convention of National Cooperation to Save Iran in Munich, a large diaspora summit that convened over seven hundred opposition diverse political groups under four shared principles;
3. The launch of the defections campaign for security forces, drawing over fifty thousand people as of July 2025; and
4. The first ever call for coordinated protests in Iran on January 8 and 9, drawing over a million people to the streets of Iran across thirty-five provinces.

Whether or not one agrees with these initiatives, they represent a level of organization that disproves the critics. Most significantly, the presence of millions of pro-Pahlavi demonstrators inside and outside of Iran indicate the capacity to mobilize.

Assessing the protests

To understand the current moment, one must consider the constraints inside Iran where activists, journalists, and artists are systematically oppressed and silenced. The arrests of people like Narges Mohammadi, Fatemeh Sepehri, Heshmatollah Tabatzadi, Shervin Hajipour, Toumaj Salehi, and many more show how the regime will resort to violence to prevent the emergence of leaders and ideas. 

In such an environment where systems fail to address the needs of the populace, political representation takes different forms. Graffiti, slogans, and chants become methods of change. Some point to protests as a cultural phenomenon in Iran, but neglect to note that they are a reaction to unmet needs. 

The protests have evolved as the government’s failures persisted. Although thousands of protests have taken place since 2009, three major protest milestones represent a gradual break from the government leading to today’s mass unrest. The 2009 Green Revolution eroded trust in the electoral system and triggered a steady decline in voting. In the 2017–2019 protests over the economy, with chants of “neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, I sacrifice for Iran,” Iranian people linked their domestic struggles to the regime’s failed foreign policy of proxies and ideological wars. In 2023, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement asked for the most basic rights and dignity. Today, the protests are revealing that the country has broken from all factions of the government. Notably, the display of defiance illustrates a loss of fear of the government. They are no longer just chanting “death to the dictator,” they are chanting “long live the king.”

Many protesters in Iran (and the diaspora) have indeed expressed the pro-Pahlavi slogans. For some protesters, the Pahlavi-led demonstrations are about overthrowing the regime, not reinstating the monarchy. For others, it’s a desire to reset or return to the past, a notion that some academics mock as nostalgia or retrotopia, dismissing the memory of past achievements and perceiving the 1979 revolution as irreversible. The prominence of Pahlavi’s name does not necessarily represent a universal agreement with his political vision, nor does it imply a collective desire for monarchy. Rather, it confirms the emergence of a visible figure capable of being a transitional leader.

Although scarcity of internet access has not allowed for new surveys, data from 2025 suggests that Iranians largely favor the regime’s collapse, even if they are uncertain about the type of government they wish to have. Similarly, the 2024 GAMAAN survey demonstrated that while the entire country may not support Pahlavi, he would be the first or second choice for over 30 percent of the population in a hypothetical free election—far exceeding the popularity of any other contenders.  But popular opinion is hard to judge in this moment of wartime, particularly with some of the leaders mentioned in this survey killed in the recent strikes.

The Israel factor

Among the members of the Iranian opposition who have refrained from supporting Pahlavi, one consequential critique is rarely discussed openly: Israel.

Pahlavi’s support for normalized relations with Israel is a defining fault line. For many Iranians, this position represents a break from costly decades of ideological foreign policy centered around the elimination of Israel. For others, it represents “a symbol of repression and dependence on foreigners.” 

When Pahlavi and his wife, Princess Yasmine, famously visited Israel in 2023, they put the opposition’s sensibilities regarding the Jewish state to the test. Pahlavi’s critics have been explicit with their accusations, warning about a “Israel-appointed” ruler in Iran or saying that Pahlavi lost credibility by not criticizing Israel for its twelve-day war with Iran last year. Pahlavi’s inclinations to normalize relations with Israel create discomfort among many Iranians, which is often masked in criticisms of his capacity or character.

Interestingly, Pahlavi has never expressed an opposition to Palestinian statehood, rather seeing Hamas and the Iranian regime as impediments to their wellbeing. Nonetheless, the challenge for some activists is not the realization of a Palestinian state, but rather the existence of a Jewish one. The core reason for many is discomfort with Jewish sovereignty on lands that they perceive as Islamic. Against the backdrop of the protesters’ massacre in Iran, this sentiment is too controversial to discuss in the public narrative, yet it is hinted at in closed circles and social media. This divide is often masked by criticisms about personality, organization, or political philosophy.

The opposition’s divide can also be seen in the disintegration of the “Georgetown Coalition,” which was formed a few months before the Pahlavis’ Israel trip. Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion was the first to leave the coalition—though Esmaeilion never commented directly on the trip or Pahlavi’s potential leadership of the country. Today, members of the Georgetown Coalition such as the Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and actress Nazanin Boniadi are directly or indirectly supporting Pahlavi as a transitional leader, while they continue to criticize the tone of his team. Journalist Masih Alinejad claimed that “if he leads,” she will support him because she supports the Iranian people. The situation with the Kurdish political leader Abdullah Mohtadi and some other Kurdish leaders has become more precarious due to their inabilities to reconcile around accusations of “separatism.” The Kurdish community seems split on their support for Pahlavi, but it’s worth noting that Kurdish people and Israel have long enjoyed amicable relations—and the United States and Israel are reportedly backing the Kurds to join the war against the regime.

The Iranian opposition faces real challenges, from fragmentation and mistrust to unresolved leadership challenges. But the debate over Pahlavi often ignores an important issue: the question of his support for Israel and whether that is a red line for those who oppose him. For the protest movement, the prospect of ending the Islamic Republic and enabling Iranian self-determination must also contend with unresolved grievances regarding Israel.

Marjan Keypour Greenblatt is an advisory board member of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project and New Union for Democracy in Iran, and the founder and director of the Alliance for Rights of All Minorities.

The post The hidden friction with Reza Pahlavi and the Iranian opposition appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On the surface, there would appear reason for optimism. Opposition to the clerical regime in Tehran has been growing for almost a decade. Massive protests erupted in 2017 and 2019 over poor economic conditions but quickly turned into calls by many protesters for the downfall of the government. And the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement, which roiled the country for months in 2022 and 2023 over the security forces’ killing of a young Kurdish woman for not wearing the hijab, featured demands to replace the Islamic Republic with a democratic government committed to protecting basic freedoms.

Many observers felt these protests had crossed the Rubicon in challenging the cleric-led regime’s legitimacy and calling its survival into question. But regime security forces eventually regained control by killing some 550 people, arresting tens of thousands, and maintaining heightened surveillance and the repression of suspected protest leaders and their families.

So, the massive protests that engulfed Iran in January were only the latest wave in growing opposition to the regime during the past decade. The despair of a population over a collapsing economy and a ruthlessly repressive and corrupt regime deaf to calls for change helps to explain why many Iranians are reportedly cheering the US and Israeli assault. But once the bombs stop falling, can the people rise up to oust what remains of the regime?

No one knows exactly what will follow once the US-Israeli strikes end, but a few considerations create grounds for questioning whether an uprising can succeed.  

First of all, in none of the earlier protests has a clear leadership emerged that was able to inspire and organize followers and articulate a compelling vision of what could come after the mullahs are overthrown. Most of those with the courage to speak out against the regime are currently in prison or in exile, and the regime has been vigilant in preventing any coherent opposition organizations from developing.

Iranian leaders who previously mounted efforts to reform the Islamic Republic rather than overthrow it—such as former President Mohammad Khatami and former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who led the Green Movement after the disputed 2009 election—have been suppressed or sidelined by the regime. They have been largely discredited in the eyes of younger Iranians, who are convinced that for real change to take place, the regime must go.

Outside of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, whose father, the shah, was ousted in the 1979 revolution, has emerged as a potential leader in a post-Islamic Republic government. He has been preaching a message of unity among those who oppose the regime and portraying himself as a potential leader if there were to be a transition to a government chosen freely by the Iranian people. During the recent protests, some demonstrators expressed support for Pahlavi’s return as leader once the current regime is gone. But Pahlavi’s supporters in the diaspora have a history of sowing division and seeking to intimidate other voices in the opposition, and it isn’t clear how much support he actually has inside the country. On Tuesday, Trump told Reuters that he had doubts about Pahlavi’s ability to lead Iran.

Several potential developments could complicate the picture of Iranians rising up to, as Trump put it, “take back their country.” Perhaps, as the regime and its security apparatus grow weaker, Iran’s ethnic minorities will seize the moment to press for greater independence. Kurds in Iran’s northwest, Baloch in the southeast, and Iranian Arabs in Ahvaz province in southwestern Iran have long sought greater autonomy and have at various times taken up arms to challenge the regime’s control.

Regime elites have remained unified in the face of past protests, including the latest uprising in January, and so far appear to be holding firm under the current onslaught from the United States and Israel. But there may soon be splits within the regime itself as security and political leaders scramble for survival and the reins of power. Such splits or defections could take the form of suing for peace to hold onto a remnant of power or trying to consolidate a hardline core of political, military, and religious leaders committed to riding out the current storm.

One thing seems clear. Any effort by the Iranian people to overthrow what is left of the current regime will have to deal with those who have the guns. No matter how devastating the effect of the US and Israeli attacks on Iran’s military and security structures and leadership, many Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders and rank and file are likely to survive and have a say over how things develop in Iran. The IRGC is deeply embedded in the current regime economically, politically, and militarily. Its remaining leaders, or a portion of them, will need to support any opposition leader or movement if it is to succeed. And for that to happen, remaining IRGC leaders will need to be convinced that the old order can no longer survive and the new regime being envisioned will serve their interests.

So can the Iranian people rise up and overthrow the current regime? Their success in doing so is likely to depend on the emergence of a unifying leader, an effective organization, and the ability of the opposition to gain the support of what remains of the IRGC.

Alan Pino is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. He previously served for thirty-seven years at the Central Intelligence Agency covering the Middle East and counterterrorism.

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The greater challenge, however, lies not in managing what then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld described as “known unknowns,” but in confronting “unknown unknowns,” risks that defy anticipation, resist modeling, and exist outside established frameworks of probability and policy planning. In conceptual terms, they resemble the null set in mathematics: not simply unknown values, but the absence of definable parameters altogether.

For policymakers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), transparency, policy clarity, and credible communication will therefore be critical litmus tests for markets as they reopen following the recent escalation involving US and Israeli military action against Iran and Iran’s subsequent response affecting GCC nations. To keep the unknowns in the realm of the known, markets, for example, would welcome detailed updates on hydrocarbon production, capacity, constraints, and operational continuity. Equally important is the normal functioning of domestic capital markets and visible stability across the financial sector.

Market reaction will likely begin with Asia’s opening sessions on Monday morning. One early indicator will be the behavior of the US dollar. Despite the dollar’s traditional safe-haven status, recent months have seen episodes of capital rotation away from it. Given current uncertainty surrounding Iran’s internal stability, global demand for dollars may not spike as sharply as in past crises. Gold and, in some cases, currencies such as the Swiss franc or Australian dollar may instead benefit as investors seek perceived stores of value amid geopolitical instability.

It is also worth noting Iran’s role in global energy supply. Iran is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC’s) fourth-largest producer, at 12 percent of the cartel’s total, according to Bloomberg data based on monthly production figures for December 2025.

Energy markets, therefore, will be closely watched. Prices will likely rise, though perhaps without the same degree of panic seen in earlier conflicts, as global supply conditions were relatively strong entering this episode. Neal Shear, founder of Morgan Stanley’s commodities platform and former head of sales and trading, told me: “China, for example, may be able to offset disruptions to Iranian crude exports by drawing on its strategic reserves, thereby mitigating immediate supply shocks. Natural gas markets could prove more sensitive, particularly given Iran’s shared fields with Qatar, where any operational disruption could have regional implications.”

Ultimately, the central question is not whether Iran can match US military capabilities—it cannot compete on air or maritime dominance—but whether it can exert asymmetric pressure on global energy flows, particularly through shipping routes such as the Strait of Hormuz. It is this uncertainty, rather than conventional military balance, that markets will be watching most closely.

Khalid Azim is the director of the MENA Futures Lab at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. 

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Since US President Donald Trump assured the Iranian people on January 13 that “help is on its way” amid nationwide protests—a little over a week after a US operation removed Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro from power—the United States has been on a seemingly steady march to renewed conflict with Iran.

Trump’s State of the Union address this week did little to counter that perception, even as Washington continues to pursue diplomatic negotiations with the Islamic Republic. Both sides are holding firm on their respective redlines regarding Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and the window for a deal seems to be closing quickly. Meanwhile, with the most significant buildup of military assets in the Middle East since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, every day adds to the sense that US strikes on Iran are inevitable, even as the objectives of that potential military action remain frustratingly murky.

But Trump should think twice before ordering a large-scale conflict aimed at regime change. Such an approach would likely create more problems than it would solve.

The march to … what?

The United States is likely considering among several options for strikes. It is difficult to discern which option is either most likely or could be most effective absent a clear articulation of the Trump administration’s strategic goals. It could, for example, launch targeted strikes on Iranian state security buildings and infrastructure belonging to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basij militia. It could broaden those strikes to include regime assets such as nuclear infrastructure and advanced weaponry inventories. It could even attempt a regime change operation to remove Iran’s top leadership and disrupt state institutions.

To date, justifications floated for an attack include protecting civilians in the face of January’s brutal crackdown, further degrading Iran’s nuclear program, and, most recently, addressing the regime’s ever more audacious missile program. Iran’s missile program seemed to be the focus of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s February 24 briefing to the “gang of eight,” the select group of US members of Congress who receive classified intelligence briefings from the White House.

Despite some indications the president is wary of embroiling the United States in another prolonged Middle East conflict, Trump and members of his administration have alluded to regime change as a preferred solution to address Iran’s internal dysfunction and provide a pathway to greater regional stability. Trump told Politico on January 17 that it’s “time to look for new leadership in Iran.” When asked explicitly about whether he wants regime change in Iran, he said on February 13 that it “would be the best thing that could happen.” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has emerged as the face of hawkish US foreign policy in the Middle East, took it a step further, warning that stopping the push for regime change in Iran would be the United States’ “biggest mistake.”

To what end?

There is widespread international agreement that the Iranian regime destabilizes the region, enables Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and brutally violates Iranians’ human rights. Despite this, a fundamental transformation of Iran’s political system is unlikely as long as the IRGC remains entrenched in all facets of Iranian society, which makes it hard for any cohesive opposition movement to form and take a stand. A US-instigated regime change operation would thus likely inflict damage on the regime without solving any of those problems. And it could well unleash destabilizing aftershocks across the broader region.

Advocates of regime change often mistake a weakened regime for one on the brink of collapse. Iran’s nuclear progress was indeed set back by the US strikes on the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan sites in June. And Israel’s campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, coupled with US and UK operations to pacify the Houthis in the Red Sea, also dealt major blows to Iran’s proxy network. But the January 2026 mass protests put the IRGC’s continued grip on display. The IRGC imposed a complete communications blackout and launched a lethal crackdown, massacring thousands. Its tight control of the Iranian military and its in-house paramilitary wing, the Basij, underpin a coercive security apparatus financed by sanctions-busting networks and control of strategic sectors of the economy.

Some, including Trump, have argued that removing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would cut the IRGC off at its knees. In reality, eliminating the supreme leader would at best produce a messy internal power struggle and at worst further embolden the organization. The IRGC is not a pyramid built around a single man; it is a sprawling institution supported by multiple power centers. The supreme leader may be its public face, but he is not the organization’s ventriloquist. The regime has in fact already taken preventative measures to ensure its survival in the event of an attack, including by tapping Ali Larijani, a former IRGC commander and the current head of the Supreme National Security Council, to take the lead on contingency planning. Khamenei has also reportedly named successors for himself and his key military and government appointees to enable smooth transfers of power and ensure the regime’s longevity.

The IRGC’s power is bolstered by the absence of a unified opposition in Iran. Today’s anti-regime forces are a patchwork of labor groups, ethnic minorities, and monarchists. Decades of repression have left them fragmented. Speculation about the return of Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince currently living in exile, has been fueled in part by Iran’s diaspora and what Haaretz revealed to be a digital influence campaign operating out of Israel. Ultimately, Pahlavi is distanced from conditions on the ground and lacks credibility with both Iranians and US government officials—including Trump, who declined to meet with him last month.

At what cost?

With the concept of “regime change” ill-defined and its objectives not yet articulated, the United States faces considerable risks with little promise of reward. Iran would almost certainly seek to close the Strait of Hormuz as part of an opening salvo against any attack, a move it foreshadowed on February 17 when it shut the waterway for live-fire exercises. Such a closure would jolt global markets, given that the strait is a chokepoint for about 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas exports and around 20 percent of global oil and oil byproducts.

A US-led regime change campaign in Iran could also trigger a number of spillover and destabilizing effects on Gulf countries. This matters deeply for a US administration operating with a business‑centric foreign policy, which is underpinned by strong relationships with the Gulf countries. Trump’s trip to the region in May 2025 yielded announcements of deals that the White House said are worth two trillion dollars, including a $600 billion investment pledge from Saudi Arabia. Destabilizing the region risks disrupting that signature initiative. Gulf countries may also face Iranian retaliation—notwithstanding the fact that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia barred their airspace from being used for US attacks on Iran. There is precedent for this: During the twelve-day war last year, Iran retaliated against the United States for Operation Midnight Hammer by launching missiles toward US bases in Qatar even after the Gulf state closed its airspace. Moreover, in the medium and long term, the region would struggle to absorb a massive refugee flow from Iran’s population of 93 million—the largest of any country whose territory is located fully in the Middle East.

The deep entrenchment of Iran’s corrupt political system, combined with its strategic positioning in the Middle East, makes regime change a profoundly destabilizing course of action. As Trump approaches yet another self‑imposed deadline to decide his approach to Iran, it has become clear that the ongoing oscillation between nuclear talks, military buildup, and targeted strikes has become the new normal—and, somewhat paradoxically, a form of stability. It is a manageable and oddly sustainable cycle of negotiation paired with limited, surgical confrontation, one that keeps the regime constrained without triggering the far more destabilizing effects of its complete collapse.

Jennifer Gavito is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. She previously served as US deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran.

Bianca Rosen is a research associate at the Cohen Group and a member of its Middle East Practice.

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As I have previously argued, global investors increasingly assess countries not just on their resources, but on credibility, predictability, and institutional coherence. Markets reward transparency and disciplined commercial execution because those qualities signal durability. Saudi Arabia’s development strategy is therefore not simply about attracting capital; it is about convincing global markets that its transformation is structural rather than cyclical. Saudi Arabia’s external position increasingly resembles that of a sovereign investor state rather than a traditional emerging-market borrower. Its foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows have risen sharply since 2021, increasing from roughly $3 billion in 2019 to a range of about $22–28 billion in recent years, with projections suggesting continued growth. This rise reflects investor confidence in reforms, infrastructure investment, and the expansion of non-oil sectors. Yet Saudi Arabia simultaneously deploys substantial capital abroad through sovereign and institutional channels.

Saudi Arabia’s outbound capital flows are crucial for its development. Economies dependent on foreign inflows often face instability when global liquidity tightens. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, engages global capital markets from a position of balance-sheet strength, supported by large sovereign assets and reserves. The central policy question is therefore not simply how to attract capital, but how to ensure that inbound investment complements domestic priorities and raises productivity. Thus, Riyadh’s challenge is not quantitative but qualitative.

An example of Saudi Arabia’s increasingly ambitious outbound investment was just illustrated last week, when Elon Musk’s xAI received a three billion dollar investment from the Saudi state-backed artificial intelligence (AI) company Humain. Shortly thereafter, Musk announced a merger between xAI and SpaceX, combining it into a single business worth more than one trillion dollars. The timing of this transaction could produce a very large financial return for Humain, as SpaceX is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering.

Yet capital alone does not determine long-term growth. The more decisive variable may be demographics. Saudi Arabia’s population stands at roughly 34.6 million, with one of the youngest profiles among the Group of Twenty (G20). About 23 percent of citizens are between ages ten and twenty-four, while about 75 percent fall within working age. Only 3 percent are age sixty-five or older. Demography, unlike capital flows, cannot be adjusted quickly by policy; it is a structural force that policymakers must either harness or be constrained by.

Larger numbers of young Saudis are entering the workforce, with a demonstratable increase in the number of Saudi women. And this is not an isolated surge. It reflects structural shifts in education, participation, and opportunity that will continue to expand the labor supply over the next decade. Saudi Arabia is entering a phase in which its workforce growth will exceed that of most advanced economies. 

This is where the true fork in the road emerges: Some economists describe this as a demographic dividend. History shows that youthful societies tend to follow one of two paths. They either translate demographic momentum into productivity, innovation, and rising living standards, or they struggle to absorb new entrants into the labor market, producing underemployment and unrealized potential.

Long-term development depends on deploying capital in ways that raise labor productivity. Investment that transfers knowledge, builds skills, and fosters innovation amplifies human potential. Investment that does not translate into capability risks producing only temporary gains.

This is why human capital must now sit at the center of the kingdom’s strategy. Human capital is not simply a social priority; it is a strategic asset. In a global economy increasingly shaped by AI, advanced manufacturing, and knowledge-intensive industries, the countries that cultivate and deploy talent most effectively will define the next phase of economic leadership. For investors, human capital also functions as a signal. Markets evaluate not just current performance, but trajectory. Indicators such as skills development, labor participation, and innovation capacity offer insight into whether growth will be sustained. In that sense, human capital development is a message to global markets about the durability of reform and the credibility of long-term strategy.

As the new minister of investment, Al-Saif must convince investors that long-term foreign direct investment in the Saudi enterprise centered on the kingdom’s human capital can produce and sustain a positive net present value. If done correctly, this demographic dividend of youth joining and adding value to labor inputs can create positive economic momentum for the kingdom.

The next phase of Saudi Arabia’s transformation will be judged by measurable improvements in productivity, skills alignment, innovation output, and entrepreneurial dynamism. The kingdom now stands at a pivotal juncture. Its financial resources, institutional reforms, and global partnerships have positioned it for a new stage of development. Yet the ultimate determinant of success will not be the volume of capital it mobilizes, but how effectively that capital is translated into human capability.

Khalid Azim is the director of the MENA Futures Lab at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

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Negotiations between the United States and Iran are ongoing, with US President Donald Trump saying Thursday that he expects a resolution within ten to fifteen days, as he also undertakes a massive military buildup for a possible conflict. The talks provide the regime with a rare opportunity—a gift, even—to escape from yet another predicament. The question right now is whether leaders in Tehran grasp the magnitude of the moment and refrain from their old habits of obstinance, or whether they will add another strategic error to their string of missteps—one that could be their last.

With the United States preparing for strikes if negotiations fail, it begs the question of how Iran got to the precipice in the first place.

Blinking on October 7

On October 7, 2023, Hamas achieved a long-held Iranian ambition: it managed to momentarily paralyze the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and effectively hold parts of Israeli territory while Israeli society felt it was facing an existential crisis. Yet in hindsight, this pivotal moment overshadowed another simultaneous failure. With Hamas surprising the entire region, including its allies in Beirut and Tehran, Iran blinked while Israel was at its most vulnerable state in decades. Had Iran ordered Hezbollah—the crown jewel and strongest of its regional terror network—to join Hamas and launch a full-scale invasion of northern Israel, the Middle East’s landscape could have looked very different today.

Instead, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his protégé Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, failed to grasp the magnitude of the event and made their first in a string of mistakes, opting for a limited-intensity conflict to stretch Israel’s capacity to fight on two fronts simultaneously without risking an all-out war that could have led to Hezbollah’s destruction. Thus, Iran and Hezbollah allowed the IDF to regain its footing after the initial shock. By choosing this path, Iran inadvertently gave Israel the space to dismantle Hamas’s military infrastructure in Gaza while systematically degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities in southern Lebanon.

Attacking Israel directly

Iran crossed a new threshold in April 2024, following Israel’s killing of Quds Force General Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus. Mistakenly thinking Israel was still at a low point following October 7, Iran boldly moved its decades-long conflict with Israel from the shadows into full view when it launched a barrage of over one hundred ballistic missiles and roughly two hundred drones and cruise missiles. Backed by a coalition led by the United States along with European and regional allies, Israel thwarted the assault and countered with a strike targeting Iran’s air defense capabilities.

Iran’s decision to directly strike Israel reflected a major shift from its traditional reliance on its proxies for retaliatory measures. In doing so, Iran helped Israel cross a mental Rubicon. By the end of the next round of conflict between the two sides in October 2024, Israel realized that not only can it strike Iran, but contrary to the prior belief within its security establishment, it can do so at a relatively low cost due to its operational superiority.

Choosing defiance in nuclear talks

By early 2025 the strategic landscape in the Middle East had changed and Iran was more vulnerable than its leadership had realized. Its S-300 air defense systems were gone, Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria had fallen swiftly, and Israel managed to drastically degrade the military capabilities of Iran’s primary proxies, Hezbollah and the Houthis. And yet, Iran’s leaders entered negotiations with the United States on the country’s nuclear program in April 2025 thinking they were in a position of power to make demands without being attacked by either the United States or Israel. Presented with a sixty-day deadline by the Trump administration to reach a nuclear deal, Iran chose defiance again. It was the wrong choice.

With Trump’s deadline expiring, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, which led to a joint US-Israeli campaign that paralyzed Iran in a matter of twelve days. Putting decades of planning into action, Israel struck Iran’s nuclear program, missiles, launchers, and air defense systems; precisely targeted its top commanders and nuclear scientists; and destroyed large portions of its defense industrial complex. To top it all, Israel laid the groundwork for the United States to join and carry out Operation Midnight Hammer, its airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

The regime had long said that the Islamic Republic and its revolution are the answer to the “great satan” and the “small satan”—the United States and Israel, respectively. But when the “satans” teamed up for the twelve-day war, the regime had no answers.

Killing the Iranian people en masse

After years of economic stagnation and hyper-inflation, and without any regional gains that would justify decades of spending billions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and proxy groups, Iranians saw this regime for what it was: an empty shell of a “revolution” ruled by a corrupt clerical elite. Hence, it should come as no surprise that Iranians decided to courageously revolt.

Rather than realizing the major shift needed in policy, the supreme leader doubled down on old habits and ordered the mass killing of his people—effectively showing that he’s trapped in a sunk cost fallacy. Instead of addressing economic problems at home, the regime continues to pour money into rebuilding its proxies abroad. Instead of releasing detained protesters, the regime executes them in the dark of night while calling for Iranians to rally around the national flag and brace for yet another war.

Although these are not the first major protests in the Islamic Republic’s history, this time might be different. With so many killed and the economy in dire shape, growing numbers of Iranians don’t have much to lose right now. “Seeing the mass killing all over the country felt like waking up from a deep sleep with a slap on my face. I am so ashamed to be alive,” one Iranian woman told The Washington Post. “I am also full of rage.” With Iranians clear-eyed about this regime, the crackdowns could well be seen in hindsight as the start of this regime’s downfall.

Arriving at another crossroads

Amid this growing pressure, the current talks mediated by Oman could serve as a vital lifeline for the regime. Trump presented Iran with a golden opportunity to survive and achieve relief from punishing economic sanctions, but once again set a timeline to reach a deal. Iran has to decide whether to make concessions that conflict with its core values and identity or stick to defiance and risk the regime’s survival.

Given the fact that Khamenei has spent over thirty-six years cultivating a legacy of defiance against Western powers, a pivot seems highly unlikely. By now he may be incapable of sacrificing his ideological zealous to extricate Iran from an upcoming war. His public statements indicate that Iran isn’t going to make major concessions in any aspect the United States deems important.

Iran’s leaders appear to once again be choosing defiance. They would rather drag the country into another war than dismantle their nuclear program or put strict limitations on their ballistic missiles.

It is a gamble that could pay off. Iran is certainly capable of inflicting damage on the United States and its regional allies in any military conflict, and the regime won’t easily back down and rush to the negotiation table if it’s attacked for the second time in a year. If the regime somehow manages to withstand another military campaign without collapsing, it would solidify its standing both domestically and internationally.

But more likely, this defiance is a losing bet, as the ayatollahs fail once again to see that the strategic landscape has changed to their detriment. Having lost their balance due to strategic vertigo, they could fall at last.

Michael Rozenblat is a visiting research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs, from the Israeli security establishment. The views in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of any other entity.

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Last week, the United States withdrew from al-Tanf Base, strategically located near the Syria-Iraq-Jordan border, and handed control to Syria. The move is a signal of the Trump administration’s inclination to disengage following the killing of two American soldiers in Syria in December.

But wars rarely end simply because we grow tired of them. For a US public deeply weary of overseas deployments, withdrawal may prove popular. Yet the danger is not simply that the United States may leave Syria; it is that it may leave at the wrong moment—mistaking exhaustion for strategy—and in doing so set the stage for a Libya-style unravelling.

Syria today is not Libya. The two conflicts emerged from different political systems, unfolded along different timelines, and produced different outcomes. But comparisons persist—not because the cases are identical, but because they share a set of structural risks that Libya exposed with brutal clarity.

There are reasons for cautious hope. Violence has declined from its peak, regional diplomacy has cautiously resumed, and parts of the country are experiencing a degree of stability unimaginable a decade ago. Some refugees are returning. Gulf states are exploring reconstruction and reintegration. Even global observers have begun, carefully, to note signs of improvement; The Economist, for example, pointed to Syria’s relative progress compared with recent years.

But Libya did not collapse overnight either. It drifted—slowly and predictably—into fragmentation when external pressure eased before internal cohesion took hold. Syria now sits at a similar inflection point.

Why Syria is not Libya—yet

Unlike Libya in 2011, Syria is not emerging from a complete institutional vacuum. When Muammar al-Qaddafi fell, Libya’s state effectively collapsed with him. Power had been highly personalized, formal institutions had been deliberately hollowed out, and there was no unified national army, bureaucracy, or political framework capable of absorbing the shock of regime change. What remained were militias, local power centers, and competing claims to legitimacy, with little institutional memory to anchor reconstruction.

Syria, by contrast, retains a battered but functioning state apparatus—administrative structures, defined borders, and a population long accustomed to centralized authority. That difference does not guarantee stability, but it does provide something Libya lacked: an institutional core around which consolidation is at least possible.

This distinction matters. Syria still has something to stabilize around—but it is not a permanent advantage. State institutions that are hollowed out or bypassed by armed actors do not gradually strengthen on their own; they erode in specific and predictable ways. Parallel chains of command emerge. Local militias assume policing, taxation, and dispute resolution functions. Civil servants answer to whoever controls territory rather than to a central authority. Over time, loyalty shifts from institutions to armed patrons, and the state’s claim to a monopoly on force becomes increasingly nominal.

This is why the difference between Syria and Libya is not one of destiny, but timing. Syria’s administrative core buys time, not immunity. If fragmentation hardens before authority is consolidated—if security integration stalls, if militias become permanent stakeholders, and if external actors continue to operate through proxies rather than institutions—Syria’s current advantages will narrow. Once parallel systems of power become entrenched, they rarely unwind peacefully. What remains then is not stability, but managed disorder—the condition that ultimately consumed Libya.

ISIS is weakened, not gone

The territorial defeat of ISIS in March 2019, when Baghouz—the group’s last territorial enclave—fell to the Syrian Democratic Forces with US support, was a real achievement. But dismantling a caliphate is not the same as dismantling a movement.

ISIS today is decentralized and opportunistic, operating through small, mobile cells that exploit gaps between competing authorities. It relies on assassinations, bombings, prison breaks, and extortion in Syria’s ungoverned spaces rather than holding territory outright. The group thrives not on controlling cities, but on the absence of sustained authority.

Libya offers a clear lesson: extremist groups do not require a vacuum everywhere—only somewhere. After the collapse of central authority in 2011, jihadist groups never needed to control the Libyan state as a whole to remain dangerous. Instead, they embedded themselves in neglected spaces—most notably in cities such as Derna and Sirte, in desert transit corridors, and around poorly governed oil and smuggling routes. Even after ISIS lost Sirte in 2016, its fighters dispersed into Libya’s south and into ungoverned border regions, sustaining insurgent activity through assassinations, extortion, and cross-border movement. Fragmentation, not total collapse, proved sufficient to keep extremist networks alive.

Syria’s patchwork of control—particularly in the east and south—presents precisely that risk. ISIS does not need to reconquer Raqqa to be dangerous. It needs only space, time, and unresolved security seams. Those conditions persist.

The risk of fragmentation

Libya’s defining failure was not regime change itself, but what followed: competing armed factions, weak national institutions, and no agreed monopoly on force. Syria remains vulnerable to the same dynamic. Multiple armed actors operate with overlapping jurisdictions, divergent external patrons, and incompatible political visions. Efforts to integrate forces—particularly in the northeast—remain fragile and incomplete.

In Libya, militias did not merely fill a security vacuum; they became political stakeholders with incentives to preserve disorder. Control over territory, checkpoints, and revenue streams translated into leverage, not responsibility. Syria risks a similar outcome if armed groups are tolerated indefinitely as semi-autonomous actors rather than integrated—or demobilized—under a unified national authority.

Whether Syria’s leadership can meaningfully incorporate Druze and Kurdish forces—especially after the degradation of much of the country’s strategic military hardware—will shape whether stability endures or erodes. Progress exists, but it is reversible. Without a credible, unified security framework, stability remains contingent rather than durable.

US patience—and “America First”—has a short fuse

In Washington, a limited troop presence is often described as sustainable. For the US public, it is anything but clear. An Ipsos poll conducted shortly after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 found that only 41 percent of Americans supported keeping US troops in Syria to fight ISIS, while 50 percent expressed the view that Syria’s problems were “none of our business.” The desire to avoid “forever wars” now spans presidential administrations and political ideologies. This restraint reflects hard-earned lessons—but it also creates a dilemma.

Syria does not exist in a vacuum. It competes for attention in an already crowded strategic environment: Ukraine, China, inflation, and border security. That makes Syria vulnerable not because it matters less, but because it lacks a durable domestic constituency capable of sustaining long-term engagement. History suggests that exits driven by political fatigue rather than conditions on the ground tend to be rushed and poorly sequenced. Libya’s descent accelerated when international engagement faded faster than institutions could form. Syria risks repeating that pattern if political will collapses before the groundwork is laid.

Regional states are engaged, but cautious

Middle Eastern powers are not indifferent to Syria’s fate. Gulf states see stabilization as preferable to perpetual conflict. Turkey, Israel, and Arab governments all have clear stakes. But none are prepared to deploy large-scale ground forces to underwrite Syria’s security. Their involvement remains selective, interest-driven, and often conflicting.

Libya demonstrated what happens when regional competition substitutes for national cohesion. After 2011, external actors repeatedly backed rival factions rather than a unified national framework: Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia supported forces in eastern Libya, while Turkey and Qatar backed western-based authorities. These competing interventions hardened political and military divisions, undermined United Nations–backed reconciliation efforts, and transformed militias into proxies with external lifelines rather than incentives to integrate into a national state. Instead of converging toward a single authority, Libya developed parallel governments, rival security institutions, and a persistent contest over territory and resources. Regional competition did not stabilize Libya; it locked fragmentation in place.

Europe is focused elsewhere

In 2011, Europe played a visible role in Libya’s intervention but struggled to sustain influence once the fighting stopped. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European military resources, intelligence capacity, and political attention have been overwhelmingly concentrated on deterrence and support for Kyiv. There is limited appetite for sustained engagement in secondary theaters.

At the same time, Europe’s Libya experience exposed structural limits. European Union member states pursued divergent policies—France and Italy backed competing Libyan actors, while others prioritized migration containment over state-building—undermining the emergence of a coherent European strategy. The result was episodic diplomacy without the sustained security and institutional investment required to stabilize the country. Syria presents a similar risk.

What sequencing actually means

Avoiding a Libya-style outcome does not require “endless wars.” But it does require sequencing—and sequencing is not a slogan. In Libya, withdrawal and disengagement preceded the consolidation of authority, producing a fragmented state defined by parallel governments, rival security forces, and militias that outlived the transition and came to dominate political and economic life. Counterterrorism responsibility became diffuse, borders became porous, and external actors increasingly backed proxies rather than institutions.

A Libya-style outcome, then, is not total collapse but chronic fragmentation: a country with formal political processes but no effective monopoly on force, episodic violence punctuated by cease-fires, and a security environment in which extremist groups exploit gaps between competing authorities. Avoiding that path in Syria requires ensuring that security integration precedes withdrawal, that responsibility for counterterrorism is clearly owned by legitimate institutions, and that regional actors are aligned around containment rather than competition.

Libya’s lesson is not that the West stayed too long. It is that it left before responsibility had truly shifted. This approach does not reduce risk; it transfers it, often to less capable actors and eventually back to the United States itself.

None of this means Syria is doomed. The past year has shown that incremental progress is possible. Diplomacy, reconstruction discussions, and reduced violence matter. But Libya teaches that fragile gains can evaporate quickly when fragmentation hardens and external pressure lifts too soon.

Syria is not a lost cause. It is a conditional one. The warning signs are visible. The question is whether the United States chooses to learn from recent history—or repeat it under a different name.

Kurt Davis Jr. is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.

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It may make for a nice visual, but there’s no mistaking the fact that Israel’s international reputation has been tarnished due to its conduct in Gaza since the launch of fighting after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. This is evident in International Criminal Court indictments and United Nations resolutions, but even in the United States, a stalwart ally. According to Pew Research, 53 percent of US adults reported a negative attitude toward Israel last year, up from 42 percent in 2022.

Nonetheless, the apparent end of the war presents a unique moment for Israel to examine its present status and trajectory.

Building on its presence on the Board of Peace, Israel can begin to address international criticism by funding and leading the reconstruction of Gaza. While the current Israeli government and broader political culture are unlikely to permit serious consideration of such a proposal, a significant change in Jerusalem’s Palestinian policy is needed if it hopes to begin changing the widely held perception that Israel’s military was purposely targeting civilians. It would also demonstrate remorse for the loss of innocent life and property unconnected to militant groups. The obvious precedent here is US-led reconstruction programs in West Germany and Japan after World War II.

But that is just one step Jerusalem should consider to establish itself as a worthy partner to its neighbors and a responsible member of the international community. A closer examination of the past couple years shows how far it has to go.

The problem: Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war

After Hamas’s bloody attack against southern Israel in October 2023 that launched the war in Gaza, Israel targeted and killed Palestinian civilians rather than limiting itself to militants in the Strip, as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza estimate of overall numbers killed, now even accepted by the Israel Defense Forces, exceeds seventy thousand as of December 2025, more than 3 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population. Moreover, some 171,000 were wounded as of late November. In addition, since the cease-fire began on October 10, 2025, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and over a thousand wounded in Israeli attacks. Although the health ministry numbers do not distinguish between militants and non-combatants, civilians in Gaza comprise 83 percent of total casualties, according to a leaked Israeli military estimate.

During its Gaza campaign, Israel killed health care professionals, first responders, aid workers, and journalists. Moreover, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that, as of mid-July 2025, 875 people were killed while seeking food, including 674 who were targeted near sites of the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The UN estimates that some 92 percent of Gaza’s residential buildings have been damaged or completely destroyed. The Israeli military has also attacked educational, medical, religious, and international facilities in Gaza. While Israel correctly points to Hamas’s use of civilian facilities to conceal weapons caches or operational centers, it is improbable that 92 percent of Gaza’s residential buildings had a militant presence. Even in cases where Hamas operatives had a presence at a civilian site, it remains Israel’s operational—and moral—determination whether to use air power to destroy the entire facility, including its civilian residents, or to target operatives more surgically.

Finally, Israel impeded necessities of life as collective punishment for Gaza’s population—food, water, medical supplies, as well as tents made necessary by the mass destruction. Following the current cease-fire starting October 10, Israel continued to, in the words of Oxfam, “arbitrarily reject” scores of shipments of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. It may never be known how many sick or injured Gazans died or are dying as a result of restricted medications or inadequate nutrition. A team of independent experts commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

Other ways Israel alienates the international community

Another reason for Israel’s growing isolation is its behavior elsewhere in the region. In Syria, Israel conducted attacks and captured more territory east of the Golan Heights, despite the absence of attacks against it, alleging that the new regime could become a threat. In Lebanon, Israel has continued attacks despite a cease-fire dating back to November 2024, claiming that strikes are necessary to prevent Hezbollah from reconstituting its capabilities. In both Lebanon and Syria, civilian casualties have triggered accusations of possible Israeli war crimes from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, respectively. A major turning point was Israel’s attack in Doha, futilely targeting the Hamas political leadership with which it was negotiating. The United States correctly perceived the strike as threatening its vision of regional integration and moved to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s adventurism.

On the West Bank, since October 2023, a full military siege has resulted in tens of thousands of Palestinians being forced out of their homes in a pattern that Human Rights Watch characterizes as “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.” Moreover, with the support of government ministers and protection from the Israeli military, Israeli settlers have conducted nearly three thousand attacks against Palestinians on the West Bank in the past two years, resulting in casualties, destruction of property, and “arrests.”

When settlers attack Palestinian villages, Israeli forces frequently detain Palestinians to restore order, usually without due process. Approximately one thousand Palestinians—including about two hundred children—were killed by Israeli troops and settlers between October 2023 and October 2025 in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem. Israeli officials say their actions are intended to uphold security in the territory where both Palestinian militancy and settler attacks have surged since October 2023. Jerusalem’s recent steps to bring West Bank land sales in line with the process used in Israel—eliminating any distinction between the sale of Israeli and West Bank lands—are likely to lead to increased friction between settlers and Palestinians in the territory.

Israeli soldiers have also been credibly accused of torturing Palestinian prisoners, including sexual violence, beatings, malnutrition, and willful medical neglect. A Physicians for Human Rights-Israel report from November documents ninety-eight Palestinian prisoner deaths due to abuse. The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem also detailed the abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons in a 2024 report. A recent video showed Israeli soldiers executing two Palestinians in Jenin after they seemed to surrender. Israeli official statements denied systemic prisoner abuse as attempts to “demonize” Israel. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister—who himself joined Israeli police attacks on the West Bank town of Umm al-Fahm–defended the crimes committed by Israeli guards, soldiers, and settlers, calling the latter “sweet kids.”

The result: Israel’s isolation

Israel is growing increasingly isolated in the most important international forum, the United Nations. In September 2024, 124 nations voted in the UN General Assembly for a resolution calling for Israel to comply with international law, withdraw its military forces from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, cease settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle the separation wall in the West Bank; only fourteen voted against, with forty-three abstentions.

Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, have been indicted by the International Criminal Court due to the conduct of the Gaza war. A growing number of countries (145) have recognized a Palestinian state; nineteen countries, including fifteen European states, recognized Palestine in 2024 and 2025.

Two years of the Gaza war with its attendant humanitarian catastrophe have fractured the pro-Israel consensus that shielded the country from international pressure prior to the most recent Gaza war. Growing calls to boycott businesses with ties to Israel, to ban the country from sporting and cultural events, and to cut ties with its academic institutions are gaining traction. Pro-Palestine activists are vowing to keep up the pressure despite the cease-fire. Israel has also begun to lose political support in the United States, having seen its backing from the electoral bases of both political parties decline, particularly with young people.

Netanyahu and Israel’s most extreme parties in the government have dismissed international condemnation, ineffectually characterizing it as anti-semitic. While Jerusalem’s claims of anti-semitism have had little impact internationally, it is possible that those claims were intended primarily to resonate with Israelis and Jews abroad.

The solution: steps to reverse the decline

Rather than expecting the Gulf Arab states to rebuild what it destroyed—something they are reluctant to do without guarantees that Israel will cease its destructive attacks—Jerusalem would demonstrate itself as a responsible regional actor by taking the lead in Gaza reconstruction. It would also demonstrate strategic thinking about the future, including improving Gazans’ quality of life after a devastating war, and the failure of the punishing blockade that Israel enforced against Gaza, with Egyptian support, the past two decades.

Funding Gaza’s reconstruction will not by itself fundamentally change negative international perceptions of Israel’s conduct of the war and broader treatment of the Palestinians. A genuine paradigm shift in Israel’s approach to the Palestinian issue aimed at altering international opinion of Israel would include actions such as cracking down on West Bank settler terrorism, prosecuting soldiers who tortured Palestinian prisoners, committing to never withhold food or medical supplies as collective punishment, and restraining racist policies and incitement to violence in by government ministers including Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Energy Minister Eli Cohen, among others.

By taking these steps—some of which, like the cessation of incitement, are similar to Israel’s demands of Palestinians—Jerusalem would demonstrate itself to be a more reliable and fair-minded partner to its neighbors. Instead of assuming that Arab states will fund reconstruction or police Gaza, Israel would be taking responsibility for the territories it has occupied since 1967 and demonstrating that the conflict is not against Palestinian civilians. Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip would also represent a form of compensation for the damage Israel wrought to the socio-economic fabric of Palestinian society in Gaza, both through the blockade and the war.

Jerusalem needs to stop being perpetually in conflict with world opinion with regard to military occupation, the conduct of its wars, detentions without due process, treatment of prisoners, and collective punishment. It is unlikely that international norms of warfare, justice, and human rights will be adjusted to accommodate Israel.

The broader outlook

Although none of the prescribed steps would resolve the larger Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they would set Israel up as a responsible player that adheres to international norms, given its critics’ belief that, like Hamas, it targets civilians, imprisons and executes individuals without due process, and incites violence.

US support is not as reliable as it once was, and Israel’s regional integration, including formal relationships with neighboring Arab states, is unlikely to develop further so long as it continues to offend Arab populations with its treatment of the Palestinians. The region’s Arab leaders must take popular opinion into account as they seek to preserve their regimes, as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did when he rebuffed Trump’s pressure to normalize relations with Israel without progress on Palestinian statehood.

The 2026 Israeli general election may offer a natural transition point for a new Israeli government to adopt new policies that are more conducive to its reintegration into the community of nations. The Israeli body politic and electorate need to consider Israel’s current plight, how it got there, the failure of its recent policies, and the importance of international norms.

Amir Asmar is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He is an adjunct professor of Middle East issues at the National Intelligence University. He was previously a senior executive and Middle East and terrorism analyst in the US Department of Defense.

The post Israel needs a fundamental shift in its foreign policy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

That means diplomacy could stall or break down completely. So what will Trump, who has been steadily building up military forces in the region, do then?

There are two primary pathways he could take for a military strike. The first is a limited coercive strike—i.e. against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij militia compounds—aimed at fulfilling Trump’s red line about killing protesters and forcing Iran back to negotiations from a weaker position. However, such a strike would probably have a limited effect on the regime’s calculus and would not guarantee a manageable military confrontation, as Iran has stated that it is preparing to carry out retaliatory measures following any strike.

The second option would be a larger campaign aimed at achieving fundamental changes in the current regime’s calculus—such as accepting strict limitations on its ballistic missiles and proxies’ activity—or even bringing about regime change. For this scenario to be successful, the United States will need to present a credible threat to the current regime’s survival. This requires a sustained, well-coordinated military campaign supported by regional allies, forcing the regime to choose between “drinking the chalice of poison” for survival or facing a conflict that threatens its very existence.

The pursuit of regime change carries significant risks, including the potential for internal fragmentation into armed factions or even full-scale civil war. Nevertheless, the benefits of fundamentally changing—or even eliminating—the Islamic Republic could outweigh the risks if the alternative is an emboldened, undeterred Iran.

Here are six strategic reasons why a decisive military campaign is the right move:

1. A unique moment to reshape the Middle East: Iran is at its weakest point since the 1979 revolution after recent protests, June’s twelve-day war with Israel, and the drastic degradation of its terror network. The Iranian defense doctrine—comprised of a nuclear program, conventional power, and regional proxy network—failed to deter Israel and the United States from striking it, effectively exposing the regime as a paper tiger. A decisive campaign against the regime could be the key to advancing US regional efforts that seem stuck at the moment, from regional integration through the Abraham Accords, to bringing Iranian-backed countries like Lebanon and Iraq closer to Western influence.
2. The moral imperative: Current diplomatic efforts prioritize the nuclear issue while overlooking the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters, which brought the current tensions to a boiling point in the first place. Reports coming out of Iran are heartbreaking. While official figures claim “only” 3,117 people killed, some estimates are far higher, ranging from over 6,000 to over 30,000 people killed in two days. Trump’s promise to “come to [the] rescue” of the Iranian people shouldn’t be a lip service, but rather a testament to the United States’ moral leadership. Negotiating is a prize to this regime, as talks could provide it with a much-needed lifeline in sanctions easing and improving its domestic and international legitimacy.
3. The credibility dilemma: Opting against military force may avoid immediate conflict but risks comparisons to then US President Barack Obama’s “red line” in Syria. In 2013, Obama failed to respond militarily after the Assad regime used chemical weapons on its people, which the president had described as a “red line.” If Trump does not respond in this case, it could signal to Tehran that the Washington will blink under pressure as long as Iran remains resolved in its resistance.
4. The economic stakes for the United States—and China: A different Iranian regime could reintegrate its massive energy reserves—the world’s second-largest gas and third-largest oil deposits—into Western markets. This aligns with the administration’s view of expending US access to energy resources as a key component in its foreign policy. The combination of ousting Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and a regime change in Iran could severely disrupt China’s energy security, as Beijing relied on both countries for as much as 30 percent of its oil imports due to their discounted prices. Complicating China’s economic calculus and shifting its focus could promote other US efforts vis-à-vis China, such as preventing full-scale conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
5. Skin in the game for the United States in Iran’s future: Internal systemic failures brought about by the regime—namely hyperinflation, water scarcity, and widespread corruption—along with recent demonstrations suggest the regime is in a state of terminal decline. However, waiting patiently for the regime to collapse while watching from the sidelines isn’t a sustainable strategy to promote US regional interests. Instead, a hands-on approach utilizing military force could allow the United States to actively navigate the situation, ensuring a favorable post-regime landscape while denying Russia and China the opportunity to exploit a power vacuum in Iran. This is not to say that the United States will necessarily need an ongoing presence with boots on the ground like in Iraq, but rather it should economically and diplomatically support opposition groups that could post an alternative to the current regime, backing them in their efforts to bring about positive change to the country.
6. The ongoing threat of Iran’s nuclear program: While June’s US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities were essential to stall an immediate Iranian breakthrough toward obtaining a nuclear weapon, they likely only rolled Iran’s efforts back by a few months. Iran has already stated it will continue its nuclear program, and its recent work to fortify underground facilities signals its refusal to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The current lack of monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency could allow the regime to utilize enrichment as a dual-purpose tool: either overtly, to secure diplomatic leverage and deter US military action, or covertly, as an “insurance policy” for regime survival. Trump has consistently affirmed that he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, and he should act on those words.

Pursuing negotiations at this juncture risks providing the regime with a vital political and economic lifeline at the very moment it is at its most vulnerable. The gap between Washington’s and Tehran’s core positions necessitates the use of force to restore US deterrent credibility and force Iran to make drastic changes or risk the regime’s survival. In the current landscape, a decisive US-led coalition effort aimed at regime change may offer a more sustainable strategic outcome than a protracted diplomatic process that could end with a bad agreement and an emboldened Iran.

Michael Rozenblat is a visiting research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs, from the Israeli security establishment. The views in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of any other entity.

The post Six reasons why Trump should choose the military option in Iran appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Many of these protest hubs overlap with areas where severe water shortages in recent years have made life increasingly difficult. The pattern matters: these are not isolated security incidents, but repeated episodes of escalation in regions already under acute water stress and economic strain, where basic service failure has been eroding public tolerance for years.

Iran is approaching what its own meteorological authorities describe as “water day zero”—the point where supply systems simply stop functioning. In that frame, “shortage” is the wrong word; this is system failure. Many scientists describe this as “water bankruptcy”—a condition, associated with researchers including United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health’s Kaveh Madani, in which the damage becomes effectively irreversible on human timescales. And when system failure shows up at the tap, it turns a long-term resource crisis into an immediate legitimacy crisis—especially in provinces where people already live on the edge of service collapse.

The unifying force in these protests is not ideology. It is the erosion of dignity. When officials demand “endurance” while connected networks profit from scarcity, the issue stops being technical. It becomes a judgment about whether the state considers citizens worth serving. That is when water stress becomes a political risk-multiplier: it raises baseline pressure, broadens participation beyond organized activists, and shifts perception from temporary hardship to systemic neglect.

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Feb 5, 2026

How Israeli technology could help solve Iran’s water crisis

By Joseph Epstein and Dalga Khatinoglu

Iran faces a stark choice: find ways to access the world’s most advanced water technologies, or continue toward a crisis.

Climate Change & Climate Action Energy & Environment

In Ilam, Abdanan, Lordegan, and much of southwestern Iran, the most visible marker of state failure is not a dry riverbed—it is the water tanker. Tankers are not just an emergency measure; they are a daily signal that the state can no longer deliver a basic public good. Once drinking water arrives by truck, life is reorganized around queues, uncertainty, and informal gatekeeping: who is served first, who waits, who is told “tomorrow.” That is where a technical shortfall becomes political—because people do not experience scarcity as a statistic. They experience it as humiliation.

That humiliation dynamic is not just “grievance,” it is a risk factor. When households depend on tankers, any additional shock—price spikes, fuel scarcity, electricity cuts that knock out pumps, or rumors of reduced deliveries—compresses the time between anger and mobilization. And because these protests emerge where services are already failing, the regime often meets them with faster, harder coercion—treating service breakdown as a security problem rather than a governance failure. 

Ilam’s towns—Abdanan, Malekshahi, and the provincial capital—became flashpoints as protests spread and reports of lethal force, arrests, and fatalities mounted. The immediate catalysts are familiar—prices, repression, accumulated rage. Ilam’s deeper story is structural: unrest accelerates when a water system loses its buffers, and scarcity becomes routine rather than episodic.

Lordegan and other Zagros towns have followed a comparable path. For years, many analysts downplayed water as a decisive political factor in Iran, even as conditions worsened. That no longer holds. Water stress is now shaping events in real time. When household supply becomes unreliable, people experience it as a compounding burden that disrupts routines, drains incomes, and erodes dignity—conditions under which smaller shocks can trigger street-level mobilization. Water is not always the spark; it is the accelerant that makes every spark catch faster—and makes the state’s violent response more likely because the unrest is rooted in visible failure, not just political slogans.

Water bankruptcy is characterized by a persistent gap between societal demand and the hydrological system’s sustainable supply. In this condition, a wet year may slow deterioration, but it does not restore resilience. Groundwater—treated for decades as an emergency reserve—has been drawn down faster than it can recharge, with visible consequences including land subsidence and irreversible loss of aquifer storage in many areas. When scarcity is delivered through rationing, rotating cuts, and tankers, the pressure becomes daily, personal, and politically legible.

This water-driven vulnerability, affecting daily life, social cohesion, and the state’s ability to deliver basic services, amplifies other stressors. What changed in 2025 was stacking: water stress layered with energy shortfalls, international sanctions pressure, and security disruptions, while service delivery deteriorated and public trust continued to collapse. Under these conditions, shocks compress timelines. People move from frustration to action faster, because the margin for absorbing disruption has already been consumed. Recent reporting by major outlets ties this wave to prolonged planned cuts to water and electricity and to major air-pollution episodes that forced repeated shutdowns—conditions that make daily life feel ungovernable, even before politics enters the conversation. During severe smog episodes, authorities have shut schools and universities and repeatedly closed banks and public institutions for days at a time. In that setting, protests are not only sparked by single flashpoints, they are enabled, because normal routines have already been disrupted, and daily life starts to feel unmanageable long before politics enters the conversation.

Failure also persists because incentives reward the wrong outcomes: budgets, contracts, and political credit flow to visible mega-projects, while recharge, monitoring, pricing, and enforcement get treated as optional. Iran’s “water mafia” is not merely a slogan; it is a political economy. The pattern is that budgets and influence concentrate around big, ribbon-cuttable projects, dams, tunnels, and inter-basin transfers, because they create large contracts, subcontracting chains, and discretionary control, while quieter work like groundwater monitoring, enforcing pumping limits, pricing reform, leakage control, and managed aquifer recharge produces fewer rents and fewer photo ops.

Analysts have described the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Khatam al Anbiya construction conglomerate as a central node in this ecosystem, an enormous contractor operating through layers of subsidiaries and thousands of subcontractors, with major state clients including the Ministry of Energy, and with procurement and oversight conditions that are often insulated from normal scrutiny.

Consulting engineering firms that design and justify megaprojects also sit inside the same incentive loop, including firms active across dams and water infrastructure, which further blurs the line between independent evaluation and project promotion. The result is structural: visible infrastructure gets financed and politically rewarded, even when it worsens basin-level depletion, while demand management and aquifer protection stay marginal. Climate change accelerates the consequences, but governance choices, and the incentives attached to them, determine the trajectory.

Finally, hydrology matters more than provincial borders. A basin is the natural water system, the connected rivers, groundwater, and watersheds that move water from upstream to downstream. Iran still governs water by administrative jurisdictions rather than basin-scale planning, which lets upstream allocations and diversions externalize costs onto downstream communities. In basins such as the Karun and Karkheh, many communities experience “development” as reduced water security and livelihood loss, not as protection from risk. In Khuzestan, water shortages have repeatedly spilled into the streets, including the July 2021 protests, which were met with lethal force, mass arrests, and communications disruptions, according to Reuters, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. In wetland and farming systems linked to the Karkheh, the drying of border wetlands has been tied to dust storms, health impacts, and pressures on livelihoods and migration, making water decisions feel less like “management” and more like dispossession.

What the United States and partners should do

Washington already knows Iran is running out of water—and US political discourse has even adopted the “water mafia” framing. Iran’s crisis is no longer just political or economic, it is infrastructural. Treating water-system failure as a leading indicator helps predict where unrest may ignite, how quickly it may spread, and when coercion is likely to intensify.

First, Washington should build a water-driven, early-warning layer into Iran monitoring. Integrate service-failure signals—rotational cuts, tanker deployment, reservoir drawdowns, groundwater stress and subsidence, agricultural distress—with protest geography, labor unrest, and security posture. Add a “day zero” watchlist. Track cities and regions where household taps fail (not just “low reservoirs”) and treat that threshold as a leading indicator for rapid protest escalation and heavy-handed repression.

Second, Washington should treat the “water mafia” as a networked political economy. Map contractors, front companies, financiers, procurement channels, and security-linked actors tied to extractive mega-projects, then coordinate exposure and financial pressure to raise the cost of the incentives that perpetuate failure.

Third, Washington should monitor allocation as closely as scarcity. In many cases, perceptions of favoritism and pay-to-play access determine when water stress becomes politically explosive.

Fourth, where external support is feasible through partners, Washington should design it to minimize regime capture. Prioritize reliability gains that are hard to turn into patronage—repairs, leak reduction inputs, treatment chemicals, and monitoring capacity—paired with verifiable distribution mechanisms.

Fifth, Washington should plan for spillover. Water mismanagement in western Iran can translate into cross-border tensions and migration pressures, making coordination with Iraq and other neighbors a practical requirement.

Post–Islamic Republic: no single fix

Even after a political transition, Iran’s water crisis will not be solved by a single national “fix” imposed from the center. The problems are basin-specific—recharge rates, aquifer geology and salinity, subsidence risk, crop patterns, industrial demand, and cross-provincial politics all vary. A groundwater crisis in the southwest is not the same as an exhausted aquifer in central Iran, and it is not the same as a tightly regulated river system in Khuzestan. Treating it as one problem produces one outcome: failure.

What makes this urgent now is the stacking of shocks. Large-scale unrest and communications disruptions have already hit daily life and commerce inside Iran. At the same time, the region is under heightened military tension, and shipping around the Strait of Hormuz is showing clear stress signals, raising the risk of supply-chain disruption, including food imports. Domestic instability is unfolding alongside a regional escalation risk, and the two can reinforce each other quickly.

In that environment, any transition window will be fragile, and basic service delivery will become a frontline test of legitimacy. The United States should plan for the transition period as a governance and stabilization challenge, not just a diplomatic milestone. That means anticipating the scramble over water allocation and backing a post-transition package that is practical and non-centralizing: emergency continuity plans for critical cities, basin-by-basin damage and subsidence assessments, open publication of groundwater levels, permits, and withdrawals, real environmental assessments for major projects, plus a basin-wide check that assesses the combined impacts before approving anything new, as well as independent technical oversight that can withstand the politics of the moment. The aim is straightforward: prevent a vacuum where water distribution becomes a coercive instrument or a trigger for local conflict and instead make early decisions transparent, locally tailored, and enforceable, because in Iran water governance is not just sustainability, it is legitimacy.

Nik Kowsar is an Iranian-American journalist and water issues analyst based in Washington, DC. He produces and hosts a weekly TV program on Iran’s water crisis. He is also known for his past work as a political cartoonist.

The post How Iran’s water bankruptcy seeped into the protest movement appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Paradoxically, many of the most effective technical solutions to Iran’s water crisis have already been developed by its regional adversary, Israel. Through innovations in drip irrigation, wastewater recycling, desalination, and integrated water management, Israel has achieved water security under harsher natural constraints than Iran faces today. This article argues that Iran’s crisis is no longer a problem of awareness or technology, but of political, financial, and institutional barriers—and that proven Israeli approaches, if accessed indirectly, could still mitigate the most destabilizing consequences of a crisis experts say can no longer be fully reversed.

The geopolitical paradox

The supreme irony is that the technological solutions most appropriate to Iran’s water crisis have been developed and proven by Israel—a country with which Iran has no diplomatic relations and maintains an adversarial posture. Direct technology transfer remains impossible under current political conditions.

However, indirect pathways exist. International water organizations, multilateral development banks, and specialized United Nations agencies could potentially serve as intermediaries for technology transfer and capacity building.

Some Israeli water technologies have become so widely adopted that they’re available through non-Israeli suppliers that manufacture under license or have developed parallel capabilities. The fundamental principles—precision irrigation, advanced wastewater treatment, efficient desalination, smart water management—can be implemented regardless of technology source.

The scope of Iran’s water crisis

Official statistics from the Iranian government show that the average storage level of Iran’s dams stands at only 33 percent, and four out of the five main dams supplying water to Tehran have dried up. The remaining dam is in a highly fragile state, holding only enough water for a few weeks of consumption by the capital.

President Masoud Pezeshkian recently highlighted the severity of the situation, noting that rainfall has been “zero” during the current water year that began two months ago. He warned, “If it does not rain in Tehran within a month, we will have to ration water; if it still doesn’t rain, we will have to evacuate Tehran.”

Conditions in several other provinces are significantly worse than in the capital.

According to Iran’s Ministry of Energy, Iran consumes around 100 billion cubic meters (bcm) of water annually, 90 percent of which is used in agriculture. This exceptional level of agricultural water use is primarily due to widespread reliance on traditional irrigation methods, especially flood irrigation.

More importantly, 60 percent of the country’s total water consumption comes from groundwater aquifers, which are being depleted at an alarming rate. Iran adds 5 bcm annually to its groundwater deficit, leading to widespread land subsidence in major urban areas, particularly Tehran and Isfahan.

Ali Beitollahi, head of the Seismology and Risk Department at the Road, Housing, and Urban Development Research Center, reports that “eighteen provinces are experiencing land subsidence rates exceeding ten centimeters per year. In central Tehran, the rate of subsidence over the past two years has tripled compared with the previous two-year period. Subsidence zones in south and southwest Tehran have expanded by about 40 percent in recent years.”

This is the state of Iran’s capital city—which would ideally be the center of water management. Yet 60 percent of Tehran’s water comes from underground sources. More than half of the city’s 2.5 bcm annual water consumption is used in agriculture, and 30 percent of drinking water is lost through the aging, deteriorating distribution network.

Another major dimension of the crisis is the rapid drying of Iran’s wetlands and lakes. Mohammad-Reza Rezaei-Kouchi, head of the Parliament’s Construction Commission, reports that 66 percent of Iran’s major wetlands have dried up.

Israel’s water revolution: A comparative model

Israel faces many of the same climatic challenges as Iran—limited rainfall, high evaporation rates, and growing demand. Understanding Israel’s approach illuminates the specific technological and policy gaps in Iran’s water system.

Israel pioneered drip irrigation technology in the 1960s, and today approximately 75 percent of Israeli agricultural land uses drip or micro-irrigation systems. These methods deliver water directly to plant roots with precision, reducing water consumption by 30 to 70 percent compared to flood irrigation while often increasing crop yields.

Tehran’s agricultural water waste leads the region. Iranian agriculture consumes around 90 bcm of water, yet neighboring Turkey—with 40 percent less water consumption—produces 30 percent more agricultural output. Iran receives less rainfall than Turkey, but 70 percent of Iran’s rainfall evaporates due to insufficient investment in rainwater harvesting and storage, while Turkey loses about 50 percent.

Taking these numbers into consideration, if Iran adopted Israeli-style drip irrigation across even 50 percent of its agricultural land, water savings could reach 20 to 30 bcm annually—four to six times the country’s current groundwater deficit.

Israel treats and reuses approximately 90 percent of its wastewater for agriculture—the highest rate globally. This contrasts sharply with Iran’s performance.

Iran ranks 103rd out of 180 countries globally in urban wastewater collection and treatment—the worst in its region. Only 50 percent of Iranian households are connected to sewer systems, and only 20 percent of collected wastewater is treated and reused for agriculture or industry.

If Iran had developed wastewater infrastructure comparable to Israel’s, a significant portion of the country’s 8 bcm per year of drinking water consumption could be recycled for non-potable uses. Instead, untreated wastewater is frequently discharged into wells or surrounding areas, contaminating groundwater aquifers.

Israeli wastewater treatment technology, including advanced biological and membrane processes, has been successfully exported to water-scarce regions worldwide. The country’s integrated approach combines centralized treatment plants with sophisticated distribution networks that deliver reclaimed water directly to agricultural users.

Israel now produces approximately 85 percent of its domestic water supply through desalination, operating five major plants along the Mediterranean coast. The country’s reverse osmosis desalination technology has become among the most energy-efficient globally, with costs declining to approximately forty-one cents per cubic meter.

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Feb 5, 2026

How Iran’s water bankruptcy seeped into the protest movement

By Nik Kowsar

Many of Iran’s protest hubs overlap with areas where severe water shortages in recent years have made life increasingly difficult for people.

Climate Change & Climate Action Energy & Environment

Iranian officials have floated the idea of desalinating Caspian Sea water. Meanwhile, Iran has spent two decades examining a project to desalinate Persian Gulf water and transport it to central provinces, but given the overwhelming water consumption in agriculture and the government’s chronic financial constraints, such projects have remained economically unjustifiable. Israeli expertise in modular, cost-effective desalination could help Iran develop feasible projects scaled to municipal, rather than agricultural, needs.

Israel has reduced water network losses to approximately 7 percent through sophisticated monitoring systems, pressure management, and rapid leak detection. Israeli companies have developed artificial intelligence (AI)-powered systems that use acoustic sensors, satellite imagery, and data analytics to identify leaks and optimize distribution.

Tehran loses 30 percent of its drinking water through its aging, deteriorating distribution network. Applying Israeli leak detection and network optimization technology to Tehran’s system could save approximately 0.2 bcm annually for the capital alone—extending the city’s water supply by several weeks during crisis periods.

Israel has developed advanced techniques for managed aquifer recharge, storing treated wastewater and excess seasonal flows underground for later use. This approach stabilizes groundwater levels and helps prevent land subsidence—a critical concern given that 60 percent of Iran’s water consumption comes from groundwater aquifers being depleted at 5 bcm annually.

Israeli experience with aquifer management in the coastal plain, where over-extraction once caused severe saltwater intrusion, offers directly relevant lessons for Iranian cities facing similar threats.

Agricultural transformation: The Israeli model

Despite representing only 8 percent of Iran’s gross domestic product (GDP), agriculture employs one-fifth of the national workforce. Persistent droughts, combined with the government’s inability to support or modernize the sector, have already pushed a quarter of agricultural workers out of the sector over the past decade. Today, only 3.5 million people remain employed in agriculture.

Recent data from the Central Bank of Iran shows that agricultural GDP in spring 2025 shrunk by 8 percent, reinforcing the sector’s growing distress.

Israel’s agricultural sector provides a compelling alternative model. Despite having far less arable land and water resources than Iran, Israel has built one of the world’s most productive agricultural systems through precision irrigation, advanced crop selection, greenhouse technology, and data-driven farming techniques.

Such precision agriculture technology could help Iran maintain or increase agricultural output while dramatically reducing water consumption, potentially enabling a managed transition away from water-intensive crops without triggering mass unemployment.

The Israeli model demonstrates that agriculture can remain economically viable and employ significant populations even with drastically reduced water allocations—but only through technological transformation.

Economic and financial barriers

Since the reimposition of US sanctions in 2018, Iran’s government budget has maintained a deficit equal to one-third of its budget. As a result, government borrowing from banks and financial institutions has increased more than eightfold in seven years.

According to International Monetary Fund data, Iran’s public debt is now around 37 percent of GDP, almost entirely owed to domestic financial institutions, limiting the state’s fiscal flexibility.

The economic pressures underlying Iran’s water and agricultural crises have already sparked devastating unrest. In late December 2025, protests erupted across Iran following the collapse of the rial, rapidly spreading nationwide. The government responded with a brutal crackdown on January 8-9, 2026, with Iran International reporting more than thirty thousand killed—potentially one of the deadliest massacres in modern history. The crackdown underscores how Iran’s compounding environmental, economic, and political failures are creating conditions ripe for instability.

The government lacks both the financial capacity to modernize irrigation and the economic infrastructure to absorb displaced agricultural workers into other sectors. As a result, imposing restrictions on agricultural water use would trigger a surge in unemployment.

These financial constraints make Iranian adoption of Israeli technology particularly challenging. However, the modular nature of many Israeli water solutions—drip irrigation systems can be implemented field-by-field, leak detection can be deployed neighborhood-by-neighborhood—offers opportunities for phased implementation that could begin delivering returns before requiring massive capital outlays.

Moreover, the cost of inaction is becoming prohibitive. Water rationing, urban evacuation, agricultural collapse, and cross-border conflict all carry enormous economic costs that dwarf the investment required for technological modernization.

A choice between ideology and survival

The crisis in Iran is no longer abstract: major dams are empty, land subsidence is accelerating, wetlands are disappearing, and tensions are rising with neighboring countries over shared water resources. Without fundamental transformation, Iran faces escalating urban instability, agricultural decline, mass internal migration, and cross-border friction.

The technical solutions exist. Israel’s transformation from water scarcity to water security over the past six decades demonstrates that even severe natural limitations can be overcome through systematic innovation, integrated management, and sustained investment. The specific technologies Iran needs—drip irrigation, wastewater treatment and reuse, cost-effective desalination, leak detection, and smart management systems—have all been proven at scale.

The question is whether Iran can separate technical necessity from political ideology. The country’s water crisis will not wait for geopolitical realignment. Every year of delay adds 5 bcm to the groundwater deficit, pushes more farmers out of agriculture, accelerates land subsidence, and brings major cities closer to unlivable conditions.

In the absence of structural reforms and adequate financing—which could be partially addressed through adopting proven Israeli technologies and approaches via international intermediaries—the country is approaching a point where emergency measures such as water rationing, mass internal migration, and even partial evacuation of major cities may become unavoidable.

Iran faces a stark choice: find ways to access the world’s most advanced water technologies, regardless of their origin, or continue toward a crisis that threatens the viability of major population centers and the stability of the entire region. Water, unlike politics, cannot be negotiated with ideology. It simply runs out.

Joseph Epstein is the director of the Turan Research Center, a senior fellow at the Yorktown Institute, and a research fellow at the Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Program at Bar Ilan University’s Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran’s energy and macroeconomics, and a researcher on energy in Azerbaijan, Central Asia, and Arab countries. 

The post How Israeli technology could help solve Iran’s water crisis appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Contrary to widespread public allegations, particularly those asserting systemic incitement, radicalization, or misuse of US funds, the GAO report concludes that there is limited evidentiary support for many of these claims with respect to UNRWA’s education programs during the period under review. While the report confirms that problematic content existed in some host-authority textbooks used in UNRWA schools, it also finds that UNRWA implemented multiple review, mitigation, and monitoring mechanisms, and moreover that US funds did not finance the production or purchase of problematic content.

These findings are consequential given that during the reporting period, the United States, historically UNRWA’s largest donor, provided an estimated $375 million in education-related support to the agency. But after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, then US President Joe Biden suspended that funding, and the US Congress later passed legislation that banned UNRWA funding entirely after Israeli allegations that UNRWA staff was involved in the attacks. Though the United Nations completed its own investigations that found some staff involvement in October 7, the findings were nowhere near what the Israeli allegations included, and some of the allegations were dropped from the investigation due to a lack of evidence.

The takeaway from the GAO report is more an indictment of how unmoored the public debate has become from reality and available evidence. Questions of reform, restructuring, or replacement should focus on what the agency does and does not do, rather than arguments that conflate humanitarian provision with political causation. In the absence of a political settlement, it has become clear that UNRWA has become a proxy theater for unresolved political questions of responsibility, sovereignty, and accountability. The GAO report makes it clear that eliminating UNRWA will not resolve the political issues at stake and should be a guide to policymakers in addressing the real issues at hand.

Exceptional origins

To better understand the controversy surrounding UNRWA, it is necessary to examine its institutional origins. UNRWA was established prior to the creation of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and was never integrated into the UNHCR system. As a result, it remains a functionally unique organization, and the only UN agency dedicated to a single refugee population.

As of 2023, UNRWA employed approximately thirty thousand staff, around 99 percent of whom were Palestinian, making it one of the largest operational agencies within the UN system. In the absence of a political resolution to the Palestinian refugee question, its mandate has been repeatedly renewed by the UN General Assembly. Over time, this has transformed UNRWA from a temporary relief body into a de facto public service provider in environments where no sovereign authority fills that role.

This seeming exceptionalism has long fueled criticism, but it is more a product of history than politics. Some argue that UNRWA’s continued operation perpetuates Palestinian refugee status and entrenches political stagnation. Others counter that the agency exists because diplomatic failure persists. The GAO report does not attempt to adjudicate this debate. Instead, it narrows the inquiry to whether UNRWA’s education programs, as supported by US funding, were operated in accordance with stated neutrality and oversight requirements.

Critiques that attribute the persistence of refugee status to UNRWA often conflate service provision with status determination. Refugee status is defined independently under international law and UN General Assembly resolutions, not by UNRWA’s operational presence. While some contend that UNRWA’s services allow host governments or Palestinian leadership to defer responsibility for refugee integration or political resolution, the termination of UNRWA’s operations would not, on its own, confer legal status, citizenship, or rights on refugee populations. These outcomes remain contingent on unresolved diplomatic negotiations involving Israel, host states, and the broader international community.

Education, textbooks, and allegations of incitement

Prior to October 7, 2023, the most persistent and politically salient criticism of UNRWA concerned its education system, particularly the use of Palestinian Authority textbooks. UNRWA uses host-country curricula as a matter of institutional policy to ensure accreditation and enable students to transition into local secondary and post-secondary education systems. The GAO confirms that no US funds were used to purchase these textbooks, which were provided free of charge by the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Recognizing concerns that some textbook content did not align with UN values or United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) standards, UNRWA implemented layered review mechanisms, including curriculum framework reviews, semester-based rapid reviews of revised textbooks, the development of supplementary teaching materials, and a self-described “critical thinking” approach designed to contextualize or counter problematic content in classrooms.

PA textbooks provide the baseline materials, and then the critical thinking approach aims to highlight UN values and encourages discussions that explore different perspectives on an issue, while offering teachers techniques, concepts, and activities to support such classroom discussions.

During the 2024–2025 academic year, UNRWA reviewed more than thirteen thousand textbook pages and identified “issues” on approximately 3.85 percent of pages. The majority of these issues related to terminology, maps, or political framing, rather than explicit incitement, according to the GAO report. For example, identified issues include a “reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine,” or “mathematics problems that compare the number of prisoners across two years and use the number of martyrs to teach a mathematical concept.” The GAO notes that both internal and external audits acknowledged UNRWA’s commitment to neutrality while also identifying persistent implementation challenges, including teacher resistance, community pressure, and resource or access constraints. Some of these constraints include that the teachers are already overwhelmed, and asking them to create new critical thinking-led approaches has been challenging, as many of them were not able to receive direct training. Moreover, challenges include students and teachers questioning the relevance of learning about human rights when they feel they do not experience those rights themselves.

Importantly, the GAO finds no evidence that UNRWA systematically ignored identified concerns or that US oversight failed to detect widespread incitement during the funding period under review.

Clearly, this does not render all criticism invalid. It does suggest, however, that claims linking UNRWA’s education, like those by UN Watch—a prominent watchdog organization that also functions as a pro-Israel lobby group—directly to political violence are often overstated. This is particularly true when considering the education content as a primary explanatory or causation variable for political violence, despite the reality students face of prolonged conflict, displacement, and humanitarian deprivation. Similarly, the European Union-funded findings by the George Eckert Institute show that there is little evidence to establish a link between textbooks’ content and students’ world views.

Critics of UNRWA are not wrong to identify real vulnerabilities. The agency operates under extraordinary political pressure, relies on host-authority curricula it does not control, and faces genuine challenges enforcing neutrality among a locally recruited workforce of Palestinians living largely under conflict conditions in Gaza and the West Bank. Oversight mechanisms, while extensive, are imperfect, and implementation gaps are real. There is evidence to suggest that there is influence by staff members who are aligned with Hamas, something that UNRWA has attempted to address, but cannot avoid due to the political realities of the population from which it draws its employees, particularly in Gaza.

Where critics often overreach is in treating these constraints as evidence of institutional intent or systemic failure. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, for example, claimed that UNRWA “is literally funneling American tax dollars to terrorism,” while Rep. Ritchie Torres called UNRWA “long a purveyor of anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish hate.”

The GAO tells a different story. Through their interviews with UNRWA educators, administrators, students, and diplomatic leaders in the US Embassy, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the PA Ministry of Education, and UNRWA leadership and field staff, GAO staff collected significant data and input. Their report, analyzing US funding for assistance, the extent to which UNRWA and the US State Department identified and addressed problematic content, and the extent to which the State Department reported accurately to Congress, does not find sufficient evidence to substantiate claims that UNRWA’s education programs functioned as vehicles for incitement during the period reviewed, nor that US funds were misused.

Post–October 7 allegations and funding consequences

Following October 7, Israeli authorities alleged that some UNRWA employees participated in or supported Hamas’s attack. Subsequent investigations by the UN confirmed that a small number of current or former staff had ties to Hamas or involvement in the events. UNRWA dismissed implicated employees and cooperated with external reviews. While serious, these findings did not substantiate claims of institutional complicity nor did it find evidence of systemic infiltration.

Still, the UN’s self-investigation garnered criticism that it failed to address the wider problem of Hamas ties, and the US Agency for International Development later said UNRWA refused to provide further information about the fired personnel.

The political consequences were swift, with the Biden administration’s suspension of funding to UNRWA and the subsequent complete prohibition of funding from Washington. According to the GAO, this decision contributed to a significant budget shortfall, placing core education and humanitarian programs at risk and exacerbating financial instability that predated the funding cutoff.

The unresolved political question

What remains unresolved is whether defunding UNRWA meaningfully advances US foreign policy objectives. Ending US support does not alter the legal status of Palestinian refugees, nor does it resolve the political questions that underpin UNRWA’s continued existence. What it does do is remove a major service provider in environments where alternatives are limited or nonexistent and encourages the shifting of costs and risks onto host governments, other donors, and vulnerable populations themselves, all of whom, without a political resolution, are unable to absorb these costs or added economic burden.

The GAO report does not argue for or against UNRWA’s future. It does, however, underscore how far the public debate has drifted from the evidentiary record. If UNRWA is to be reformed, restructured, or eventually replaced, those decisions should be grounded in a clear-eyed assessment of what the agency does and does not do, rather than in claims that collapse humanitarian provision into political causation. In the absence of a political settlement, UNRWA remains a proxy for unresolved questions of responsibility, sovereignty, and accountability in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Removing UNRWA does not resolve the dispute and will certainly deepen humanitarian consequences. The US withdrawal of funding is not only a disservice to the humanitarian realities on the ground, but also decreases possible US influence over the education system and the impacts UNRWA can have. While there is good reason to consider other politically viable options for assistance and refugee support to the Palestinian people, the US decision to withhold funds only exacerbates many of the existing problems, while solving none of them.

Melanie Robbins is the deputy director of Realign for Palestine, a project of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs. 

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Nonetheless, roughly nine months after the government ban, the Muslim Brotherhood’s response has been remarkably restrained. Despite its widespread popularity, the Islamist faction did not organize large-scale protests, lowered its media profile, avoided launching violent attacks against the Jordanian government, and stopped holding internal elections. The Brotherhood’s muted reaction stands in contrast to its activities during the Arab Spring, when it fomented opposition against the government, launching numerous demonstrations that critiqued the Jordanian regime over corruption allegations and rising consumer prices.

Mohammad Abu-Rumman, a professor of political science at the University of Jordan and a former culture minister, explained in a December interview with the author that the Brotherhood would lose its popular support if it were to engage in an “open struggle” with the Jordanian state. Many citizens back the Brotherhood for its unwavering commitment to the Palestinian cause, noted Jordan Times columnist Amer Sabaileh, rather than violently confronting the Jordanian government. 

Despite the government restrictions against the Brotherhood, the Islamist faction would have more to lose if it were to engage in a full-scale clash with Jordanian authorities.

Oraib Rantawi, director of the Amman-based Quds Center for Political Studies, explained in an interview with the author that the government’s decision to allow the IAF to continue operating in parliament, even though the Brotherhood itself is now illegal, is a “compromise” that is somewhat acceptable for the Islamist movement. (Certainly, the Muslim Brotherhood would have preferred that the Jordanian government not ban its group, but this was not an option offered by regime officials). If the Brotherhood were to launch a bitter campaign against King Abdullah over the ban, it could also lose the IAF, which still provides it with some influence nationwide.

King Abdullah continuing to permit the IAF to operate even with the Brotherhood ban shows that the dynamics in Jordan are less restrictive than the repression facing other Islamist factions in the Middle East. Since the 2013 coup in Egypt that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood-led government led by Mohammed Morsi, for example, tens of thousands of Egyptians have been arrested, including scores of Muslim Brotherhood members. Saudi Arabia has also designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror group, a step that the Hashemite Kingdom has not taken. Abu-Rumman noted that the Brotherhood wing in Amman seeks to avoid the fate of its Islamist counterparts elsewhere in the region by refraining from escalating tensions against the Jordanian government.

It is worth noting that Jordan’s military has access to far more advanced weaponry and resources, partially due to its strategic alliance with Washington, than the Brotherhood. In fact, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg noted that the GID was the most “respected” intelligence apparatus in the Arab world. Therefore, if the Brotherhood launched attacks against Jordanian security forces, it would probably endure a stinging defeat with few tangible military achievements. The Muslim Brotherhood “prefers to be pragmatic,” Sabaileh added.

US President Donald Trump’s November 2025 executive order examining whether to designate certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as terror organizations—including in Jordan for offering what the order called “material support” to Hamas’s military wing—further pushes the Islamist faction to adopt a cautious approach vis-à-vis Jordanian authorities. On January 13, the Trump administration followed through with its threat and designated the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood as a terror organization. As Washington boosts pressure against the Brotherhood, it is not in the Islamist movement’s interest to alienate the Jordanian government with a full-blown confrontation, especially as the Brotherhood faces increased international isolation.

Some Jordanians remain skeptical of the government’s assertion that the Brotherhood was planning to attack targets inside the Hashemite Kingdom.

Rantawi insisted that the arrested Brotherhood cell was attempting to smuggle weapons to the West Bank to attack Israel, not trying to kill Jordanian security forces. IAF Secretary-General Wa’el Saqqa noted to the author that those suspected of planning attacks were acting in an individual capacity and not representing his faction. Saqqa further asserted to the author that the IAF is completely separate from the Muslim Brotherhood and not connected to the attacks. Abu-Rumman argued that the Brotherhood as an institution has never used violence against the Jordanian government in its eighty year history and declined to join the 1957 coup against King Hussein. 

In one of King Abdullah’s first moves after ascending the throne in 1999, the Hashemite ruler expelled senior Hamas officials from the kingdom, angering the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood. Despite the setback, the Jordanian Islamist movement focused on building its domestic political base, tripling its representation in the most recent national election. After the government announced a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood in April, the Islamic movement decided to play the long game by not aggressively challenging Jordanian security forces at a moment of weakness. It’s a tactic that has served the Brotherhood well, allowing it to maintain significant popular support over decades.

Aaron Magid is the author of a new biography on King Abdullah. A former Amman-based journalist, his articles on the Hashemite Kingdom have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Al-Monitor. He also hosts the podcast On Jordan. Follow him on X: @AaronMagid

The post Why the Muslim Brotherhood is staying calm amid crackdowns in Jordan appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Both the negotiations and military operations against the SDF have relied heavily on the relationships the new government has built with the international community in general, and the US government in particular. These relationships are a result of a strong focus in 2025 by Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani on re-connecting Syria to the international world. Now, in 2026, Syria’s government must turn inward, prioritizing further domestic reforms and improvements. Chief among these are continued security reforms, economic development, and writing a new constitution.

Changing domestic perceptions

On November 25, thousands of Alawis took to the streets across western Syria. It wasn’t just the first Alawi demonstration since the fall of Assad; it was the first time the community had voluntarily held a protest to voice their demands in Syria’s modern history.

One resident of rural Jableh described the event to me a few days later with a proud smile on his face,“ I am fifty five years old, during my entire life any protest here was forced by the regime,” he said. “Yesterday was special, it was by our own free will, we said our demands and returned to our homes relaxed.”

The demonstrators had three demands: rejecting sectarianism, releasing the Alawi soldiers captured during the final weeks of Assad’s reign, and implementing federalism in the coast. The demonstrations were guarded against Sunni counter-protestors by the new government’s General Security Forces.

In the hours and days afterwards, many Alawi activists and residents of the coast—those who did and did not participate—spoke to me with pleasant surprise about the security forces’ professional conduct. Other commentators noted that it was the first time in Syria’s history the government had protected people criticizing it.

“So many were terrified of how the government would respond,” remarked a media activist from rural Jableh, “but we made our speeches and we were safe, and now the area feels relaxed for the first time.”

Several Alawi activists who had previously distrusted security forces told me that the day was a potential turning point in how they view local government forces.

“We trust the Ministry of Interior now, even if we don’t trust the government politically,” added the activist.

It was a stark change from the first months after Assad fell, when members of the nascent General Security forces were frequently accused of robbings and beatings, engaging in sectarian harassment, and at times executing Alawi civilians and ex-regime soldiers during raids on insurgents.

Their discipline in these most recent protests was a result of a year of reforms and institution building, reflecting broader developments across all Syrian ministries. This first year focused on rebuilding core state institutions, from security to basic administration.

Rebuilding government institutions

Outside of the public’s view, Syria’s new government spent much of its first year rebuilding the basic bureaucratic capacities of the state, which had been left gutted and derelict by the Assad regime. Regulatory agencies, courts, and basic services departments all needed to be repaired, staffed up, and streamlined. Critical but mundane state functions like water well licensing and civil registries took much of the year to rebuild. By the fall of 2025 many of these offices had begun functioning again, though often inundated with paperwork and requests from their communities.

In Homs, for example, the central court processes nearly two thousand cases a month involving administrative registrations such as property transfers, birth and death certificates, and marriage and divorce papers, a senior official told me in December. Of the twelve sub-courts across the Homs countryside, those in Palmyra and Qusayr remain non-functional due to physical damage while the courts in Talkalakh and Hassiyah are only partially functioning, having received only basic emergency repairs, according to the same official.

The massive task of (re)building the state forced the new authorities to adopt a pragmatic approach to employment. Most government employees today are the same people who were employed under the old regime. Even the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has retained non-Sunni administrative staff across several departments. Yet, every ministry still had to investigate and purge corrupt, regime-era employees or those who had criminal records, according to my discussions with officials from multiple ministries. Replacing these individuals with a qualified workforce has taken time. For the Ministry of Justice, it has been training a new batch of government judges and lawyers throughout the second half of 2025, with the first class slated to finish by early 2026.

Partial security reforms

These core state-building steps have begun to bear fruit in recent months. Governorate-level institutions have now expanded into the countrysides, and basic services like electricity have improved across both cities and the countryside (though to a lesser extent in the latter). Parallel to this, the new government had also undertaken the monumental task of creating new security and military forces. The MoI and Ministry of Defense (MoD) faced unique challenges and circumstances, each pursuing its own path and ultimately resulting in divergent outcomes. The MoI, responsible for civil policing and internal security, had to rapidly expand its forces while immediately dealing with the triple threat of ongoing Islamic State attacks, inter-communal and vigilante violence, and a growing ex-regime insurgency. The MoD, on the other hand, has had to merge dozens of armed factions with a long history of competition and violations against civilians into a single army.

Security reforms have been centered around internal accountability and coordination mechanisms. For example, Damascus formed the Military Police and Military Intelligence to monitor, investigate, and arrest security members implicated in crimes, and created additional command layers to strengthen command and control. Despite these structural improvements, Syrian opinions of the two security branches remain mixed. One year on, the MoI is generally viewed as responsive and professional, based on my months of fieldwork. Nearly every one of the activists and civilians that I have worked with over the past year have spoken about the improved professionalism and the positive engagement by most local MoI officials. Nonetheless, many remain unsure if this improvement is structural or simply, “a response to American pressure.”

Yet the army is widely distrusted due to its role in the March coastal massacres and July Sweida massacres. While its conduct has markedly improved during the fighting against the SDF in Aleppo and the northeast, many Syrians still distrust army units, especially compared to the MoI. Most army units have been pulled away from civilian areas, yet the presence of small bases on the outskirts of some rural areas remains a major complaint.

One man in southern Tartous governorate put concisely a feeling many have expressed to me in recent months: “Please just replace the army with general security checkpoints.”

Key goals in 2026

The first year of liberation saw the foundation laid for a new Syrian state. The two most important projects were the aforementioned security reforms and al-Sharaa’s tireless campaign to reconnect the country with the international community. Hundreds of diplomatic meetings in Damascus and international visits have succeeded in removing the final major sanctions against Syria and its leaders. Now, the country’s new government must prioritize three key domestic files: the economy, the constitution, and civil peace.

In September, I attended a meeting with al-Sharaa in which the president emphasized the importance of providing jobs and economic security to the entire country. Al-Sharaa has repeatedly linked economic development to social stability, something echoed by most Syrians I have met. Damascus is now largely unfettered in this pursuit as it enters its second year post-Assad, but it must begin to make tangible progress on the ground where most Syrians feel there has been little to no economic improvement.

The second most common complaint I’ve heard from Syrians is the lack of a new constitution or transitional justice for regime-era criminals. These two developments are directly linked and will likely be the two biggest milestones of 2026. Serious transitional justice steps have been delayed by the lack of a new constitution, as the current regime-era constitution lacks the necessary legal codes for trying regime officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Therefore, the first test will come when al-Sharaa appoints the remaining one-third of the People’s Assembly, whose first two-thirds were elected by committees across the country in August. The People’s Assembly will then be tasked with drafting a new constitution. The composition of the al-Sharaa-appointed third and the contents of this constitution will be closely judged and must reflect a commitment to equal rights under a civil state. Once ratified, this new constitution will allow for the full transitional justice process to unfold.

Despite the significant structural improvements that have been within government institutions over the past year, major fault lines remain within the society. These divisions are more nuanced than simple sectarian divides and are unique to each locality. For this reason, a local approach to national dialogue and inter-communal peace is required. The improvements that have been made within the MoI must be joined by improvements in local dialogues, particularly in coastal and central Syria, led by civil society and influential locals with the support of local security officials. These can take the forms of civil peace committees, civil councils, or civil and humanitarian work that brings together members of diverse communities.

Local security and political leaders will play a key role in addressing the grave security threats and civil strife prevalent across many regions. But their efforts are limited at times by ineffective or oppressive local officials, who can be damaging to trust building. This year should be one of local dialogue, both within communities and between them, with an expanded effort from the central government in Damascus as well as Syrian and international non-governmental organizations to work on social cohesion and civil peace. This requires consistent government engagement with local civil society as well as tangible changes on the ground regarding economic and security concerns.

The government would be remiss to view these solely as state-building files. Syria faces ongoing internal and external security threats exacerbating a fragmented society reeling from sixty years of Assad regime crimes. These three files are the foundations of Syria’s near future. Damascus should support the work of local and national activists, whether in civil peace initiatives or humanitarian outreach, to strengthen its approach to the constitutional drafting process and to local civil peace. Syria’s new government may feel confident in the real progress it has made in rebuilding the state after one year of liberation, but it cannot underestimate the difficulty it faces in gaining the trust of the country in year two.

Gregory Waters is a nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and writes about Syria’s security institutions and social dynamics.

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The March 10 agreement between Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander Mazloum Abdi and interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa was intended to integrate the SDF into the new Syrian army. The Aleppo Agreement, signed in Syria’s second largest city in April, was the first practical implementation of the March 10 agreement, because it entailed the integration of local police forces: the Kurdish Asayish and Internal Security Forces linked to the interim government.

When I visited Aleppo several months after that agreement was signed, it was still largely holding. I interviewed Hefin Suleiman and Nouri Sheiko, the two Kurdish signatories of the agreement, as well as officials from the Aleppo governor’s office. Both sides were committed to continuing to work together. 

I also met a dozen Kurdish and Arab women in the Sheik Maqsoud Women’s House. The new flag of the Syrian government was on display in their spacious office. They told me proudly how they had applied for—and received—official permission to operate as a non-governmental organization (NGO) from Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Hind Qabawat, who is also the only female minister in the cabinet of the interim government in Damascus. They were genuinely eager to work with her and were planning a conference for women all across Syria. These Kurdish women in Sheik Maqsoud were literally working with Damascus down to the minutiae of complying with their rules and regulations for NGO registration. They, too, appeared committed to the Aleppo Agreement.

The Kurdish Asayish and Arab Internal Security Forces were already operating shared check points in Aleppo.  In October, the SDF has submitted a list of their commanders who could serve in the Ministry of Defense in Damascus, as part of integration talks. And in other parts of Syria, the SDF and certain units of the new Syrian army aligned with Damascus had already begun coordinated activities under US supervision, as I learned during fieldwork in Syria in December.

But on January 6, Damascus launched an assault on Aleppo.

Some 150,000 people were displaced just in two days of fighting, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. An estimated 1,200 Yezidi families were caught up in the fighting, some of whom were resisting what Iraqi Member of Parliament Murad Ismael described as a “brutal attack” by the factions of the Damascus authorities. 

Why did al-Sharaa launch an assault on the very people with whom he had signed not one, but two agreements? What went wrong?

A stalemate in negotiations

Both agreements were due to quiet US diplomacy. It was hoped they would help reunify the fractured country after over a decade of conflict.

US mediation efforts have been led by Tom Barrack, who is dual hatted as the US ambassador to Turkey and also special envoy to Syria. The mediation was a tough job, but it had already achieved important progress. The two sides did not trust each other, having fought against each other in the past. Al-Sharaa is the former commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which evolved out of Jebhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda offshoot. In an earlier phase of the war, Jebhat al-Nusra had fought against Syrian Kurds in the Kurdish People’s Defense Units, or YPG (the predecessor of the SDF).

This distrust was only compounded after sectarian killings of Alawites in the coastal regions in March, and then another round of killing in the Druze stronghold of Sweida. A Reuters investigation of the massacres of Alawites found that the “chain of command led to Damascus.” A United Nations investigation into the events in Sweida is still ongoing.

Kurds had reason to be skeptical of the new authorities in Damascus. After assuming power in Damascus, al-Sharaa has promoted several rebel leaders into positions of power who have been sanctioned by the United States for serious human rights violations. They include two notorious warlords. Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr, who had been sanctioned for kidnapping Kurdish women and abusing prisoners, was promoted to commander of the Seventy-Sixth Division overseeing Aleppo. And Mohammed Hussein al-Jasim, known as Abu Amsha, was promoted to lead the Sixty-Second Division in Hama. The US Treasury estimated that his militia generated tens of millions of dollars a year through abduction and confiscation of property in Afrin, where Turkey maintains a large security presence.

But Kurds were under significant US pressure, and the Syrian Kurdish leadership is pragmatic.

Furthermore, Kurds in Aleppo had survived under siege and managed to preserve control of the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah neighborhoods throughout the civil war. Now Assad was gone and al-Sharaa had made verbal promises about Kurdish rights—although no constitutional guarantees until now. So in April the Kurds agreed to withdraw their military forces from Aleppo and only maintain police forces, which would also fully integrate with the Syrian government’s police forces. 

In other words, they agreed to place their trust in Damascus, knowing they would have no military forces of their own once the SDF withdrew—knowing they would be surrounded on all sides. For years, the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration has controlled a vast oil-rich region in the northeast, but it is not geographically connected to Aleppo.

The Aleppo Agreement in April was celebrated as a success story by both sides.

The Aleppo offensive, hate speech, and disinformation

Leading up to and during the government’s offensive in Aleppo and eastern Syria in January, there was an alarming rise of anti-Kurdish hate speech and disinformation, as well as more subtle attempts to undermine the SDF.

For example, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Interior in Damascus, Nour al-Din Baba, referred to them as the “so-called SDF” in an interview with Al Jazeera in late December. In the initial days of the Aleppo offensive, false news was circulated claiming that SDF commander Mazloum Abdi had said that the SDF intended to “fully recapture all of Aleppo.”  Verify Syria debunked this as disinformation. In reality, the SDF had agreed to withdraw and had never controlled all of Aleppo to begin with. Less than a week later, a video clip was circulated on social media claiming to feature a former officer of the Assad regime who was positioned alongside the SDF in Deir Hafer. Verify Syria documented that it was a fake video generated using AI techniques.

The armed groups who carried out the assault on Aleppo have made their own videos where they refer to Kurds as “sheep” or “pigs” and posted them on social media. In one particularly horrific video, which has since been verified, the corpse of a woman was thrown out of a building as men celebrated and chanted Allahu Akhbar. The Kurds identified the woman as having been a member of the Internal Security Forces—according to reports—the very police force created by the Aleppo Agreement.

The Aleppo violence is even more tragic because Damascus and the SDF were on the verge of a larger national agreement to integrate their forces.

According to reporting by Al Monitor, it was Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani who interrupted the last round of US-brokered talks on January 4 between the SDF and Damascus. After abruptly entering the room, he asked that US Brigadier General Kevin Lambert leave the meeting, and promised that the talks would resume on January 8.

But before talks could resume, Damascus launched its assault on Aleppo on January 6.

Moving forward

On January 10, Barrack called for a return to the March 10 and Aleppo agreements.  Turkish Ambassador to Syria Nuh Yilmaz said he also welcomed the return to the Aleppo Agreement, which allows for local governance in the two Kurdish neighborhoods.

In the days that followed, al-Sharaa’s forces continued their offensive against SDF-held areas, capturing large parts of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, areas the SDF had held after defeating the Islamic State. On January 17, US Central Command Commander Admiral Brad Cooper called on al-Sharaa’s forces to “cease any offensive actions.” But the offensive continued. 

As al-Sharaa’s forces moved east, chaos ensued and numerous detention facilities housing Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) militants were opened. According to one report, at least four separate detention facilities were opened, which collectively held some 33,500 ISIS militants. It remains unclear how many have escaped.

Forces aligned with Damascus have also taken videos of themselves desecrating SDF cemeteries in Hasakah in the northeast, an area controlled by the SDF for many years. 

Understanding the origins of the violence in Aleppo is critical. While each side blames the other for the escalation, a full investigation will be needed to establish the facts. But it is equally important to examine the underlying conditions that made this eruption possible. 

The Aleppo Agreement was proof that both decentralization and integration could work in practice.

Damascus had agreed that the two Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo could continue to provide their own local security, could continue to offer Kurdish language instruction, and that women could continue to serve in the police—just not at shared checkpoints with men. Both sides agreed to all of this, illustrating that the two major power blocs could come to a peaceful compromise and coexist. This set an important precedent for how other contested regions of Syria could potentially be integrated.

But Turkey remains influential in these negotiations. As early as 2015, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said he will “never allow” a Kurdish statelet in Syria. After the fall of the Assad regime, he has continued to publicly state his opposition to  the continuation of Kurdish-led local governance or decentralization in Syria. Al-Sharaa’s desire to assert control over all Syrian territory appears to have aligned with Erdogan’s own opposition to Kurdish self-rule. Furthermore, Erdogan may believe that by dealing the SDF another blow, that he can extract greater concessions from the peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK is a US and EU designated terror organization. The SDF is dominated by the People’s Defense Units (YPG), which Turkey views as an offshoot of the PKK.

On January 16, al-Sharaa announced a presidential decree “affirming the rights of Syrian Kurds.” While this is an important step, it could also be easily revoked by another presidential decree. Meanwhile, al-Sharaa’s forces continued their offensive into Kurdish-held areas. On January 18, a four-day new cease-fire agreement was announced. It has since been extended by another 15 days. This new timeline is divorced from the new realities on the ground.

Rebuilding trust will be even harder than before, and will take time.

Proper vetting of the various armed factions will also take time. The Islamic State militant who killed three US troops in December was a member of the Syrian government’s security forces. Al-Sharaa should prioritize rooting out jihadists from within his own ranks, rather than attempting to seize more territory and subjugate minorities. 

Instead of pressuring the SDF to integrate on a rushed timeline that carries serious risks, President Trump should pressure al-Sharaa to remove sanctioned warlords from his army and guarantee equal citizenship rights for all Syrians. Al-Sharaa must accomplish this through a constitutional guarantee, not a presidential decree that could be easily revoked.

Amy Austin Holmes is a faculty member at the Bush School of Government and Public Service in Washington DC. Her work focuses on Washington’s global military posture, the NATO alliance, non-state actors, revolutions, military coups, and de-facto states. She is the author of three books, including most recently Statelet of Survivors: The Making of a Semi-Autonomous Region in Northeast Syria published by Oxford University Press. 

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At the same time, Trump’s current NSS is more explicit than its 2017 predecessor in delineating a hierarchy of regions and interests. Whereas earlier versions still treated the Middle East as a central theater of policy execution, the new strategy bluntly states that not all regions matter equally at all times—and that the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific should receive the lion’s share of strategic attention. The NSS also reinforces the notion that economic security, energy dominance, and revival of the defense industrial base are fundamental to national security, not peripheral to it. Although the NSS is a statutory planning document and therefore binding on departments for implementation, Trump’s foreign policy style has always been adaptive, personalized, and operationally flexible. Thus, the NSS should be treated as a reliable directional guide, one that shapes expectations, alliances, budgeting, and bureaucratic activity, while leaving room for Trump’s preference for personal diplomacy and transactional deal-making where needed.

It is in this context that the Middle East—and particularly the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—emerges not as a downgraded region, but as a strategically redefined one: less central to day-to-day US force planning, yet still pivotal to the administration’s concepts of burden-sharing, deterrence, and regional stabilization.

The Middle East: Enduring interest, but no longer central

Among the most striking elements of the new NSS is its recalibration of the Middle East’s place in US foreign policy. For decades, the region consumed disproportionate diplomatic attention, military deployments, and crisis-management resources because it supplied vital energy, served as a Cold War battleground, and generated conflicts with global spillover potential. Today, those foundations have weakened: the United States is a net energy exporter with greater resilience to supply shocks, and great-power competition now plays out far more in the Indo-Pacific and in technological and economic domains than through Middle Eastern proxy wars.

However, the fact that the Middle East no longer dominates US strategic planning does not imply disengagement or irrelevance. The NSS is careful to define the Middle East as a region of enduring interests that must not be relegated to instability or hostile domination. The United States retains core objectives: preventing any adversarial power from controlling Gulf hydrocarbons or the chokepoints through which they transit, ensuring freedom of navigation of waterways such as the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, countering terrorism and radical movements, supporting Israel’s security, and expanding the normalization dynamic of the Abraham Accords.

The regional focus is therefore shifting from militarized management toward political stabilization, strategic deterrence, investment collaborations, and cost-efficient conflict management. The NSS frames the Middle East increasingly as a zone of partnership, innovation, and capital exchange rather than as the site of long, resource-intensive wars. The NDS adds an important nuance: while confirming that the Middle East is no longer the central theater for US force planning, it explicitly commits to retaining the capability for “focused, decisive action” in the region, illustrated by operations such as Midnight Hammer against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and Rough Rider against the Houthis, while expecting regional actors to manage most of the security workload between such interventions.

Burden-shifting: The GCC as regional security providers

One of the clearest implications for GCC states is the NSS’s burden-shifting logic. Washington does not intend to underwrite regional security in the same way it once did. Instead, the White House expects capable regional actors, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and to a lesser extent Qatar, to assume leadership in securing maritime routes, deterring hostile adventurism, stabilizing proximate conflict zones, and countering terrorist networks. The United States will remain a strategic backstop, especially at the high end of military power, but the NSS encourages a division of labor where Washington leverages diplomatic influence, advanced deterrent capabilities, and intelligence, while expecting Gulf capitals to provide financial, logistical, and regional operational support. The NDS makes this division of labor more explicit by directing the Department of Defense to “empower regional allies and partners to take primary responsibility for deterring and defending against Iran and its proxies,” while the United States concentrates on high-end enablers, surge operations, and global priorities such as homeland defense and the Indo-Pacific.

This is not a sudden change, but rather a deeper institutionalization of trends that have been emerging for a decade. The GCC has long demonstrated an increased appetite for autonomous security roles, whether through counter-piracy patrols, Yemen interventions, Red Sea stabilization efforts, or investments in Central African and Horn of Africa equilibria. Trump’s NSS validates these ambitions and situates them within a US strategic architecture, rather than treating them as ad hoc regional experiments. For Gulf capitals, this recognition is beneficial: their regional activism is not only tolerated, it is encouraged as a core element of maintaining regional stability in lieu of direct US military domination.

From conflict theater to economic and technological platform

Another significant shift in the NSS narrative is the re-casting of the Middle East as an economic, technological, and financial platform, rather than a theater for perpetual conflict. The NSS recognizes that regional leaders have embraced diversification, industrial development, and sovereign wealth strategies that expand beyond hydrocarbons. It also emphasizes US opportunities in nuclear energy, artificial intelligence (AI), defense industrial cooperation, logistics networks, and supply chain localization. The Middle East is treated as an increasingly strategic geography for future economic corridors, especially those linking Africa, South Asia, and the Mediterranean.

This framing aligns neatly with GCC trajectories. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have long sought to position themselves as global logistics hubs, aviation nodes, sovereign wealth investors, and technology accelerators. With the NSS emphasizing US economic security, energy dominance, and domestic manufacturing revival, Gulf states can leverage bilateral partnerships to show how investment projects, whether in nuclear energy, AI, aerospace, or critical minerals, support American jobs, reindustrialization needs, and technological gains. If packaged correctly, a Gulf-US economic deal now has political value in Washington that goes far beyond foreign direct investment: it can be framed as contributing to domestic industrial revival and strategic supply chain safety. The NDS reinforces this economic-security linkage by treating arms sales and defense industrial cooperation with GCC states as part of a broader effort to “supercharge” the US defense industrial base, making Gulf procurement and potential co-production not only a regional stabilizer but also a mechanism for sustaining US military capacity.

From deterrence to decisive operations: The NSS–NDS approach to Iran

The NSS conveys a strong view that Iran’s disruptive influence has weakened due to Israeli military pressure and to targeted US actions designed to degrade Iran’s nuclear potential. However, the situation has shifted dramatically in recent weeks. Widespread protests across Iran, triggered by deep socioeconomic grievances and political repression, have created an atmosphere of internal volatility not fully captured in the NSS released in late 2025. The Trump administration has responded with forceful rhetoric, warning Tehran that further repression or attempted regional escalation could trigger additional US military strikes. These warnings, coupled with reports that Washington is actively considering another limited, targeted strike on Iranian military infrastructure, have generated both reassurance and unease in GCC capitals. Here, the NDS adds two revealing elements: first, it publicly frames Operation Midnight Hammer as having “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program and weakened the regime and its Axis of Resistance. Second, it explicitly states that Gulf partners and Israel are now expected to carry primary responsibility for containing Iran’s conventional and proxy capabilities, with the United States stepping in episodically when decisive force is required.

The ongoing instability in Iran introduces a new variable into the regional equation. While the NSS presents Iran as strategically weakened, current developments demonstrate that internal unrest can make the regime simultaneously vulnerable and unpredictable. The possibility of US kinetic action raises concerns about Iranian retaliation across the Gulf, whether through drones, cyberattacks, missile strikes, or activation of regional proxies. GCC leaders therefore view current tensions through a dual lens: understanding that US pressure aligns with long-standing Gulf concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, yet also wary of the escalation risks that accompany any US–Iran confrontation.

The NSS balances deterrence with an emphasis on pursuing peace deals and post-conflict stabilization, including in Gaza and Syria. Trump’s political style is highly confident about presidential diplomacy and conflict resolution, and the NSS treats mediation as a strategic tool to bring difficult bilateral environments into a more stable architecture. This dynamic underscores that while the NSS prioritizes stability and “realignment through peace,” the Trump administration remains fully prepared to use force when it believes core US and allied interests are threatened, a stance entirely consistent with the NSS’s emphasis on “peace through strength.”

Although this is broadly reassuring for the GCC, residual anxiety remains. If Washington chooses to secure regional stability through big-ticket diplomatic bargains, especially where Russia or Israel are involved, Gulf capitals will expect assurances that their security will not be traded for conflict de-escalation. However, many Gulf leaders now possess significant diplomatic capacity and mediation credibility of their own. The NSS creates an opening for GCC states to position themselves as mediators or stabilizers rather than as passive recipients of US decisions. The Gulf’s growing diplomatic centrality, from Gaza cease-fire talks to Sudan, Libya, or the Horn of Africa, fits well with an NSS that prefers localized responsibility and regional realignment rather than direct US intervention. Still, the current crisis underscores a critical reality: any US–Iran confrontation, even a limited one, will have immediate consequences for Gulf security, energy markets, and maritime stability, reinforcing the importance of GCC preparedness, joint air and missile defense integration, and sustained coordination with Washington as the situation continues to evolve. In this sense, the NDS largely confirms the NSS’s direction of travel but narrows the margin for ambiguity: it signals that future Iran-related crises will be handled through short, sharp US operations nested within a regional architecture in which the GCC and Israel shoulder greater routine responsibility.

Will GCC capitals be surprised or concerned?

Little in the NSS will shock senior decision-makers in the GCC. Most regional governments have already experienced Trump’s approach firsthand, benefitted from strong bilateral ties, and understand that Washington’s foreign policy has permanently moved away from nation-building, democracy promotion, and open-ended security commitments. The more consequential shift in recent weeks has been the intensification of US–Iran tensions, which has temporarily elevated the Gulf within Washington’s strategic focus despite the NSS’s assertion that the region is no longer central. GCC capitals now find themselves preparing for multiple scenarios, ranging from a calibrated US strike on Iran to potential Iranian retaliation, even as they recognize that none of this contradicts the NSS’s underlying logic of deterrence, burden-shifting, and threat-management rather than long-term occupation or nation-building.

Overall, the NSS is more likely to produce re-calibration than alarm. The strategy is consistent with Gulf countries’ expectations that they will be treated as indispensable pillars of regional stability and as partners in defense technology, energy investment, and maritime security. The NDS largely reinforces this assessment: it does not downgrade GCC importance, but instead clarifies the price of being central—greater spending, deeper integration with Israeli and US forces, and a willingness to absorb more day-to-day risk in managing Iran and regional crises.

How the NSS will guide GCC responses

The NSS will provide Gulf policymakers with an actionable framework for deepening relations with Washington. First, Gulf capitals can present themselves as regional security providers, offering maritime patrols, counter-terrorism support, Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab stabilization, and specialized capacity-building. Second, GCC countries can frame investment deals as US industrial wins, emphasizing how AI, aerospace, nuclear, and defense co-production create US jobs and secure American supply chains. Third, Gulf states can symbolically align with Washington on sovereignty narratives, emphasizing secure borders, state authority, and skepticism toward external ideological intervention, areas where their domestic priorities already converge.

Finally, GCC states will possibly manage their relationship with China more carefully, offering Washington assurances that high-sensitivity sectors will remain insulated from Chinese involvement while still leveraging Chinese trade and capital where appropriate. In doing so, Gulf leaders can demonstrate that multi-vectorism increases stability and economic growth without jeopardizing strategic trust.

A strategically manageable landscape

The Trump administration’s NSS is a sophisticated refinement of “America First.” It sets clear priorities, clarifies regional hierarchies, and emphasizes economic and technological competition as the foundation of power. For the GCC, the implications are significant, but manageable. Rather than being marginalized, Gulf partners are now expected to assume greater security responsibility, serve as stabilizers, and act as premium platforms for bilateral economic and technological exchange. The NSS ultimately positions GCC countries not as passive dependents of US security guarantees, but as mature strategic actors capable of shaping their region while deepening mutually beneficial ties to Washington.

Read together with the NDS, the picture becomes sharper: the GCC is central to a burden-sharing model in which the Middle East is no longer the main theater of US strategy, but remains a crucial test case for how America First can combine limited, decisive US force with empowered regional allies to deliver “peace through strength” without returning to the era of open-ended wars.

Kristian Alexander is a senior fellow and lead researcher at the Rabdan Security & Defense Institute (RSDI) in Abu Dhabi.

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Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam urged for the continuation of an international force in south Lebanon during a meeting last week in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron.

“We will always need an international presence in the south, and preferably a UN presence, given the impartiality and neutrality that only the UN can provide,” he told reporters a day after the meeting.

There is a general understanding that the international community cannot simply abandon south Lebanon once UNIFIL withdraws, especially given that the area remains highly volatile. Despite a November 2024 cease-fire, south Lebanon is subject to near-daily Israeli air strikes against alleged Hezbollah military infrastructure and militants. Nearly 65,000 Lebanese residents of the southern border district are unable to return to their homes in villages heavily damaged by the 2023-2024 war, and by a subsequent campaign of controlled demolitions by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The IDF has constructed five imposing Forward Operating Bases on hills in Lebanese territory and enforces a no-go buffer zone adjacent to the Blue Line, the UN’s term for Lebanon’s southern border.

Given this volatility, some European countries are mulling deploying a new military force to the South Litani Sector (SLS), the 1,057-square-kilometer area between the Blue Line and the Litani river that serves as UNIFIL’s Area of Operations (AO). No concrete proposals have yet emerged; it remains unclear whether the preference is to establish a formal European Union (EU) mission led out of Brussels, to mold an ad hoc coalition of willing countries that would operate under a bilateral agreement with the Lebanese government, or, indeed, to create some other formulation.

Either way, proponents of a new mission to south Lebanon should be modest in their expectations and goals. There is little point in replacing UNIFIL with another military mission that could face the same mandate constrictions and potential threats as experienced by UNIFIL over the past nineteen years since it expanded from two thousand armed observers to a force of more than ten thousand peacekeepers following the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. UNIFIL was seen to have fundamentally failed in its mission, resulting last August in the UN Security Council (UNSC) agreeing to terminate the force at the end of 2026. UNIFIL was unable to halt Israel’s daily aerial violations of Lebanese air space, nor block Hezbollah’s accelerated military expansion in the UNIFIL AO from around 2020, which included erecting observation posts along the Blue Line and even building several firing ranges. If UNIFIL, with its ten thousand troops drawn from more than forty countries, backed by the moral and political weight of the UNSC, ended up impotent before the competing actions, objectives, and interests of Hezbollah and Israel, what makes anyone think that a new European-dominated military force in the SLS would fare any better?

Furthermore, if a proposal emerges for a new EU-dominated military force to deploy into south Lebanon, Hezbollah would vehemently oppose it. Even if the Lebanese government chose to ignore Hezbollah’s objections and approve the mission, the soldiers comprising the new force would be deploying into a hostile and potentially dangerous environment. As UNIFIL knows all too well, Hezbollah controls the public space in the SLS, and it has the proven ability to escalate or de-escalate hostile sentiment toward the peacekeepers according to its will.

That is not to say that the international community should abandon any notion of a military mission to the SLS once UNIFIL departs and simply wash its hands of south Lebanon. There are a number of important stabilizing elements that should be implemented during, and after, UNIFIL’s withdrawal.

The first is the necessity of the international community maintaining an eye on south Lebanon to ensure that the two main players, Hezbollah and Israel, cannot act with unseen impunity. To this extent, it may not be necessary to raise a new military force for south Lebanon. When UNIFIL departs Lebanon in 2027, it will leave in place another, albeit much smaller, UN mission, the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO).

UNTSO Observer Group Lebanon (OGL) has been patrolling the Lebanon-Israel border for nearly eight decades to monitor compliance with the 1949 Armistice Agreement. OGL consists of fifty officers (captains and majors), operates from two patrol bases, and since 2006 has been embedded logistically inside UNIFIL. Perhaps a realistic and suitable solution to the post-UNIFIL vacuum would be to boost OGL’s numbers as required and slightly adjust the mandate to allow it to monitor the cease-fire arrangement and UNSC Resolution 1701 (which in part called for a weapons-free zone between the Litani and Lebanon’s southern border with Israel) as well as its original mission of observing the Armistice Demarcation Line (the original UN name given to the border).

As for any force protection concerns, its unarmed status and lack of any mandate enforcement capacity mean Hezbollah should not object to its expansion and continued presence. Furthermore, UNTSO-OGL has an institutional experience of operating alone in a worsening security environment. In the mid-1970s, before UNIFIL arrived in March 1978, the Palestine Liberation Organization was deeply entrenched in south Lebanon from where it launched attacks into Israel. The IDF erected a security fence along the border, maintained day-time observation positions just inside Lebanese territory, and regularly staged cross-border air strikes and commando raids, a situation not greatly removed from the one that exists today. Through all that, UNTSO-OGL diligently patrolled, observed, and reported.

A second critical element of stability is the continued maintenance of a tactical liaison channel between the Lebanese and Israelis. UNIFIL has long served as a vital intermediary between Lebanon and Israel, providing a trusted tactical-level channel for communication, de-escalation, and incident management along the Blue Line that has helped contain crises that might otherwise have spiraled into wider confrontation. Currently, there is a group composed of delegates from Lebanon, Israel, France, the United States, and UNIFIL, known as the “Mechanism,” which was formed after the November 2024 cease-fire agreement. The Mechanism has been criticized for focusing more on the process of disarming Hezbollah rather than ensuring both sides adhere to the cease-fire. Nevertheless, in November, Lebanon and Israel added civilian diplomats to the Mechanism, allowing for a potential expansion of discussions away from purely military matters directly related to the SLS. In the absence of such a third-party interlocutor, routine incidents, misunderstandings, or localized clashes would carry a far higher risk of rapid escalation, miscalculation, and unintended conflict between two adversaries with no direct diplomatic or military liaison mechanisms.

The third imperative for prolonged stability in the SLS is to ensure continued international support for the LAF. The LAF is seriously overstretched with a required deployment of up to ten thousand troops into south Lebanon, while simultaneously reinforcing its presence along the potentially volatile border with Syria as well as its daily internal security taskings. This is where foreign military support to Lebanon could be more usefully employed. Instead of dispatching a new military mission to south Lebanon to emulate UNIFIL’s vague mandate of supporting a weapons-free zone south of the Litani, a small LAF support mission could focus on enabling a sustained LAF presence in the SLS through logistics, training, intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance sharing, mobility support, and joint planning, areas where the LAF’s constraints are structural rather than political. This would shift the optics and substance of enforcement away from foreign troops and toward the Lebanese state with the LAF at the center of security provision. This new mission could operate in coordination with, and alongside, an expanded UNTSO-OGL, leaving monitoring tasks to the latter while the former concentrates on supporting the LAF.

Additionally, indirect support for the LAF could be achieved by bolstering the capabilities of the Internal Security Forces (ISF), Lebanon’s police force. For decades, the LAF has had to compensate for the ISF’s weaknesses by engaging in public order operations and pursuit of criminals which should be the remit of the ISF. ISF capacity building would in time allow the LAF to divert its scant resources to its core tasks of maintaining security and protecting the borders.

The imminent departure of UNIFIL, after nearly five decades of presence in south Lebanon, offers opportunities to redress the failings of the UN mission by adopting realistic and focused alternatives. Those alternatives could combine a monitoring and reporting capacity, a third-party tactical liaison channel to allow communication between Lebanon and Israel, and strengthening support to the LAF. A failure by the international community to deliver the requisite support risks overstretching the LAF to a breaking point, paving the way for a potential resurgence of Hezbollah in the SLS and further aggressive behavior from the IDF, which could lead to the resumption of a broader conflict.

Nicholas Blanford is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs, covering the politics and security affairs of Lebanon and Syria. He is an acknowledged expert on Lebanese Hezbollah. Blanford is a Beirut-based defense and security consultant.

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In April 2023, this civil war erupted amid escalating tensions between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, stemming from disagreements over the RSF’s integration into the national army. These disputes followed a period of SAF-RSF power-sharing in the wake of former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s ouster in 2019.

Thus far, the conflict has claimed perhaps more than 150,000 lives and displaced more than twelve million people, making it one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises.

With every diplomatic initiative over the past thirty-three months failing to halt the violence, US President Donald Trump’s administration has recently focused more on Sudan. This month, a US-Saudi cease-fire initiative has been under review by the Security and Defence Council, a body that includes members of the SAF. Whether this initiative can move forward and help reverse the country’s descent into catastrophe remains to be seen.

Nonetheless, the Trump administration’s efforts to play a productive role in winding down the conflict will depend, in no small part, on how Washington chooses to engage—and with whom.

Trump, MBS, and the personal diplomacy factor

The landmark visit by Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to the White House in November helped direct Trump’s attention toward Sudan, which he described as the “most violent place on Earth” and the “single biggest humanitarian crisis.” As Trump acknowledged during his meeting with MBS, Sudan was “not on my charts to be involved in that,” adding that he viewed the conflict as “just something that was crazy and out of control.”

That MBS played a decisive role in bringing Sudan onto Trump’s radar underscores the depth of the US president’s personal ties with key Gulf leaders. In contrast to previous US administrations that relied heavily on institutional channels such as the State Department for Middle East engagement, Trump has consistently favored leader-to-leader relationships as the foundation of his administration’s foreign policy decision-making.

Challenges before the Quad

Trump is determined to work with the so-called Quad—the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—to bring Sudan’s war to an end. However, this effort will face stiff resistance from both belligerents: the SAF, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (popularly known as Hemedti).

Each side remains unwilling to make painful compromises, instead pursuing maximalist objectives. Their intransigence will complicate efforts by Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy Massad Boulos to secure a cease-fire, deliver humanitarian assistance, and launch negotiations under the auspices of a civilian-led government in Khartoum. Within the Quad, however, each regional partner brings distinct priorities shaped by geography, security concerns, and geopolitical pressures.

Egypt has firmly backed the SAF, positioning itself as Burhan’s principal regional supporter while viewing the RSF as a destabilizing force and an immediate security threat. Cairo sees the SAF as possessing the legitimacy of a national institution and the capacity to restore stability. With a shared 793-mile border with Sudan and the arrival of at least 1.5 million Sudanese refugees since April 2023, Egypt has a strong interest in preventing further displacement. This imperative underscores Cairo’s desire to see the conflict end.

Earlier on in this conflict, Saudi Arabia took care to present itself as a relatively neutral mediator between the two sides, yet its posture tilted toward the SAF. Following Saudi Arabia’s reversal of Emirati gains in Yemen in late 2025 and early 2026, Riyadh has grown increasingly determined to leverage its enhanced regional credibility to counter Abu Dhabi’s influence in the Sudanese conflict through multiple channels.

Riyadh’s ambitious Vision 2030 agenda depends on stability along the Red Sea, where major investments, particularly in tourism, are underway. Prolonged fighting in Sudan, and the risk of its escalation into a broader regional crisis, therefore deeply concerns the Saudi leadership. In this context, Saudi officials view a state army such as the SAF as far preferable to a militia such as the RSF, which they regard as unpredictable, institutionally weak, and lacking legitimacy. Ultimately, Riyadh seeks a coherent authority in Sudan capable of effective governance and control over Red Sea ports, which is not a role that Saudi Arabia sees the RSF fulfilling.

The UAE has charted a markedly different course than Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Though Abu Dhabi officially denies it, United Nations experts, human rights organizations, and many media outlets have concluded that the UAE has been arming the RSF, bearing significant responsibility for Hemedti’s rise. However, Abu Dhabi sees the force as a vehicle for projecting Emirati influence in Sudan and, by extension, across parts of Africa. Dependent on external financing and logistics, the RSF has become deeply reliant on financial networks in the UAE, particularly in Dubai. This reliance has substantially expanded Abu Dhabi’s leverage in Sudan. It is notable how Ethiopia, which is under much Emirati influence, has aligned closely with Abu Dhabi in terms of backing the RSF.

Ideologically, the UAE casts Burhan and the SAF as Muslim Brotherhood-aligned, while perceiving the RSF as a dependable anti-Islamist force capable of shaping a post-conflict order consistent with Abu Dhabi’s campaign to marginalize Brotherhood-linked movements across the Arab world.

Emirati support for the RSF reflects a desire to safeguard Abu Dhabi’s interests and preserve the UAE’s autonomy of action in a volatile environment. This approach is occurring within a broader context of intensifying economic and political competition between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi across the Arab world and parts of Africa, amid heavy involvement by multiple regional and extra-regional actors.

Although Saudi Arabia followed the UAE in designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization back in 2014, Riyadh adopts a notably less rigid stance toward the Islamist movement than Abu Dhabi. Collaborating closely with Turkey and Qatar—both known for their Muslim Brotherhood–friendly foreign policies—on a host of regional issues, Saudi Arabia increasingly prioritizes regional stability and the prevention of state collapse in countries such as Sudan and Syria.

In practice, the Quad’s internal contradictions risk undermining its diplomatic effectiveness, while Washington’s engagement risks being somewhat empty and reactive unless the Trump administration develops a comprehensive strategy that applies sustained pressure on both Sudanese and external actors. Yet, given Trump’s close ties to Abu Dhabi’s leadership, there is reason to doubt whether the White House would press the UAE to curtail its support for the RSF. Despite such challenges, there are good reasons to believe that Trump will see it in Washington’s interests to become more involved in Sudan’s civil war, which brings us to Iran.

The Iranian factor in Sudan’s civil war

While Arab states dominate coverage of regional involvement in Sudan, Iran has also intervened in the civil war. Tehran has supplied the SAF with military support, chiefly Mohajer-6 drones, since late 2023. After the setbacks suffered by the “Axis of Resistance” in 2024, Iran’s foreign policy has increasingly focused on exerting influence near two strategic global chokepoints: the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab. Its leverage over the latter is reinforced by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, now the strongest faction in the Iran-led axis. Sudan, for its part, offers Tehran an opportunity to expand influence along the Red Sea through state-level engagement, rather than warfare via surrogates.

With Burhan dependent on external backing, the Sudanese civil war has given Iran a chance to reclaim influence in Khartoum. Iran lost that foothold in the 2010s when Saudi Arabia and the UAE drew Omar al-Bashir’s regime away from Tehran, culminating in Khartoum joining Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in severing diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic in early 2016.

In this context, the Trump administration is likely concerned that a prolonged conflict in Sudan could advance Iranian interests and undermine the White House’s “maximum pressure 2.0” campaign. Alongside Israel, the Trump team seeks to prevent Sudan from reverting to its former role as an Iran-friendly state along the Red Sea, at the strategic crossroads of the Arab and African worlds.

Navigating Sudan’s geopolitical crossroads

In sum, Sudan’s civil war illustrates how local conflict can become a crucible for regional rivalries. The Trump administration’s new focus on Sudan, spurred by MBS’s November visit to Washington, may place the United States at the center of a complex interplay among competing Arab ambitions, Iranian strategic calculations, and the entrenched divisions between Sudanese actors.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia favor the SAF as the guarantor of stability and state legitimacy, while the UAE’s support for the RSF reflects a broader strategy of influence projection and counterweighting Riyadh. Iran’s involvement further complicates the calculus, presenting both a challenge to the US-Israeli alliance’s desire to counter Iran’s influence near the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab, and an opportunity for Tehran to regain lost ground in Khartoum.

Actors within Sudan’s rich, complicated, and layered civil society—from established organizations to grassroots resistance committees—have been delivering humanitarian aid, organizing communities, and articulating credible visions for a democratic transition. No sustainable peace process can succeed without the inclusion of these civil society groups, which retain local legitimacy and organizing capacity. As the White House seeks to restore peace, the Trump administration cannot afford to sideline these actors again, because ignoring Sudanese civil society would mean repeating strategies that have already proven ineffective and unstable.

Additionally, there is the African Union (AU), which has sought to serve as the central diplomatic convener on Sudan, advancing a roadmap focused on a cease-fire, civilian protection, humanitarian access, and a Sudanese-led political transition. Through the Peace and Security Council, coordination with the United Nations and regional bodies, and public condemnation of atrocities such as those in el-Fasher, the AU has worked to align international efforts around an African-led approach, even as its limited enforcement capacity has constrained outcomes. Nonetheless, the AU remains the only actor with continent-wide legitimacy, sustained engagement with Sudanese stakeholders, and an existing framework for coordination.

For US policymakers, the path forward demands more than reactive diplomacy. Sustained pressure on Sudanese factions and regional patrons, careful balancing of rival interests, and an emphasis on humanitarian relief and durable governance are all necessary. Ultimately, the outcome in Sudan will not only determine the future of its people, but also serve as a test of how effectively external powers can navigate the overlapping ambitions, alliances, and rivalries that define Sudan’s position in a complicated geopolitical order.

Giorgio Cafiero is the chief executive officer of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy. He is also an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University.

The post Amid Arab competition, the war in Sudan requires a US balancing act appeared first on Atlantic Council.

An unusual stop in Jordan

Of the three countries on Wang’s itinerary, Jordan stands out as unusual. Chinese leaders frequently engage with countries in the Gulf, but Jordan isn’t a typical destination for Beijing’s officials. While in Amman, he met with King Abdullah II, Crown Prince Hussein, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

At the bilateral level, the message was that China wants to enhance the strategic partnership signed during the king’s 2015 visit to Beijing. This elevated partnership would focus on increased economic and investment cooperation and deeper political trust. As Wang conveyed to Safadi, “China will remain Jordan’s most reliable strategic partner in its development and revitalization process.”

This is an odd description of the China-Jordan relationship, which is not especially strategic. There has been little in the way of political or security cooperation between the two; Jordan is deeply tethered to the United States, limiting opportunities for China to make serious inroads. The economic side of the relationship has also been modest. Data from the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker shows relatively insignificant engagement, with $1.96 billion in investments over the past twenty years and $5.54 billion in construction contracts for Chinese companies in Jordan since 2005. Trade has also been muted. Data from 2023 shows China exported $5.44 billion to Jordan, while Jordan exported $986 million to China.

Given the limited political and economic relations at the bilateral level, the likely reason for the Amman stop in Wang’s Middle East trip was to discuss diplomatic efforts on the Palestine issue. Beijing has been making efforts to be a more significant actor on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and with no influence with the Israelis, working with the Palestinians is China’s only access point. In July 2024, Beijing hosted a delegation of fourteen Palestinian political groups, releasing the Beijing Declaration in which these factions pledged to end their divisions and form an interim national unity government. Since then, Chinese diplomacy has been active but not particularly effective, although to their credit, they continue to advocate for Palestine, regularly voicing support in the United Nations and offering Beijing as a potential mediator.

In Wang’s talks with the king and crown prince, the focus was on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, “the need for cooperation between China and the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization,” the cease-fire in Gaza, and the urgency of stopping attacks on West Bank Palestinians. 

The week before Wang’s trip, the third round of China-Saudi-Iran trilateral talks were held in Tehran, and discussions significantly focused on regional security issues—including on Israel-Palestine. Clearly, Chinese diplomats are working to enhance their profile on the issue. 

With the China-Arab States Summit scheduled for June 2026, regional analysts should expect more coordination between China and the Arab League on Palestine. And Wang’s visit to Jordan might indicate King Abdullah’s presence at the summit. If so, it would be his first trip to China since 2015, when the strategic partnership was announced.

Engagements with the Gulf

The Saudi visit was not at all surprising given the depth of relations between Beijing and Riyadh. Chinese capital has been flowing into the kingdom at a higher rate in recent years, with Saudi media noting a 29 percent gain in the stock of Chinese investment in Saudi Arabia from 2023 to 2024. Trade continues to surge, with China ranking as Saudi Arabia’s top trade partner. 

During the visit, Wang met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan. The foreign ministers jointly held the fifth High-Level Joint Committee (HLJC) meeting, a mechanism developed after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2016 state visit, which resulted in the China-Saudi comprehensive strategic partnership agreement. Since then, the HLJC has been used to chart the course for bilateral cooperation, with regular senior meetings that coordinate trade, investment, contracting, and diplomatic efforts.

Wang emphasized the increasing depth of the partnership while meeting with the Saudi crown prince, telling him that “China is ready to be the most trustworthy and reliable partner in Saudi Arabia’s national revitalization process.”

Contrasting the United States on trade

That Wang focused on trustworthiness and reliability in both Amman and Riyadh was clearly carefully chosen messaging. In his meeting with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Secretary-General Jasem al-Budaiwi, Wang tried to position China’s reliability as a reason to jump back into talks for the long-negotiated China-GCC free trade agreement. Wang noted that “the talks have lasted for more than twenty years, and conditions for all aspects are basically mature, it is time to make a final decision.” Claiming that free trade is “under attack,” he described a China-GCC free trade agreement (FTA) as “a strong signal to the world about defending multilateralism.” All of this served as a not-particularly-subtle means of comparing China as a defender of trade in the face of US tariffs. 

The FTA was also a focus in Wang’s talks with UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed. Wang expressed hope that the UAE could play a role in moving the FTA towards a conclusion, while his counterpart responded that he’s willing to play a positive role in the matter.

Despite Wang’s positioning of Beijing as a reliable trade partner, the China-GCC FTA talks have been stalled for nearly a decade. During Xi’s 2016 visit to Riyadh, he said he wanted a deal done within a year. Four rounds of talks that year didn’t get the FTA finished, and the GCC rupture from 2017 to 2021 put negotiations on hiatus. Since then, every meeting between senior Chinese and Gulf officials has included Chinese statements about the need to conclude the agreement as soon as possible. 

It’s worth pointing out that since 2023, the GCC initiated six anti-dumping investigations against China, while Saudi Arabia has launched four of its own and Oman recently launched one as well, citing the need to “safeguard the local market from price distortions caused by imported products sold at unfair prices that do not reflect actual production costs.” UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Thani al-Zayoudi said at the World Economic Forum in October that “we are seeing huge dumping coming from China to our local markets,” and “we must make sure we are protecting our industries.” 

As Gulf countries look to develop local manufacturing, free trade with China isn’t an easy sell. Yes, China is a global trading superpower, but it is very much a one-sided trader, pursuing a mercantilist growth model that floods other countries’ markets while decreasing its own imports. Unfettered Chinese imports look more like a threat than an opportunity for Gulf countries at this stage in their development.

In any case, Wang’s visit did highlight the many areas of cooperation between China, the Saudis, and Emiratis. Talks included cooperation on oil and natural gas, renewable energy, technology, research and science, education, tourism, and security. China may not have reached the status of most reliable and trustworthy, but it is clearly signaling its ambition to be a more serious partner. 

Jonathan Fulton is a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He also serves as an associate professor of political science at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. 

The post Wang Yi’s MENA tour was long on messaging, short on outcomes appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Shortly thereafter, Saudi Arabia’s minister of finance approved the kingdom’s 2026 borrowing plan, projecting total financing needs of $57.9 billion. The proceeds are intended to fund a projected fiscal deficit of $44 billion, equivalent to 3.3 percent of Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product (GDP).

This financing was highly successful, but as detailed in this report, the markets do not price Saudi Arabia as AA credit. In fact, Saudi Arabia trades at a discount to single A-rated sovereign debt, suggesting that the kingdom has work to do to build confidence in the country’s ambitious economic transformation plans, while showing the marketplace that this nation has the ability to generate accretive value generating returns.

Notably, while the Saudi Ministry of Finance constructed the 2026 budget on assumptions of slowing aggregate global demand for crude oil, the revenue outlook embedded in the projections implies a more constructive view on oil prices. As detailed in the table below, oil revenue, captured within “Other Revenue,” is budgeted at 64 percent of total revenue in 2026, unchanged from 2025. This suggests that hydrocarbons remain the dominant fiscal pillar, even as diversification accelerates. 

By contrast, Goldman Sachs, in a December 2025 report titled “Saudi Arabia: FY2026 Budget Targets Significant Consolidation,” takes a more skeptical view of the kingdom’s fiscal outlook, driven largely by oil revenue assumptions. Goldman estimates a budget deficit of 6 percent of GDP, compared with the government’s projection of 3.3 percent, implying that Saudi Arabia may ultimately need to borrow additional capital to finance its growth ambitions.

Saudi Arabia’s widening fiscal deficit, alongside a growing current account deficit, reflects an economy firmly in investment-led growth mode. This is simply a function of a government that is spending more on expenditures than revenues, the definition of an expansionary fiscal policy. In addition, a widening current account deficit is by definition an economy investing more than it has in savings. Taken together, this showcases the government’s commitment to funding growth. Sustaining this trajectory will require continued access to both domestic and external financing markets. During the first week of January, the kingdom demonstrated precisely that access by issuing $11.5 billion of senior unsecured bonds, drawing reported demand in excess of $20 billion from global fixed-income investors, particularly for longer-duration tranches.

The transaction underscored Saudi Arabia’s strong market standing, supported by moderate debt levels, manageable debt-service ratios, and substantial foreign reserve buffers. In addition, Saudi Aramco’s partial public listing has created an additional channel through which the state can access and monetize future oil cash flows, enhancing fiscal flexibility alongside sovereign borrowing. Assuming borrowing remains aligned with economic growth and fiscal discipline, access to capital markets should remain durable.

The diversification of the Saudi economy over the past decade has been significant. Non-oil GDP has risen from approximately 56 percent of total GDP in 2016 to roughly 65 percent in 2026, according to data compiled by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics and International Monetary Fund estimates. Nonetheless, oil revenues remain the primary fiscal driver, and any assessment of Saudi Arabia’s budget outlook is incomplete without considering global energy market dynamics.

In its Global Energy Perspective 2025, McKinsey & Company notes that while fossil fuels are likely to retain a meaningful share of the global energy mix beyond 2050, demand is expected to plateau between 2030 and 2035.

Neal Shear, founder of Morgan Stanley’s commodities platform and former global head of sales and trading, observes that “it is hard to accurately predict peak global demand for energy.”

“However, it is much easier to come to a consensus that the secular trend line for fossil fuel demand is downward over the next decade,” he told me.

Shear further argues that today’s crude oil market is increasingly demand-driven rather than supply-driven, rendering global supply dynamics closer to a zero-sum game. Incremental barrels from countries such as Venezuela may displace production elsewhere, rather than expand overall consumption. Over time, absent commensurate supply discipline, a downward-shifting demand curve implies secular downward pressure on prices.

The year 2026 marks the tenth anniversary of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia’s ambitious economic transformation strategy. The program’s core objective of diversification away from hydrocarbons into sectors such as petrochemicals, tourism and hospitality, mining, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, construction, and finance has materially reshaped the kingdom’s economic landscape over the last decade.

Looking ahead, policymakers could further strengthen market confidence in two key areas. First, financial markets and more broadly investors would welcome greater fiscal transparency, particularly a clearer breakdown of oil-related revenue assumptions and the treatment of Saudi Aramco dividends within the budget framework. As it stands, the Saudi budget does not delineate this dividend in full, so it is not readily transparent to investors how much of the budget is being driven by oil revenues. Second, as investment scales, there should be a stronger emphasis on capital efficiency and risk-adjusted returns. Transparency around outcomes, including those that underperform, would likely enhance, rather than diminish, investor confidence.

The chart below shows that Saudi sovereign bonds trade at wider spreads than those of AA-rated peers, consistent with the kingdom’s split credit ratings. More notable, however, is that spreads also exceed those of single-A sovereign benchmarks, suggesting that markets continue to apply a degree of caution beyond what headline ratings alone would imply. Part of this reflects technical factors, including index inclusion, but it also points to a broader question of confidence as Saudi Arabia advances its Vision 2030 agenda. As the scale of public investment rises, sustained fiscal transparency, clearer articulation of oil-revenue assumptions, and demonstrable capital efficiency will be critical in translating economic transformation into tighter sovereign risk premiums.

Source: Vaneck, JPM Indices (Saudi Arabia Sovereign Spread JPGCSASS Index, EMBIGD A Spread JPSSGDCA Index, EMBIGD AA Spread JPSSGDAA Index)

Markets do not demand perfection; they value clarity, discipline, and resilience. Saudi Arabia’s long-term strategy is coherent, ambitious, and increasingly credible. If executed with continued transparency and fiscal prudence, it has the potential not only to transform the kingdom but to reshape the broader region. The US debt capital markets, for now, appear to agree.

Khalid Azim is the director of the MENA Futures Lab at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

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Somaliland’s leaders hailed Israel’s decision as “historic,” celebrating it as long-awaited validation of de facto statehood, with the Israeli flag projected in Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa. The decision builds on Somaliland’s record of relative stability and functioning democratic institutions, factors that have long differentiated it within a volatile region. However, beyond its symbolism, the significance of recognition will be shaped by its implementation. How Israel translates this decision into security, economic, and diplomatic engagement, while managing regional sensitivities and coordinating with key partners, particularly the United States and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will determine whether recognition evolves into a durable framework for regional cooperation.

Recognition and its limits

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland reshapes the scope of bilateral engagement but does not eliminate the diplomatic and political constraints tied to Somaliland’s contested status. In practical terms, recognition elevates Israel–Somaliland relations from informal coordination to institutionalized state-to-state ties, enabling formal bilateral channels for security dialogue, economic cooperation, and diplomatic presence. The Israeli statement has already signaled an intention to expand cooperation in areas such as agriculture, health, technology, and economic development with Somaliland.

The security implications are most pronounced in the Red Sea context. Israeli officials have confirmed that the recognition is linked to countering Iran and its regional proxies, particularly the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Somaliland’s leadership has, according to regional reporting, been open to hosting an Israeli security presence in exchange for recognition. Formal ties now allow for open discussions on intelligence sharing, port security, and, over time, potential logistical or monitoring arrangements aimed at Red Sea threats.

Economically, recognition reduces political risk for investment and long-term cooperation. Israeli engagement in sectors such as water management, agriculture, health technology, and logistics now rests on a formal diplomatic foundation, creating pathways for trade relations and tangible economic outcomes.

At the same time, recognition does not resolve Somaliland’s contested international status. The Somali Federal Government considers Somaliland part of its territory and opposes any foreign engagement implying recognition. Israel remains the sole United Nations member to have taken this step. The United States, European Union, African Union (AU) members, and even Somaliland’s closest regional partner, the United Arab Emirates, have thus far refrained from recognition. The AU has rejected Israel’s move, reaffirming its commitment to Somalia’s territorial integrity and limiting Somaliland’s access to international institutions in the near term.

Nor does recognition eliminate regional resistance. Somalia’s federal government and several regional actors view Israel’s move as divisive rather than a stabilizing development. In a joint statement, Somalia, Egypt, Turkey, and Djibouti condemned Israel’s decision and reaffirmed their support for Somalia’s territorial integrity. The recognition raises concerns about regional fragmentation and risks inflaming nationalist sentiment in Somalia, while straining Israel’s relations in Africa.

Taken together, recognition expands what can be done while narrowing the margin for error. It enables cooperation but also raises expectations and diplomatic costs that must now be actively managed.

Why this decision came now

Israel’s unprecedented recognition of Somaliland reflects a convergence of strategic and political calculations. Domestically, Netanyahu is under intense pressure from the “Qatargate” scandal: allegations that his top aides accepted Qatari funds to influence policy. With Netanyahu facing calls to resign and looking ahead to a 2026 election year, the move offers an opportunity to shift the narrative with a diplomatic win. Netanyahu explicitly framed the decision “in the spirit of the Abraham Accords,” aligning it with US President Donald Trump’s revived normalization framework. This alignment allows Netanyahu to tout a foreign-policy success at a time when both Saudi Arabia and Indonesia appear reluctant to normalize relations with Israel in the near term, largely due to sustained political sensitivities around the war in Gaza.

Security dynamics further help explain the timing. As Israel emerges from a multifront war in which it has significantly degraded Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iranian assets in Syria, one front remains unresolved: the Houthis in Yemen. Despite extensive US and Israeli military action, including more than 1,100 US strikes and repeated Israeli operations, the Iranian-backed group continues to strike Israel and disrupt international shipping in the Red Sea, exposing enduring intelligence and operational constraints for both Washington and Jerusalem.

In this context, Somaliland’s geography takes on heightened relevance. Located across from Yemen near the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint, Somaliland offers a stable platform for intelligence cooperation, maritime monitoring, and contingency planning against a shared Houthi threat that neither Israel nor the United States has been able to decisively neutralize. The recognition, therefore, is not merely diplomatic; it reflects a recalibration toward long-term Israeli positioning in a theater where the conflict is not over.

Washington’s calculus

Trump responded to Israel’s recognition by making clear that Washington is not prepared to follow Jerusalem’s lead, reiterating that the matter remains under review. This caution comes despite growing bipartisan pressure in Congress toward recognition. In August, Republican Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) publicly urged the administration to consider recognition, framing Somaliland as a reliable security partner and a strategically aligned actor in the region. At the time, Trump acknowledged that the administration was “looking into” the question of recognition, signaling openness without committing to a policy shift.

The hesitation reflects competing strategic calculations. On one hand, US defense planners have long recognized Somaliland’s value. Senior US Africa Command officials have recently visited Hargeisa, and Somaliland has reportedly offered military basing that could enhance US capabilities to counter Houthi maritime disruption and limit Chinese influence along the Horn of Africa. On the other hand, formal recognition carries diplomatic costs. A unilateral shift risks undermining US relations and counterterrorism coordination with Somalia’s federal government while also straining ties with regional partners.

Therefore, Washington will continue to face pressure from Mogadishu and the AU to preserve the status quo. Still, the strategic consequences of Israel’s move, combined with US interests in the region, make eventual US recognition increasingly plausible.

Abu Dhabi’s balancing act

The UAE takes a more nuanced position. Abu Dhabi has been Somaliland’s most significant partner for nearly a decade, investing heavily through DP World’s development of Berbera port and maintaining a diplomatic liaison office in Hargeisa. These ties reflect a strategic interest that predates Israel’s recognition and position the UAE as a central economic and security actor in Somaliland.

Notably, while the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) issued a collective statement condemning Israel’s recognition, the UAE has not issued a standalone national condemnation. This distinction matters. Abu Dhabi’s posture signals its careful balancing of Somaliland engagement against broader Gulf dynamics, particularly Saudi Arabia’s firm response. Riyadh’s stance, aligned with Somalia and reinforced through the GCC and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, constrains the UAE’s room for maneuver, even as intra-Gulf competition in the Horn of Africa continues to shape Emirati strategy.

In practice, the UAE is unlikely to scale back its presence in Somaliland. Instead, Abu Dhabi is expected to deepen engagement quietly, continuing port and infrastructure projects while avoiding a high-profile diplomatic break. Formal recognition remains possible over time, but would likely be pursued in coordination with Washington and in consultation with the AU.

Turning recognition into strategy

With Israel and Somaliland now formal partners, the priority should be to consolidate this diplomatic opening without inflaming regional tensions. What follows should be guided by coordination, restraint, and sequencing, particularly with the United States.

For Israel, close coordination with Washington is essential. Acting in parallel with the United States, rather than ahead of it, will reduce friction with regional partners and avoid working at cross purposes. At the same time, Israel should quietly engage key Arab and African partners, including the UAE, Ethiopia, and Kenya, to explain its move, encourage pragmatic cooperation, and mitigate long-term fallout.

Israel should prioritize a phased rollout of cooperation with Somaliland. Rushing into highly visible steps, such as military facilities or overt security deployments, risks provoking backlash from Somalia and its allies. In the near term, Israel would be better served by avoiding provocations and emphasizing civilian and developmental cooperation, signaling good faith and framing recognition as stabilizing rather than militarizing. Security cooperation, while clearly part of Israel’s calculus, should initially remain low-profile, focused on intelligence-sharing and counterterrorism rather than overt operations.

Finally, Israel should embed its engagement with Somaliland within a multilateral framework. Coordinating security and economic initiatives with the United States and the UAE, leveraging the UAE’s established military and logistical presence in Somaliland and existing US Africa Command infrastructure, would anchor cooperation within broader regional architectures, enhancing legitimacy and durability.

The United States, even if not prepared to recognize Somaliland at this stage, remains central to shaping outcomes through its regional security presence and diplomatic influence on both African and Arab actors. The Trump administration has stated that the issue remains under review; this window should be used to conduct a structured interagency assessment of US policy toward Somaliland and its implications for Red Sea security, counterterrorism, and regional diplomacy.

Short of recognition, Washington can deepen engagement incrementally. Options include upgrading its diplomatic presence in Hargeisa to a liaison office, expanding security cooperation and training, and increasing investment; steps that advance US interests while preserving strategic flexibility.

At the same time, Washington should leverage its influence with Mogadishu to discourage escalation with Somaliland. A US-facilitated confidence-building process, building on this administration’s successful mediation track record, could help preserve space for dialogue.

Ultimately, Israel’s unprecedented recognition of Somaliland reflects confidence in a stable partner and a belief that engagement can strengthen security in the Red Sea. If implemented in alignment with Washington, this move has the potential to reshape regional dynamics beyond the Horn of Africa.

Amit Yarom is a graduate student at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He is a foreign policy researcher, specializing in the Arabian Gulf.

The post After Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, what comes next? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

As of January 13, the Human Rights News Agency, a US-based human rights group, estimated that the death toll has climbed above two thousand since the start of the protests on December 28 last year. This is while the Iranian government, as it has done previously, enacted a complete internet blackout, where the entire nation continues to remain under the world’s largest digital prison.

“I saw snipers in our neighborhood—in all these years I’ve never seen such scenes,” said Sahar, a doctoral student in the Saadat Abad neighborhood in Tehran, in a brief phone conversation via Starlink satellite connection.

Her voice was more distraught than in our previous conversations earlier in the week. She also explained how, since Saturday, fewer people have been going on the streets. “At first, there were families, old, young, but now everyone’s terrified, given the bloodbath.”

So far, Tehran’s crackdown on the demonstrations appears to have turned into a bloodbath, in which the only victims appear to be ordinary Iranian people—those who for long have been paying the price of the brutality of the Islamic regime, topped with the global isolation resulting from decades of sanctions and pressure imposed by the United States and its allies.

Against this backdrop, US President Donald Trump may have a real opportunity to be an effective dealmaker with Iran. However, if he is serious about a durable, win-win outcome for both the United States and Iranians, there is only one asset worth betting on: the Iranian people.

Today, Iranian society is more unified against the Islamic Republic than at any point since 1979. Nearly three weeks into the latest nationwide protests, this time ignited not by a single spark but by the country’s wider economic freefall, Iranians have taken to the streets in extraordinary numbers.

Speaking shortly before the regime’s blackout began, Sepideh, an Iranian journalist who has been arrested multiple times and isn’t using her last name for security concerns, explained how she believes Iran is at one of the “most dangerous junctures” in its modern history.

“There is zero possibility of reform within this regime,” she told me. “But history also shows that the [United States], the UK, and Israel don’t prioritize the Iranian people either—only their own interests. This is what makes me afraid of what’s coming.”

Asked about Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last monarch, she says with a deep sigh that “he has some supporters because there is no strong domestic opposition, as those voices have been crushed domestically over the years. But I struggle to believe in someone backed by foreign powers, tied to monarchy, and unable to form a coalition.”

Some others express a more fatalistic openness, including Sahar, who—prior to the internet blackout—told me how many Iranians “believe anything after this regime will be better. We want a complete separation of religion and state. This deck of cards needs to be reshuffled.”

These voices capture the nuances within the Iranian society today—united in its rejection of the Islamic Republic, deeply wary of foreign agendas, and desperate to reclaim agency over their own future.

For the United States, meaningful support for the Iranian people requires resisting the impulse to frame their uprising through the language of takeover or intervention, and instead prioritizing concrete protections for civilians in light of the brutal repression inside Iran. This means keeping Iran connected to the world, shielding protesters and journalists from digital isolation, and ensuring that accountability efforts target perpetrators of violence rather than a population already trapped between domestic repression and coercion from abroad.

Furthermore, it means treating internet access as humanitarian aid—funding circumvention support, satellite connectivity where feasible, and protection for independent journalists. This can help to ensure that the regime cannot repeatedly convert blackouts into a weapon of mass impunity.

An open, empowered Iranian civil society would not be a liability to US interests; it would be one of Washington’s greatest assets.

If the goal is to empower Iranians rather than freeze them into permanent victimhood, economic engagement must run alongside pressure on the state. This does not mean enriching the regime or reopening a flood-gate of funds to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-backed entities. Rather, it means expanding lawful, carefully assessed, people-to-people commerce that bypasses state hijacking and manipulation.

This includes enabling small and medium-sized Iranian businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs to access global markets; lifting travel bans for Iranian students, artists, medics, scientists and civil society members while banning entry to government-affiliated individuals; widening licenses that allow US and European firms to provide cloud services, payment rails, logistics support, and professional tools directly to Iranian users; and supporting diaspora-led investment vehicles that fund Iranian startups, cooperatives, and cultural industries without routing capital through regime-controlled entities. Such engagement gives Iranians income, skills, and stake—converting isolation into leverage and dignity rather than dependency.

Despite decades of sanctions, Iran has cultivated one of the most educated populations in the region and a resilient tech ecosystem that mirrors Silicon Valley’s platforms under far harsher conditions. Iranian youth have built local equivalents of Amazon, Uber, YouTube, and DoorDash with little capital and almost no global access. With the right engagement, Iran could generate trillions in long-term value—benefiting not only Iranians but also US businesses and consumers. A reintegrated Iran, charged by its people, would open a new frontier in trade, education, technology, and culture.

Meanwhile, none of this negates Iran’s military capacity. After more than four decades of isolation, Iran recently went head-to-head with the world’s most powerful militaries. Even Israeli defense analysts were surprised by some of its capabilities—proof that such sophistication does not emerge from a broken society. Beneath the Islamic regime’s aggression lies decades of scientific and technological investment made by the Iranian people themselves, who—if empowered and allowed self-determination—could become Washington’s strongest allies in the region.

Trump’s rhetoric amplifies the contradictions Iranians already live with. His warnings to Tehran and expressions of solidarity have landed with equal parts validation and fear. For some protesters, his words signal that their struggle is finally seen as entwined with an uncertainty of what’s to come. For others, Washington’s bombast risks giving the regime a pretext to paint the Iranian people’s unified dissent as foreign-engineered. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s accusations that protesters act “to please Trump” reveal just how threatening even rhetorical pressure can be to a regime terrified of losing control—one that’s now at its weakest point than ever before.

Iranians understand the stakes. They have watched Russia and China extract economic leverage from their isolation, and they fear becoming yet another bargaining chip. As Behzad, an Iranian journalist who is going by his first name for security purposes, told me, “everyone wants a piece of Iran. Sometimes I wish we lived in a poorer, smaller country; so at least we could live freely—far from domestic corruption and foreign interference.”

Still, across class, gender, and belief, Iranians remain united in one demand: the dismantling of the current regime. They do not ask the United States for bombs or saviors. They ask for surgical, effective, and thought-through support that enables them to reclaim their own agency in the absence of the current regime.

If Trump is serious about peace, stability, and a lasting legacy, the path forward does not run through air strikes or transactional deals with a failing theocracy. It runs through the Iranian people who, if given the chance, could build one of the world’s most dynamic democracies and one of Washington’s most valuable partners.

Tara Kangarlou is an award-winning global affairs journalist, author, and humanitarian who has worked with news outlets such as NBC, CNN, CNN International, and Al Jazeera America. She is also the author of the bestselling book The Heartbeat of Iran, the founder of nonprofit Art of Hope, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, teaching on humanized storytelling and journalism.

The post Voices from Iran: As rejection of government reaches all-time high, Iranians also wary of foreign intervention appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The outbreak of violence killed more than twenty people, according to media reports, and displaced thousands of Aleppo residents.

It’s the latest iteration of conflict in a consequential and difficult year for Syria, as the country seeks to build stability after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and over a decade of brutal and factionalized civil conflict.

Our experts unpack why violence erupted, what it means for Kurdish and wider minority safety and integration under the new Syrian government, and how Washington is engaging.

1. What is the political and military background of this conflict?

On April 1, Damascus and the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG)-dominated SDF agreed on a localized integration arrangement covering the two SDF-held neighborhoods of Aleppo city. Despite the initial atmosphere of goodwill, SDF-affiliated Asayish forces that remained in these neighborhoods obstructed the implementation phase and refused to subordinate themselves to Aleppo’s Internal Security Forces, as stipulated in the agreement. 

On multiple occasions, Asayish units attacked civilians and civilian infrastructure, triggering violent clashes. Throughout this period, Damascus repeatedly agreed to cease-fires in an effort to preserve negotiations over the broader March 10 integration agreement with the SDF. However, after the deadline of the integration deal expired, final US-mediated talks in Damascus failed, and Asayish forces again targeted civilian infrastructure, and the Syrian army opted to launch a limited military operation.

—Ömer Özkizilcik is a nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs.

For the last fourteen years, the Kurds enjoyed de facto autonomy, and they currently control a large chunk of eastern and northeastern Syria. An agreement inked in March last year, which the Kurds reluctantly agreed to under immense external pressure, was meant to see the SDF and the Kurdish civilian institutions integrated into the Syrian state. It has effectively gone nowhere, with both sides blaming each other.  

The fighting in Aleppo broke out just days after negotiations stalled again and came to an end after external forces, notably the United States, intervened, preventing a potentially greater bloodbath. Turkey stated it would take action—if needed—on behalf of the Syrian government, and Israel threw its weight in behind the Kurds.

—Arwa Damon is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and president and founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance (INARA).

2. What does the withdrawal of SDF-affiliated units mean for stability in Aleppo?

The withdrawal does bring with it a sigh of relief for the residents of Aleppo. But taking stock of the destruction, for those who lost loved ones, it’s hardly a win. The days-long fighting further ripped open one of the many fissures that the Syrian government says it has been trying to repair as it attempts to consolidate power under Damascus. The Kurdish population—who largely remain wary of President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government—might just prove to be the toughest to win over.  

While an even worse scenario has been avoided for the time being, if anything, the fighting is evidence of how much more work lies ahead for Syria and how its path to “stability” will not necessarily be free of suffering.

—Arwa Damon

3. What does the dismantling of the Kurdish military presence in Aleppo mean for SDF status in Syria?

Losing Aleppo weakens the SDF’s negotiating position significantly. Damascus will never support the SDF in retaining an autonomous military or administrative structure in the northeast, but al-Sharaa has repeatedly said that Kurdish language and cultural rights will be enshrined in the future constitution. The current government is already highly localized, and we will likely see the same model applied to the northeast with or without a peaceful integration of the SDF.

—Gregory Waters is a nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and writes about Syria’s security institutions and social dynamics.

4. How credible are government assurances of inclusion and rights protections to Kurdish communities?

The components of the new Syrian government have a mixed track record of treatment towards Kurds. The factions that came from Idlib, most notably Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have no serious history of ethnic targeting of Kurds, while several Syrian National Army (SNA) factions, which now serve in parts of the new army, have been sanctioned for years for systematic abuses against Kurds in northern Aleppo. It is now up to Damascus to ensure these ex-SNA factions no longer abuse or exploit Kurdish communities.

—Gregory Waters

There were no reports of large-scale violations by government security forces during the fighting in the Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiye neighborhoods, unlike the abuses that occurred in coastal areas or in Swaida last year. This demonstrates progress in managing security operations in areas where diverse communities live. Another episode of violence and killings would be too costly politically for Damascus. In Aleppo, security forces have been overall mindful to show that they are able to protect the Kurdish community.

—Marie Forestier is a nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. She is also currently a consultant for the European Institute of Peace.

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5. What does the Aleppo violence imply for future negotiations with other armed groups?

The issue in Aleppo is distinct from more general political or ideological dissent in Syria because it involved an armed group that controls territory. However, the government’s slower, methodical approach to the dispute this week, mixing continued diplomatic outreach with military pressure, shows a more mature leadership in Damascus compared to how it approached similar dissent in Swaida in July.

—Gregory Waters

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The operation in Aleppo was not a response to dissent, but rather a consequence of the deadlock of negotiations. A significant part of the Syrian population would like to see Kurds and the northeastern region fully integrated into the new Syria. The positive outcome of the military operation in Aleppo—at least from the government’s perspective—and the way security forces managed it raise the question of a possible replication of a similar operation in other areas in the northeast.

—Marie Forestier

6. How does the confrontation fit into the broader Turkish-Israeli rivalry over Syria?

Israel and Turkey hold fundamentally opposing views on Syria. Ankara sees the evolving situation as an opportunity to promote stability through a strong and centralized Syrian state, while Israel views such an outcome as a strategic threat and prefers a weak and fragmented Syria. 

During the clashes in Aleppo city, both countries once again positioned themselves on opposite sides. The intensity and limited duration of the fighting did not allow for direct or indirect intervention by either actor. Nevertheless, Turkey publicly signaled its readiness to support the Syrian army if requested, while Israel called on the international community to protect the Kurds. This contrast underscores Turkey’s greater capacity to intervene in northern Syria, as well as the constraints on Israel’s options. 

In light of the outcome in Aleppo city, Turkey’s vision of a unified Syria appears to have scored a tactical victory. At the same time, the episode served as a reminder that Turkish-Israeli competition over Syria—rooted in irreconcilable strategic perspectives—will persist.

—Ömer Özkizilcik 

7. Where does the United States stand in all of this?

The escalation highlights two key realities for US policy in Syria. First, US mediation efforts aimed at facilitating integration and supporting a unified Syrian state have failed. Washington repeatedly brought Damascus and the SDF to the negotiating table and attempted to steer the process in a constructive direction, yet no breakthrough was achieved. 

Second, the crisis has created a new opportunity for the United States. The exposure of the SDF’s fragility in Aleppo city may increase its willingness to make concessions and accept Damascus’s terms. If Washington seeks to prevent a broader military escalation in northeastern Syria, it can once again convene talks and press the SDF to adopt a more pragmatic stance. Should the SDF demonstrate genuine willingness, the United States could play a constructive role in facilitating integration and rebuilding trust between the parties.

—Ömer Özkizilcik

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8. Did disagreements among SDF factions contribute to the violence?

The exact degree of internal disagreement within the SDF—and the extent of central command control over Asayish forces in Aleppo—remains contested. Nonetheless, it is evident that multiple decision-making centers are involved. Following the escalation, Damascus and the SDF agreed, under international mediation, to evacuate all Asayish forces from the contested neighborhoods. Some Asayish units, however, refused to comply and instead chose to fight. 

According to Turkish intelligence sources cited in the media, this decision followed orders issued by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) cadres in Qandil, reportedly led by Bahoz Erdal. This suggests a rift between the Syrian branch of the PKK, which dominates the SDF, and the PKK’s central leadership in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq. 

A second layer of fragmentation became visible on the battlefield itself. While the Syrian army initially pursued a limited operation, cohesion within the Asayish ranks collapsed, with many fighters deserting or laying down their weapons.

—Ömer Özkizilcik

The post Eight questions (and expert answers) on the SDF’s withdrawal from Syria’s Aleppo appeared first on Atlantic Council.

He also emphasized that Venezuela can “no longer cozy up to Hezbollah and Iran in our own hemisphere.” 

There are clear implications of the Maduro arrest with respect to US-Iran policy and President Donald Trump’s calculus on strategic action against Washington’s adversaries. The US president has indicated he is weighing “very strong” options on Iran as demonstrations there escalated and the death toll rose sharply over the weekend, according to rights groups.

And as Rubio indicated, the operation could also have a more immediate impact on Tehran’s interests and operations abroad—with Venezuela serving as a foothold for Iran and its proxies in the Western Hemisphere.

Our experts break down Iran’s ties to Venezuela and the impact Maduro’s capture could have on Tehran’s interests both in and outside of Iran’s own borders.

Iran-Venezuela relations: From oil to resistance axis

Venezuela-Iran relations have strengthened in recent years: Both countries are oil producers, both have struggled under a robust Western sanctions regime, and as Tehran upgraded its relationship with Caracas, its proxies, such as Hezbollah, have established themselves inside Venezuela’s borders—creating a strategic foothold in the Western Hemisphere. 

Both countries are founding members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and had an official relationship before the 1979 revolution in Iran that saw the overthrow of the shah. As the Iranian revolution unfolded and the Islamic Republic came to power in Tehran, Venezuela was one of the first countries to recognize the new Iranian government.

This relationship intensified, however, when Maduro’s predecessor, the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, became president in 1999.

Between 2001 and Chavez’s death from cancer in 2013, Chavez and his Iranian counterparts engaged in dozens of diplomatic visits, and “the two countries signed an estimated three hundred agreements of varying importance and value, ranging from working on low-income housing developments to cement plants and car factories,” according to analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). 

Under Chavez, Tehran’s development projects in Venezuela “boosted Chavez’s image and advanced his anti-imperialist agenda throughout the region.” And through Venezuela, Tehran leveraged the partnership to bolster its posture in South America, including in Bolivia and Nicaragua. 

By the tail-end of Chavez’s rule in 2012, Iran’s investments and loans in Venezuela were valued at $15 billion, according to CSIS. 

Beyond oil and diplomatic agreements, gold smuggling has also shaped the relationship model between Tehran and Caracas. Venezuela holds the largest gold reserves in Latin America (just counting Central Bank reserves, and without including geological gold resources, which would place the country in the fifth place for gold reserves worldwide). Additionally, reports indicate that gold has been smuggled to Iran for years as a mode of payment for Iranian assistance to revive Venezuela’s oil sector. 

A base for Hezbollah and the IRGC 

Joze Pelayo, associate director for strategic initiatives and policy at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, explains

Against this backdrop, Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its affiliates have used Venezuela as a strategic hub in the Western Hemisphere. The country has served as a sanctuary for Hezbollah to evade sanctions, a center for operations and money laundering, and a base for its transnational criminal and drug trafficking network. 

Hezbollah has flourished in key locations in Venezuela—establishing itself within business networks such as Margarita Island and the Paraguaná Peninsula, both with coastal access and a significant Lebanese diaspora community.  

Iran also used the gold market in Venezuela to finance Hezbollah’s operations.  

In 2022, a seizure order signed by former Israeli Defense Minister Gallant and published by the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing in the Ministry of Defense exposed a smuggling ring involving gold being transported on sanctioned Iranian flights with proceeds directed to Hezbollah.

In addition to all these exchanges, Iran’s Quds Force (the external arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for asymmetric warfare, cover operations, and intelligence) maintains a robust presence in Venezuela to support Maduro in times of crisis, according to a report from December 2025.  

The hierarchical structure in Venezuela is headed by Ahmad Asadzadeh Goljahi, who oversees operations and heads the “Department 11000,” a Quds Force subunit linked to international terrorist plots, and “Department 840,” involved in overseas assassinations. It is then no surprise that the Iranians attempting to abduct US journalist Masih Alinejad from her home in New York were supposed to make a stop in Venezuela before taking her to Iran.  

Maduro’s capture and the potential realignment of Venezuela with the United States represent a major setback for the Quds Force operations and financing. Such a shift could significantly disrupt the group’s transnational criminal and drug-trafficking networks, oil-smuggling scheme, and other illicit activities tied to Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran.  

One potential silver lining: Under US custody and influence, Maduro (and possibly Acting President Delcy Rodriguez) could provide critical intelligence as witnesses and cooperators, assisting to expose the extent of these networks, how to properly root out these toxic elements from the country, and key figures the United States could go after next.

A US signal to Tehran 

Kirsten Fontenrose, nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, explains

The Maduro case is strategically relevant less as a template than as a signal. It suggests a US willingness to act decisively against leaders already criminalized and sanctioned, rather than allowing standoffs to persist on the assumption that the risk of escalation alone will deter action.

The Trump administration framed Maduro’s capture as a law-enforcement arrest rather than a military campaign. The United States did not invoke humanitarian intervention, collective self-defense, or congressional authorization for interstate hostilities. Instead, it relied on longstanding criminal indictments and sanctions authorities. Maduro has been under US indictment since March 26, 2020, for narcotics trafficking and narco-terrorism, and he has been subject to comprehensive Treasury sanctions well before the January 2026 operation. The legal basis for such extraterritorial law-enforcement action rests on domestic authorities rather than the law of armed conflict—a distinction that is controversial but not unprecedented in US practice. 

For Tehran, the relevance is not the legal argument itself but the political signal embedded in its use. Iranian strategic planning has long assumed that US concern about escalation—particularly actions that could be interpreted as leadership targeting—would impose practical limits on Washington’s behavior. The Maduro episode complicates that assumption. It also reinforces a second point: US leverage does not depend exclusively on military operations. In this case, years of sanctions enforcement, financial pressure, indictments, and diplomatic isolation preceded the arrest, demonstrating that decisive outcomes can be pursued through non-military instruments even in high-risk contexts. 

That sequencing intersects with current thinking about the timing of pressure on Iran. Analysis by Rapidan Energy Group Chief Executive Officer Scott Modell published in late 2025 argues that early 2026 presents unusually favorable market conditions for intensified pressure on Iranian oil exports. The analysis points to soft global demand growth, rising non-OPEC supply, spare capacity among OPEC+ producers, and subdued price expectations, suggesting that concerns about oil-price spikes—often a key political constraint on US action—would be less binding in the first quarter of 2026. If that assessment holds, market considerations would be unlikely to restrain US policymakers contemplating additional economic pressure on Iran during this period. 

Trump’s public statements following the Venezuela operation reinforce this interpretation. He framed the action in terms of accountability and deterrence, not regime change or nation-building. His emphasis on speed and decisiveness is consistent with earlier US decisions favoring limited, time-bound uses of force—particularly in counterterrorism and retaliatory contexts—over extended military campaigns. 

This posture aligns with the policy orientation of figures shaping the administration’s approach. Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller has emphasized coercive clarity; Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff has advocated transactional diplomacy backed by leverage; Vice President JD Vance has expressed skepticism toward open-ended military commitments. Reporting also suggests a US Central Intelligence Agency leadership preference for intelligence-driven, more aggressive collection and disruption posture. 

Recent US actions elsewhere provide additional context. Strikes against Iran-aligned militias in Iraq following attacks on US personnel in 2024, and counter-ISIS airstrikes conducted with host-nation consent in Nigeria in December 2025, illustrate a preference for responding quickly to defined threats without prolonged warning or phased escalation. These cases do not establish a doctrine, but they reinforce the impression of a US approach that favors early, bounded action over incremental response. In this context, Operation Absolute Resolve is meaningful because it unsettles a core assumption within Tehran—that leadership insulation and escalation risk reliably constrain US action. 

The core implication for Iran, then, is strategic rather than operational. The Maduro seizure suggests that the United States is prepared to act decisively against leaders who are already criminally indicted, comprehensively sanctioned, and politically isolated, and that it may do so during periods of internal strain rather than waiting for those pressures to resolve. 

None of this implies imminent leadership targeting in Iran. But it does suggest that Washington is reassessing assumptions about timing, leverage, and leadership vulnerability. 

The post The Venezuela-Iran connection and what Maduro’s capture means for Tehran, explained  appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Although the protests are inspiring and potentially historic, some of the developments are being overshadowed by the United States. On January 2 (and again two days later), US President Donald Trump issued an unspecified threat to the regime not to use further violence against its citizens. It is admirable that the Trump administration is focusing attention on the Iranian people, but it is also inconsistent with the administration’s past decisions to cut funds for vital internet circumvention services in Iran and avoid speaking out against the regime’s human rights violations.

The United States should not miss this opportunity to reaffirm support for the Iranian people as a centerpiece of a more comprehensive approach to its Iran policy. With this context in mind, and drawing on our past experiences serving in various capacities for the US government working on Iran—including during the Mahsa Amini protests—we authors suggest a few key policy recommendations.

Recommendations for the United States and its partners

1. Pause all major non-protest-related policy initiatives. Now is not the time for renewed nuclear negotiations or military strikes. The Biden administration famously paused negotiations about resuming the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action during the protests in response Mahsa Amini’s death. This does not mean diplomacy is dead, but any hypothetical nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran need to be postponed indefinitely. This is also not the time for Israel (or the United States) to restart military attacks. The Iranian people deserve the time and space to see these protests through. In June, the Iranian government benefited from an ill-conceived Israeli strike on Evin prison that attempted to liberate, but ended up killing, a number of prisoners. It is vital to not give the government a similar propaganda victory. 
2. The US government should designate a new Iran envoy. The Trump administration should immediately name or designate an envoy or senior official to engage with the Iranian diaspora and to more broadly focus on all aspects of Iran policy full-time. Regular engagement with this community and other Iran-focused government and nongovernment contacts is important to emphasize that the administration is serious about the Iranian people. This individual would not replace US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff but would report to him and other senior officials who remain focused on wider-ranging issues. Full-time attention on the portfolio would also help provide an internal advocate within an administration focused on budget cuts for low-cost, high-reward spending to advance a broader Iran policy, such as internet circumvention funding.
3. Partner governments should fund Iran initiatives that the administration ended. At the height of the Mahsa Amini protests, thirty million Iranians used US-funded circumvention services. Some of these services are being temporarily funded by private enterprises. Over the long-term, they require consistent support from a government entity. The same is also true of the Iran human rights programs that the current administration proposed cutting in its entirety in the Congressional Budget Justification. If the administration does not reconsider its cuts, other foreign governments would have an opportunity to pick up the technical and moral leadership that the United States has relinquished.
4. The international community should unite in backing the Iranian people. We authors have heard directly from Iranians who participated in past protests that a unified signal from the international community not only helped buoy sentiment within the movement but also served as a deterrent against human rights abuses by the regime. For instance, Iran significantly decreased its executions of drug offenders following sustained international pressure. Joint statements, including those issued by the Group of Seven and United Nations, have the best chance of impacting Iranian behavior. 
5. Create a nimble emergency funding mechanism. During the Mahsa Amini protests, several Iranian advocacy groups suggested to us that there was need for urgent funding, and they proposed possible emergency initiatives such as setting up funds to help pay striking workers living wages. Although we supported these ideas, the Biden administration was not nimble enough to fully evaluate and fund them in a timely manner. The United States or other partner nations should consider establishing a fund or program to explicitly facilitate crisis response operations. If the United States is unable or unwilling to fund it, the Treasury Department should, at a minimum, issue (or reissue) guidance to allow private individuals and organizations quick and legal ways to send money to protestors.
6. Increase human rights sanctions. The United States and partner governments should move quickly to issue targeted sanctions against human rights abusers and those involved in the crackdown against protestors. The 2024 bipartisan MAHSA Act provides the Treasury and State Department with new sanction authorities. To date, not a single designation has been imposed under this authority. Implementing MAHSA sanctions now—ideally in coordination with actions from our foreign partners—would send a symbolic, but powerful, message that the international community condemns Iran’s crackdown on protestors. 

Recommendations for nongovernmental actors

1. Minimize partisan politics. Iran policy has long been a victim of brutal partisan politics in Washington. Support for the Iranian people should be an approach that both parties should be able to get behind, as it aligns with US interests and values.  
2. More constructive engagement with the diaspora. As admittedly non-Iranian Americans involved in Iran policy, we authors will never fully understand the intricacies of the diaspora. From our past experiences, the online and in-person abuse directed at other members of the diaspora and at proposed policies limited government-diaspora engagement, and hindered the diaspora’s ability to effectively advocate for policy changes.
3. Provide clear and tangible recommendations. During the Biden administration, then-Vice President Kamala Harris led efforts to support the Iranian people’s call for the regime to be removed from the UN Commission on the Status of Women. This was a direct result of lobbying by civil society. Once the Harris team had a clear recommendation and knew it aligned with US policy priorities and values, the United States successfully led the campaign to remove Iran from the Commission.

A final recommendation for everyone: Keep the focus on Iran

The Iranian people themselves are bravely leading the current protests. It is essential to keep the focus on them, rather than on Washington politics and social media, to ensure the Iranian people get the support they need at this critical juncture.

Abram Paley is an incoming nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He most recently served as acting special envoy for Iran from 2023 to 2025 and, before that, Middle East advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Nate Swanson is a resident senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council. He most recently served as director for Iran at the National Security Council in the Biden White House and a member of the Trump administration’s Iran negotiating team.

The post As Iran protests continue, policymakers should apply these key lessons appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On December 29, Iraq’s newly elected parliament met for the first time since the top court confirmed the November 11 election results. The session started the process of forming a new government in a parliament where no single party has a majority. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Sudani, who wants a second term, won the most seats with forty-six out of 329. However, in Iraq’s political system, winning the most seats does not guarantee the top job. Instead, the next prime minister is chosen through coalition deals among the main Shia factions. Whether Sudani gets another term is still uncertain, but these coalition talks will shape not only the next cabinet but also Iraq’s direction during future challenges.

In Washington, many believe that Sudani is different from Nouri al-Maliki, leader of the State of Law Coalition and the only prime minister who has previously served two terms in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. This assumption is both comforting and misleading. Sudani is often seen as more focused on technical issues and less divisive, leading a country that seems more stable than before. This could suggest that the status quo is the safest choice, as Sudani will likely continue efforts to work with Washington on critical issues of reform and militia disarmament in the next four years.

But this perspective conflates personal leadership qualities with deeper structural problems that have haunted Iraq historically. Iraq’s political system has weak checks and balances, and the state is seen as a source of rewards by the political elite. In this kind of political landscape, one leader staying in power too long can turn temporary authority into lasting control. Even capable leaders can weaken institutions if they stay for a second term.

The main issue for the country’s stability is not whether Sudani is like al-Maliki, but whether Iraq’s political system allows real competition. For true contestability, losing groups must believe they can return to power through talks and elections, and rivals should keep competing within the system instead of looking for power elsewhere. In Iraq, this kind of competition is important for security, not just for democracy.

The structural risks of a second term

Since the overthrow of the former Iraqi regime in 2003, Iraq’s politics have been competitive but lack strong limits. The political elite have utilized ministries and agencies not just for policy but also to manage coalitions by handing out jobs, contracts, and security roles to keep alliances together. All former prime ministers have been guilty of turning the state into a system of political favors, but they have differed in how far they pushed it. Prime ministers such as Haider al-Abadi, Adel Abdulmahdi, and Mustafa al-Kadhimi were not aggressive enough and lost power. Still, they left the state more stable than their predecessors.

In comparison, leaders who treated the state as spoils of war and built strong patronage networks, such as al-Maliki, served longer.

Iraqi prime ministers are often perceived as practical in their first terms, because they take office through a quota-sharing bargain that parcels out ministries and senior posts across blocs. This limits a premier’s control over a bureaucracy shaped by party patronage. This is visible at the point of government formation. For example, former Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi was sworn in in October 2018 with only a partial cabinet after parties deadlocked over key portfolios, and Mustafa al-Kadhimi began in May 2020 with several ministries still vacant as blocs continued to bargain over nominees.

Under those constraints, first-term premiers tend to lower immediate friction among rival power centers and prioritize deals, including Baghdad-Erbil arrangements such as budget-oil agreements. They also try to contain armed factions through a mix of formal incorporation and selective pressure. For example, the 2016 law that placed the Popular Mobilization Forces on a state footing to Kadhimi’s June 2020 raid on a Kata’ib Hezbollah site was followed days later by the release of most detainees after militia pushback.

In contrast, a second term changes the incentives by making it more rewarding to hold onto power. Leaders expecting to stay longer often put loyal people in top jobs, use government contracts to protect themselves, weaken oversight bodies, and use audits or investigations more against their opponents than their allies. Sudani’s government began moving in this direction toward the end of its first term, including by directing a federal oversight committee to scrutinize the Kurdistan Regional Government’s revenues and spending. In 2025, similar audit claims were often cited to justify delaying or withholding the Kurdistan region’s federal budget transfers.

This is the second-term trap in Iraq: It does not always lead straight to authoritarianism but slowly turns appointments, contracts, and enforcement tools into a system that limits political change and weakens institutions. This process often happens quietly and is often explained as being efficient or stable by outsiders who may not see how serious it is.

How state capture unfolds

In Iraq, administrative capture usually happens gradually through legal, political, and economic steps, rather than through open announcements.

This process often begins with key appointments in areas such as the interior and intelligence agencies, which control force; as well as finance and planning ministries, which manage spending; and justice positions, which oversee investigations. It continues with hard-to-audit procurement practices, such as emergency approvals, unclear contracts, secret spending, and the use of state-linked groups to move money. Over time, oversight bodies and courts may start enforcing rules selectively, targeting opponents more while letting allies off the hook, especially when these institutions are open to political pressure.

The main effect of administrative capture is on how the state functions, not just its reputation. It weakens the state’s ability to handle crises by distorting information and valuing loyalty over skill. Intelligence becomes less open, leadership roles become more political, and contracts are awarded for favors rather than for readiness. This creates a false sense of strength at the top level but breeds public distrust by hiding real problems. As people lose trust, the state’s legitimacy and its ability to respond effectively during crises like insurgencies, militia violence, or protests are greatly reduced.

Iraq has gone through this before, though it is often forgotten during quieter times. In 2014, military units that looked strong on paper fell apart when faced with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. Reports blamed this on corruption, poor leadership, political appointments, and sectarian splits—problems that happen when security forces serve politics instead of acting as professional institutions. What seems stable can quickly fall apart in a crisis.

This is the main lesson from al-Maliki’s second term in office, which can be defined as the slipping slope toward the end of Iraq as one unified country. The problem was not just one leader’s style but the failure of institutions to stop power from becoming too personalized once someone stayed in office too long.

Supporters of Sudani point out his focus on service, his governance style, and the alleged deliveries to the Iraqis. Even his critics often admit he handles competing pressures with discipline.

However, in Iraq, a leader’s personal style cannot overcome deeper systemic pressures for long, especially when seeking a second term. Sudani’s support comes from the Shiite Coordination Framework, which brings together many groups with different interests, including some close to Iran. This coalition is more about bargaining than unity, so individual goals often take a back seat to group dynamics.

If Sudani wins a second term, he is likely to use the state to advance his personal power in the absence of real checks and balances, a concern reflected by the Shia Coordination Framework’s veto of his staying in power. Even if he secures a second term, his coalition partners could also impose strict demands and conditions on him, expecting that Sudani would use his power to make appointments that strengthen their networks, financial benefits, and use enforcement to help his allies and further limit rivals. The same practical skills that help manage coalitions, such as avoiding conflict and keeping support, can also make administrative capture worse by slowly tying state institutions to political groups.

Contestability as a stabilizing force

Since 2014, Iraq has faced instability, with mass protests, political deadlock, and repeated crises of legitimacy. Still, things have experienced somewhat incremental improvements since then because prime ministers have not been able to see their power as permanent. Even during messy transitions, the belief that no leader stays forever has kept politics open and allowed for change.

This openness changes how political groups act. When they think losing an election means they can still bargain later, they are more likely to take part in elections, talks, and building coalitions, and less likely to use force. But if it looks as though leaders cannot be replaced, rivals try to block decisions, build armed groups outside the system, and see politics as a fight for survival. In a country where armed groups exist alongside the government, this can slowly, then suddenly, destroy stability.

From this point of view, the real question for US policymakers is not about the personal qualities of Iraq’s next prime minister but whether the political system is open enough to stop the state from becoming a tool for narrow group interests.

What should the United States do?

The United States has limited influence in Iraqi politics, and being too direct can backfire by increasing nationalism, helping spoilers, or making it look as though the United States is picking leaders. So, any good US strategy should be careful and focused, aiming to support strong institutions and political change without backing any one leader.

Although it’s understandable that Washington seeks stability in Iraq after years of upheaval, its strategy should prioritize institutional processes over individual leaders to achieve that end. Iraq’s history demonstrates that apparent calm can coincide with institutional erosion, and the consequences of such hollowing become evident during subsequent crises.

The key question is not whether Sudani is like al-Maliki, but whether a second term would reduce competition and weaken institutions. Keeping the same leader can help stability only if there is real oversight and a chance for political change. Without these, stability is a credit borrowed on time until the next crisis happens. 

Yerevan Saeed is a nonresident senior fellow with the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. Saeed is the Barzani scholar-in-residence in the Department of Politics, Governance & Economics at American University’s School of International Service, where he also serves as director of the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace.

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In this context, bringing Turkey into the economic and diplomatic process can be seen as a natural extension of the Abraham Accords, which created a framework for regional cooperation. The more the Sharm el-Sheikh process expands to include security and economic coordination with Turkey, the greater the chance that the cease-fire will become a gateway to a comprehensive regional arrangement.

The Sharm el-Sheikh summit, organized at the initiative of the United States, marked a significant diplomatic achievement after two years of war. The summit brought together regional and international actors around stabilizing the cease-fire, establishing a mechanism for Gaza’s reconstruction, and building an infrastructure for regional cooperation. Turkey’s participation—even if not as a main mediator—sent an important message that Ankara is not willing to be excluded from the regional discussion. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has emphasized Turkey’s commitment to humanitarian reconstruction, energy cooperation, and regional economic coordination. These are goals that align well with the spirit of the Abraham Accords, which aims to turn rivalries into regional partnerships.

Yet, the political reality is complex. Relations between Turkey and Israel are at an unprecedented low. In Turkey, public pressure on Erdoğan has grown, urging the president to take a hard line in the wake of the Gaza war. This was reflected in the March 2024 local elections, when Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, made significant gains. And following such pressure, Ankara made the decision to suspend trade with Israel this August.

Yet, during times of tension in the past, trade and energy relations between the two countries endured due to mutual interests. Indeed, trade between the two countries reached roughly seven billion dollars in 2023, making Turkey one of Israel’s top five trading partners.

Now, as a new diplomatic window opens, there is an opportunity to bring the relationship back onto a pragmatic track as part of a broader vision of regional integration. Incorporating Turkey into initiatives related to the Abraham Accords and transnational infrastructure projects—such as the East Mediterranean Gas Forum and future iterations of the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor (IMEC) project—would help create overlapping economic interests that constrain confrontation and promote dialogue. Failure to involve Turkey risks institutionalizing competing integration schemes rather than converging toward a single cooperative framework. In response to Turkey’s exclusion from the IMEC project, Ankara announced a partnership with Iraq, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates on an alternative, called the “Development Road” project. Further marginalization would likely deepen Ankara’s coordination with Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing on transport and energy routes .

Against this backdrop, the responsibility also lies with the West. Constructive engagement with Turkey does not equate to wholehearted support for its policies but rather to recognition of its importance for regional stability. The West should act to include Ankara in Gaza reconstruction initiatives, in the development of transportation routes, and in joint energy projects. This can prevent economic fragmentation and deepen the rationale for the cooperation born from the Abraham Accords. In practice, this is an opportunity to update the 2020 agreements, turning them from a bilateral normalization framework into a multilateral arrangement for regional integration.

The central challenge is trust. Turkey seeks to ensure it is not pushed to the margins, while Israel and the Arab countries that signed the Abraham Accords fear excessive Turkish influence. Here, the United States, the European Union, and the Gulf states must conduct delicate diplomacy with Turkey. Targeted cooperation in economic and civil domains, green energy, water, digitization, and infrastructure can provide a platform for gradually building trust. Including Turkey in such initiatives will also strengthen the partners’ message to Palestinians that Gaza’s reconstruction is not just an Israeli-Western project, but part of a broader regional arrangement. Including Turkey in such initiatives will also strengthen the international message to Palestinians that Gaza’s reconstruction is not just an Israeli-Western project, but part of a broader regional arrangement.

The experience of the Abraham Accords has shown that once former rivals open channels of communication and commerce, mechanisms of mutual restraint are created. In this sense, integrating Turkey into the circle of countries participating in the accords is a natural and necessary step. Beyond that, Turkey’s presence in regional projects will add a key geopolitical dimension to the accords system, thereby balancing Ankara’s geopolitical relations with Iran and contributing to broader legitimacy in the Arab world. The West, the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states therefore have a clear interest in involving Turkey, not as an adversary but as a regional partner. Economic cooperation with Ankara could serve as a growth engine and provide an anchor for political stability. At the same time, it could strengthen the strategic logic of the Abraham Accords and prevent the signatories from becoming a closed club that generates new lines of division.

Ultimately, the postwar Middle East requires new mechanisms of cooperation. Integrating Turkey into this framework, not as a player to manage but as an equal partner, could turn the Abraham Accords into an advanced version of regional integration, in which Gaza reconstruction, energy, and transport connectivity are key elements that serve as a lever for genuine cooperation. If the West and its allies adopt this approach, the Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement will be remembered not just as a cease-fire, but as the first step toward a more integrated, stable, and prosperous Middle East.

Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi is a Palestinian-Israeli former politician who served in the Israeli Knesset from 2021 to 2023 as the first Arab woman deputy to parliament chair.

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Many political and security leaders remain unconvinced that employment should be its own goal or that employment is central to immediate security. While US President Donald Trump’s twenty-point peace plan for Gaza refers to employment in broad terms, it is only referenced as an outcome of investments and large-scale development, but employment is not viewed as a goal in and of itself.

For example, point number ten states that “many thoughtful investment proposals . . . will be considered to synthesize the security and governance frameworks to attract and facilitate these investments that will create jobs, opportunity, and hope for the future of Gaza.”

Gaza cannot function without guaranteed pathways to work. To disarm Hamas, there must be a fiscal strategy alongside effective street-level security. Most critically, the best way to undermine Hamas’s power on the ground is to employ the people Hamas pays today. Security requires a fiscal plan; in Gaza, Hamas controls labor, resources, and opportunity, eliminating competition. To break this chokehold, Gaza requires deliberate intervention to generate employment across sectors.

Hamas and Gaza’s employment crisis

Before the launch of war in 2023, Gaza already faced some of the worst labor conditions in the region. Hamas-led public sector employment accounted for nearly one-third of all those working in the Strip, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. In 2017, the average monthly household expenditure in Gaza was 934 dinars, or roughly $1,300. Meanwhile, Hamas is paying young fighters up to three hundred dollars per month, according to Wall Street Journal reporting citing Israeli officials—an amount that pays for a crucial portion of those expenses. Additionally, the patronage network system of Hamas meant that those in the militant group’s networks were able to access aid, resources, and other market goods in a way that those unaffiliated could not, something that has continued throughout the war as well.

This meant that the few available jobs or reliable opportunities inside Gaza were disproportionately Hamas-affiliated—whether related to civil service or fighting. Against this backdrop, youth unemployment reached as high as 70 percent in Gaza, and overall unemployment reached 80 percent.

Today, close to 70 percent of Gaza’s population is homeless or displaced, with no clarity on when they will return to stable housing. This has made the need for new employment even more urgent.

When more than a million people have no work, no prospects, and no timeline for rebuilding their lives, the outcome is predictable: Many will return to the only functioning economic structure available, which is dominated by the Hamas-led network. Gaza’s geographic isolation exacerbates this, as the majority of Gazans have never left the Strip. Without jobs, mobility, or legitimate income, dependency becomes permanent.

If Hamas were no longer the leading source of employment, its patronage networks would weaken, reducing its control over communities’ access to salaries, goods, and services. Peacebuilding experience shows that employment changes daily incentives. People with families, stability, and predictable income see militancy as a high-cost and less rational choice.

Ignoring the central variable

The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) belief that it has sufficient institutional capacity to rehabilitate Gaza, as its prime minister wrote recently in its economic plan, is troubling to most long-term analysts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Almost every major Arab country and Western ally has made it clear through numerous UN resolutions and diplomatic statements (including most recently in Trump’s twenty-point plan and the New York declaration by Saudi Arabia and France) that the PA requires significant reformation before it can take on control of Gaza.

In the PA’s recently released economic plans, unemployment is treated only as a minor humanitarian issue, rather than a development factor or as a central determinant of whether a cease-fire can hold or Gaza returns to terrorism and war. Specifically, the plan suggests providing $4.2 billion in cash assistance for food, supplies, minor reconstruction, and housing support. Yet, the plan’s development of employment schemes and workforce participation receives only $500 million—far short of what is required for serious job creation.

To underscore just how ill-prepared PA thinking is regarding employment outcomes, to match the current income provided by Hamas employment, the plan would need several billion dollars annually to enable workers to earn the same as they do now from Hamas coffers, as either civil servants or fighters. Yet the PA plan, similar to the Trump plan, does not explicitly focus on the details of making new workforce access available or on pursuing long-term job creation through strategic development, nor does it seek to put significant resources towards the goal of earned income. Instead, it commits Gaza to being an aid-dependent economy, in which international investors are expected to operate without a reliable labor force. This is a direct path back to patronage, dependency, and long-term instability.

Employment as a human rights and security imperative

In my book, What Role for Human Rights in Peacebuilding, I argued that peacebuilding has traditionally overemphasized political rights, institution-building, and security-sector reform while relegating economic, social, and cultural rights to a secondary status. Yet, human rights are interconnected and cannot be pursued as separate goals. Political participation cannot be realized when people are uneducated, unhealthy, unhoused, or unemployed. Civil and political rights must be linked to economic, social, and cultural rights for transitions to be viable.

The models often employed in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process do not address foundational gaps in economic, social, and cultural rights, especially in the area of long-term employment. Unless international leadership takes seriously the central role employment plays in deradicalization and stabilization, Gaza’s reconstruction will replicate past failures. Employment is a framework for disarmament, but only when sustained for the long term—not when limited to temporary per diem labor, food-for-work schemes, or short-term projects.

A sustainable employment paradigm must be put at the center of Gaza’s next phase. Many Gazans will explain, when asked, that many of the flanks of Hamas fighters are not driven by ideology but by predictable payrolls and access to goods for Hamas-affiliated families. Without a competing legal economy, Hamas will always have recruits.

Gaza needs macroeconomic and microeconomic development schemes that create market infrastructure capable of supporting the entire workforce. Education, vocational training, private-sector investment, and targeted upskilling can all generate meaningful employment. In Gaza, ignoring this is not simply poor economics. It is a direct security risk. This requires understanding the actual size of Gaza’s labor force, reasonable income targets, and priority sectors where workers can quickly enter employment with existing or modestly enhanced skills. Both public- and private-sector models will be required, with private-sector growth as the long-term engine of prosperity.

A full-employment-oriented mandate is not extreme government intervention, nor is it a call for the PA to dominate the labor market; rather, it should be defined as a strategy for long-term private-sector growth, carried out in partnership with and supported by public actors.

Impact on Palestinian sovereignty

Palestinian self-sovereignty requires economic independence and access to the world. One of the strongest inoculations against Hamas is broad access to markets and opportunities. Some of this will require long-term planning and sector-specific analysis, but many aspects are straightforward. For example, if private firms and the international community could employ Gazans to rebuild at even a slightly higher wage than Hamas salaries, stable employment could ultimately extend to swaths of the population, with Gazans able to support their families without using dollars tied to the militant group.

Sectors such as environmental rehabilitation, food production, education, medical care, infrastructure, and vocational services all require new labor. If a transitional authority seeks to meet the moment, it should invest heavily in private-sector job creation so that disarmament, deradicalization, and reintegration can begin.

Gaza’s next phase must recognize what weakens Hamas’s grip: economic independence and freedom of movement. Employment severs Hamas’s patronage networks by providing a reliable income not tied to armed actors. It rewires daily incentives, making militancy too costly for most people. The appeal of armed groups declines as economic opportunity expands.

Gaza’s future depends on far more than security forces or humanitarian aid. It depends on whether people see a path out of the rubble that is grounded in economic self-sovereignty, dignity, and the possibility of success. If security and political leaders ignore this reality, they will guarantee that the next war comes even while the debris of this one remains.

Melanie Robbins is the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Realign For Palestine project.

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This raised concerns among Western policymakers that Russia might shift its regional posture to Libya if its foothold in Syria unraveled, given Russia’s existing relationship with the Libyan National Army (LNA). Moscow has cultivated ties with LNA Commander Khalifa Haftar for nearly a decade to secure access to eastern Libyan territory and military infrastructure, turning Libya into a logistical hub for Russia to project power deep into Africa. 

One year later, Russia’s situation in Syria appears better than many expected in the early post-Assad days. Russia has preserved a reduced but durable presence in Syria. High-level engagements between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa reaffirmed Moscow’s role in the country, and al-Sharaa publicly committed to honoring preexisting military agreements. The result is a more constrained footprint, but not one that represents a strategic loss. 

While its plan B in Libya proved unnecessary, Russia nevertheless has spent the past year building up its logistical network in eastern and southern Libya. Serving as a transit hub, Libyan airbases give Russia the ability to reach deep into the African continent, where it seeds for instability with arms shipments and members of its Africa Corps—a Russian defense ministry-controlled paramilitary group and successor to the Wagner Group.

Why southern Libya became Russia’s new strategic platform

By late 2024, before its future in post-Assad Syria was determined, Russia was actively searching for alternatives for strategic relationships in the Middle East and North Africa. Flights from Syria to eastern Libya, movements of personnel and equipment, and diplomatic visits by Russian officials to eastern Libya were being reported, as concerns about Russia establishing a naval port in eastern Libya grew among Western leaders. A year later, Russia still has not secured a port in the southern Mediterranean, likely because Libya’s eastern authorities are unwilling to jeopardize improving ties with the United States, Turkey, and European partners by granting Moscow a major coastal facility. 

Instead, Russia expanded inland in Libya. The Maaten al-Sarra airbase provides a key example. This strategically located airbase near the borders with Chad and Sudan is a staging point for Russia’s destabilizing operations across the Sahel. It predates the Assad regime’s collapse and is reportedly financed by the United Arab Emirates. But beginning in December 2024, Russian equipment, personnel, and Syrian fighters tied to the Assad regime began arriving at the desert airbase 

Although Maaten al-Sarra is a key location in Russia’s southern Libya presence, Moscow uses multiple airfields as part of its transit corridor to the Sahel. These include the al-Khadim base in eastern Libya, the al-Jufra base in central Libya, the Brak al-Shati base near Sabha, and the al-Qardabiya base south of Sirte. Together, these dispersed locations form a resilient transit network connecting Russia’s foothold in Syria to its growing activities in the Sahel, increasing Russia’s ability to sustain Africa Corps deployments and arms supplies to its African partners. The inland network faces less international scrutiny, requires fewer political concessions from Libyan authorities, and gives Moscow access to remote corridors that support long-range logistical movements.

Countering Russia’s gains in Libya  

Russia’s increased presence in Libya over the past year hasn’t gone entirely unchecked. The United States and its key international partners have sought to counter Russian activities and influence. This has primarily been through a strategy to accelerate military unification between eastern and western Libya, with promises of security cooperation and training. LNA Deputy Commander Saddam Haftar has been the main focus of these efforts to untangle the LNA from Russia’s hold.  

In February, the United States sent two B-52H Stratofortress aircraft into Libyan airspace as part of a joint training with Libyan military tactical air controllers. In April, the US Navy conducted its first port call to Libya in over fifty years with stops in Tripoli and Benghazi. That same month, Ankara hosted a visit by LNA’s Saddam Hafter, and in August, the Turkish Navy conducted port calls to both Tripoli and Benghazi as well.

On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this September, the United States hosted a senior officials meeting on Libya. Participants included representatives from Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. The importance of Libyan east-west security integration was highlighted, as was the importance of modifying the UN arms embargo in January 2025, which enables joint training and technical assistance in support of east-west integration. 

In October, United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. John Brennan announced that Libya will participate and co-host part of the US military’s annual Flintlock exercise in the spring of 2026. Brennan commented that “this exercise isn’t just about military training; it’s about overcoming divisions, building capacity, and supporting Libya’s sovereign right to determine its own future.” 

During the first week of December, AFRICOM Commander Gen. Dagvin Anderson met in Tripoli with Deputy Minister of Defense Abdulsalam Zubi and Chief of Staff Gen. Mohamed al-Haddad, as well as with Haftar and his son Deputy Commander Saddam Haftar in Benghazi. These discussions focused on maintaining regional stability, supporting Libyan efforts to unify military institutions, and US-Libya security cooperation, including Flintlock 26.

While these efforts by the United States and its partners have likely nudged along east-west military integration in Libya, it remains unclear if the strategy has done much to counter Russian activities or separate Russia and LNA leadership. Incentives, such as legitimacy and security cooperation, may be insufficient when used alone to try to pull the LNA away from Russia’s orbit. Economic sticks, such as targeted sanctions, may be required too.  

Eliminating or greatly diminishing Russia’s use of Libya as a transit hub for its arms shipments and for personnel to flow into the Sahel would be a significant step toward promoting stability and ending conflicts on the continent. This would advance US President Donald Trump’s peacebuilding priorities, pushed forward over the past year by Senior Advisor Massad Boulos. 

One year after the fall of Assad, Russia’s most important bases in the region may not be Khmeimim Air Base or the Tartus naval facility in Syria, but instead a handful of small air bases scattered across Libya. This represents a key front in Washington and its partners’ efforts to counter Russia. 

Frank Talbot is a nonresident senior fellow with the North Africa Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Rafid Hariri Center & Middle East programs. Previously, he served in the Department of State supporting stabilization initiatives in the Middle East and North Africa.

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Notably, the two countries are poised to renew bilateral agreements through joint committee meetings and enhanced economic and trade relations, including by reopening direct flights between Tunis and Tehran. The meeting comes against the backdrop of several Iranian high-level visits in the region, highlighting undoubted interests by the regime in North Africa, and comes a year after the Tunisian president flew to Tehran for former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s funeral.

Both countries stand to benefit significantly from revitalized economic and tourism partnerships. Iran is severely weakened after heavy losses to its leadership and those of its proxies during the most recent two-year war between Israel and Hamas, while Tunisia is isolated internationally, economically weak, and increasingly economically and politically dependent on Algeria. An expansion of relations in North Africa can only strengthen the Iranian regime and its so-called Axis of Resistance, now looking for avenues to rebuild its regional standing and power. For Tunisia, relying on the Algeria–Iran axis could prove beneficial should the United States continue to withdraw support. Washington was once Tunisia’s main international supporter, but no longer sees Tunisia as a viable partner for democracy building in the region and has diminished its support significantly in recent years. Deepening the Iran relationship would also serve Saied’s populist, anti-Western agenda, allowing him to retain legitimacy while continuing his wide-scale crackdown on Tunisia’s institutions.

Tunisia–Iran relations

Tunisia–Iran relations have never been particularly noteworthy. Before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the two countries had a “stable” relationship, but tensions between the two countries increased later on due to Tunisia’s fears of the spread of the revolution and Islamist ideologies into its own borders. This fear was amplified because the success of the revolution empowered many Tunisians who believed in the importance of Islam in politics, and gave impetus to the Jema’ah al-Islamiyah, the predecessor of Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda party. The revolution offered the Jema’ah a “totally new dimension of Islam” and its political role, enabling leaders to “Islamize some leftist social concepts.” Then President Habib Bourguiba (Tunisia’s first president and father of the country, who attempted to protect his authority by repressing Islamists) severed ties with Iran in 1987 after student protests broke out in Tunis University. Tunisia’s second president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, later restored relations under his “zero enemy” foreign policy strategy, but both trade and economic relations remained negligible. Even at its peak in 2008, Tunisia’s automotive imports from Iran totaled only about eighteen million dinars. In the wake of the Jasmin revolution in Tunisia, Tehran viewed the rise of Rachid Ghannouchi’s Islamist Ennahda party with enthusiasm, but aside from an initial increase in bilateral meetings and talks of renewed partnerships, little was achieved between the two countries.

In recent years, however, some speculation over Tunisia’s renewed interest in Iran has emerged, particularly considering Saied’s controversial rule and foreign policy approach. Since his July 2021 power grab, Saied has consolidated authority through decrees, weakened judicial and parliamentary institutions, and adopted a sharply anti-Western narrative that blames Europe and the United States for Tunisia’s economic and political woes. Araghchi’s visit to Tunis this September signaled a notable convergence in both strategic thinking and economic agendas. Leaders from both countries expressed words of praise for each other’s condemnation of Israel’s war in Gaza and strikes against Qatar and Iran—and discussed cooperation across multiple sectors, including trade and tourism. Concrete steps have already been taken to start direct flights between Tehran and Tunis, showcasing that both parties are serious about resuming cooperation.

Saied sees clear political advantage in drawing closer to Tehran. Such alignment would bolster his anti-West narrative and signal to his domestic audience that he is siding with states that defy Western influence. Saied was elected in 2019 on an anti-corruption and anti-imperialist campaign and has insisted over the years that Western-led institutions are imposing “diktats” on Tunisia, i.e., perceived unilateral, coercive demands imposed from abroad that undermine Tunisia’s sovereignty. He is also the staunchest supporter of the Palestinian cause in Tunisian history, having changed the country’s constitution in 2022 to claim that all Jerusalem should be under Palestinian rule—and not just East Jerusalem, as established under the United Nations’ partition plan. Cozying up to Iran, Israel’s biggest enemy in the region, will allow Saied to follow through on his promise to adopt an anti-West regional posture. At a time when signs of mistrust against him are emerging through weekly demonstrations across the country, Saied is doing all he can to hang on to power. 

Secondly, Saied’s increased alignment with Tehran will cement his relationship with Algeria, currently the country’s biggest ally. Tunisia’s reliance on Algeria stems from Algiers’ role as its primary provider of financial assistance, energy supplies, and security support at a time when Tunis is increasingly isolated from Western partners. Additionally, Algeria’s own sense of isolation has grown exponentially since Morocco—it’s archrival in the region—signed the Abraham Accords in 2020, normalizing ties with Israel and strengthening its relationship to the West. Since then, Algeria has stepped up its support to Tunis to cement intra-regional alliances. In addition to million-dollar loans, Tunisia and Algeria signed over twenty-seven agreements in the first year alone since Morocco’s signing of the Abraham Accords. More recently, they formalized their military cooperation by signing a new agreement for joint exercises and an increase in information sharing.

Perhaps more strategically significant to Tunis is the deepening alliance between Algiers and Tehran, with the former seeking new gas investments while the latter looks to increase its footprint in Africa. Visits by high-level Algerian officials to Tehran have steadily increased, and Raisi visited Algiers in March 2024, marking the first official visit by an Iranian president in over fourteen years. The two countries signed several agreements in tourism, trade, and energy. Tunisia’s outreach to Iran suggests it sees value in the growing Tehran–Algiers partnership and seeks to benefit from it, as well by aligning itself with those partners that its main backer, Algeria, is increasingly engaging.

But what does Iran, a regional power situated far from Mediterranean borders, have to gain from a small country such as Tunisia, whose main exports are automobile parts and agricultural products—neither of which brings significant value to Tehran?

For one, Tehran, too, understands the benefits of strengthening ties with Tunis at a time when Tunisia’s relationship with Algeria is strong. With Tehran significantly weakened after two years of wars with Israel and the killing of most of its regional proxy leadership, Tehran is willing to take support wherever it can find it. While Algeria represents a much larger gain, adding Tunisia to the mix is a simple step that requires little overextension of resources. In contrast, Iran gains influence and potential alliances, slowly diminishing its isolation from the world stage.

Secondly, Tunis may represent a safe haven for Iran-supported Hamas operatives. As part of the cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel after two years of war, Israel touted the idea of agreeing to a full cease-fire should Hamas leaders be exiled from Gaza. Tunisia’s history is replete with examples of concrete support to Palestinian leadership, including when it hosted Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization headquarters from 1983 until the early nineties. The Israeli news channel i24 has reported that talks between Tunis and Tehran have already begun, although the content of these talks largely remains unknown and has not been corroborated by any additional reporting. Against this backdrop, following Israel’s September strike on Qatar, where Hamas’ headquarters currently reside, Iran would benefit from additional countries ready to host Hamas leaders, especially should Qatar begin to lessen its support due to increased US pressure.

Should Tunisia opt toward strengthening relations with Iran, it will have to contend with its allies in the West, especially the United States, considering the large sums of financial and military aid it has received over the years. Following the overthrow of the Ben Ali regime, Washington invested heavily in Tunisia’s democratization process including billions in low-interest loans and millions in grants. In recent years, US support has diminished following democratic backsliding in Tunisia, with now only a Foreign Military Financing program in place to help fight off potential al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham operatives in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The United States, too, has something to lose from closer Tunisia–Iran relations. This relationship can shift the balance of power in North Africa to benefit the so-called “axis of upheaval”—China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. With Russia expanding its presence in Algeria and Libya, and Egypt strengthening its ties with Beijing, only Morocco and Tunisia remain viable pro-West anchors in the region. A tip of this scale will inevitably lead to difficulties in managing US interests in North Africa and the Sahel. For example, it could become an obstacle to counter terrorism efforts and disrupting weapons smuggling routes for Hamas through the Sinai. The Sinai has long been used by Hamas for weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip. Any erosion of US intelligence-sharing arrangements and training access in countries such as Tunisia would further weaken efforts to contain these networks, ultimately strengthening transnational smuggling and militant activity across the region.

Alissa Pavia is a nonresident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Program. She was previously associate director of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Program.

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He went on to note a striking shift: After a century of dominance, the United States is no longer the top destination for millionaires. That distinction now belongs to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This change is more than a geopolitical curiosity; it signals deeper structural forces at work. Should these trend lines hold, Gulf states such as the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will evolve into global hubs—not only for energy and financial capital but for human invention.

Much of the global discussion about economic transformation centers on artificial intelligence (AI). Governments and firms focus on data centers, power grids, and the race to deploy AI-enabled systems at scale. Yet missing from this narrative is appreciation for a more enduring form of “AI”: authentic intelligence, or simply, human capital. The successful adoption, governance, and ethical deployment of AI technologies will depend not on machines alone, but on the people capable of interpreting, integrating, and improving them. In this respect, the most essential resource of the twenty-first century is unchanged from centuries past: talent. Across the Middle East and North Africa, today’s strategic bets reflect this insight.

While AI infrastructure is essential, the more important trendline, the one that will shape societies for decades, is the global movement of people. The capital that “walks on two feet” is increasingly flowing not to the United States or Europe, but to rising hubs such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia. As a matter of policy, these countries understand that long-term competitiveness depends on their ability to attract, cultivate, and retain human capital. This can be clearly seen in the number of expatriate workers in each country: in Saudi Arabia, for example, that represents 40 percent of the population, and in the UAE it is as high as 90 percent, according to the World Bank.

The Gulf nations operate on a different paradigm. In cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, residents come not for citizenship but for opportunity. They live and work in environments defined by the rule of law, transparent commercial systems, accessible healthcare, and compelling professional prospects. What emerges is a new social equation: affiliation with a particular nationality becomes secondary to participation in a thriving, cosmopolitan system offering high-quality living, safety, career mobility, and tax advantages.

In this sense, the Gulf’s value proposition is less about assimilation and more about an alignment between ambition and opportunity—but there is a question over whether it can survive over generations. The unanswered question for the younger generation of expats in the Gulf is that of identity, purpose, and belonging. That said, this cohort increasingly finds the expression of oneself in the digital world, a world that does not require passports, a world where one often builds one’s own meaning and purpose both beyond and within national borders.

The role of education in the knowledge century

The broader challenge for sustained economic prosperity, however, lies not only in attracting talent but in developing it. In the knowledge century, upskilling increasingly occurs on the job, especially in fast-moving technology sectors where industry now outpaces academia in generating relevant, applied expertise. The gap between universities and employers is widening, raising the opportunity cost of traditional education, particularly graduate degrees whose value propositions are increasingly questioned.

Though it is true that a college degree still provides a healthy return on investment, between 12 and 13 percent for the past three decades, a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York also notes rising opportunity costs. Moreover, these returns vary significantly across majors. Technical training, such as quantitative and analytical skills, earns the highest return in subjects like engineering, math, computers, business, and economics. At the same time, the marketplace is scaling and adapting new technologies and products at a rapid pace. The challenge is that the skills needed to build and scale these applications, require skills and knowledge that are being created on the go. So, how does a university teach knowledge that can be applied to developing an idea that does not exist, with skills that will not be defined until they are needed?

Universities must examine the marginal value of an undergraduate or graduate degree versus the acquisition cost of a finite skill or experience. Or, if physical location is no longer a prerequisite for acquiring a degree, what is the relative value between a part-time program and a full-time program? Additionally, in terms of demand, much has been cited about millennials’ and more recent generations’ different set of life expectations. Changing preferences on experiences, consumption, causes, and personal branding, coupled with the user-driven nature of technology, requires a dynamic mindset for reinvention.

At the same time, universities must continue to serve as the hub for scholarship and ideas. Garud Iyengar, Avanessians director of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University, recently told me that “the defining value of a university is not just the transmission of today’s skills, but the cultivation of tomorrow’s ideas, whose relevance is often impossible to predict at the moment of discovery.”

Much of “the foundations of modern computing emerged not from efforts to meet an immediate industry need but from scholars pursuing fundamental questions,” he added.

“A system overly calibrated to short-term labor-market demand would never have produced those leaps. Rather than steering universities toward becoming predominantly skill factories, a healthier model is a differentiated ecosystem,” said Iyengar.

Today, as the global competition for human capital intensifies, the stakes for getting this right have never been higher. The Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd wrote that societies flourish when their people cultivate reason. Lifelong learning, therefore, is not merely a personal endeavor but a social imperative, a foundation for community well-being, economic vibrancy, and justice.

And while much of the world is fixated on artificial intelligence, the more consequential race may well be the one for authentic intelligence and the capacity to both attract and cultivate it. The nations that grasp this truth, those that invest not only in machines but in minds, will define the trajectory of the next century.

Khalid Azim is the director of the MENA Futures Lab at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

The post The Gulf should not underestimate authentic intelligence appeared first on Atlantic Council.

All of this unfolded against the backdrop of a new administration in Washington that has been unafraid to shake up decades of US diplomatic conventions.

As 2025 comes to a close, our senior analysts at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs unpack the most prominent trends and topics they are tracking for the new year.

Khalid Azim: Three trends shaping the economic landscape

Gissou Nia: Demands for justice—and protests driven by the thirsty

Karim Mezran: North Africa is a rising priority for US policy

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Key questions remain for Palestinians

Victoria J. Taylor: Iraq must maintain unprecedented stability

Daniel B. Shapiro: A political transition in Iran approaches

Nathanael Swanson: Will the Israel-Iran cease-fire hold?

Jonathan Panikoff: A duality of possible trajectories

Three trends shaping the economic landscape

Three major macro trends will shape the Middle East and North Africa in 2026, each carrying profound implications for the region’s economic trajectory.

1. The pressure of lower energy prices
As energy revenues soften, governments across the region will be forced to make more disciplined, risk-adjusted investment decisions. The era of abundant fiscal cushions is shifting toward one that requires sharper prioritization, operational efficiency, and a clearer sense of expected returns. This will test policymakers’ ability to allocate capital effectively and to reduce long-standing subsidies and support for entrenched constituencies. These choices become even more consequential as a growing cohort of young people demand economic opportunity, purpose, and social mobility.

2. Rising debt and the cost of ambition
Fiscal tightening will coincide with an accelerating need for investment. Across the Gulf, governments are committing billions to data centers, artificial intelligence ecosystems, new power generation, and other foundational infrastructure. These projects will increasingly be financed through borrowing, especially as the current account deficit grows. The result will be higher debt levels and rising debt-servicing costs. Countries that clearly articulate their economic value proposition and demonstrate credible reform will have a competitive advantage in the capital markets. Those that do not may face steeper financing costs and slower momentum in their diversification strategies.

3. Vision 2030 ten year anniversary: A regional bellwether
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 has already reshaped the kingdom’s economic and social landscape through diversification, investment in future industries, and the creation of a more open and optimistic society. The plan’s tenth anniversary in 2026 marks a critical milestone, not only for the kingdom but for the region. The next decade will be defined not by the wealth beneath the ground, but by the wealth of human talent above it. How effectively the kingdom transitions from resource-driven growth to human capital-driven growth will influence the MENA region’s competitiveness for a generation.

Khalid Azim is the director of the MENA Futures Lab at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

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Nov 20, 2025

Saudi Arabia’s next horizon: Building human capital beyond Vision 2030

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Riyadh still needs to take fully support small and medium-sized enterprises—the true engines of job creation.

Economy & Business Middle East

Demands for justice—and protests driven by the thirsty

In 2026, expect to see more widespread protest movements for change across the Middle East and North Africa fueled by climate change and authoritarian mismanagement. Analysis of global protest movements in 2025 focused heavily on the young age of the protesters. While youth demographics have gained relevance as new communication tools have emerged over the last decades (in 2011, it was Twitter organizing the youth in the “Arab Spring”; in 2025, it’s the gaming app Discord organizing Morocco’s “Gen Z” protests), the evergreen undercurrent is frustration with corruption and elites. Resources have become scarcer due to global warming and authoritarian mismanagement, and the globe has become increasingly and overtly transactional as it shuns diplomacy in favor of kinetic means and “might is right” politics. The Middle East and North Africa are profoundly impacted by both these negative trends. With water running out in Tehran and water instability around the Nile Basin and the Tigris and Euphrates River, expect the next wave of regional protests to be driven not just by the youth, but by the thirsty.

Regional victim and survivor-centric demands for justice will also continue to grow in 2026 in countries that are emerging from conflict, experiencing government transitions, or where restive populations wish to usher in a change of rule. There is no clearer example than in Syria, where Assad’s exit one year ago opened the space for a new Syria and where a previously exiled network of Syrian lawyers, researchers, and advocates now work on transitional justice processes from inside their own country. In Iran, where the population is publicly demanding regime change, victims of protest violence, executions, and custodial deaths have organized powerful advocacy groups to demand that international processes deliver justice where domestic courts are unable and unwilling to do the job. And across the region, while many governments have been complicit in the violence in Gaza, the Arab street stands at odds with those governments and instead has demanded—alongside much of the world—that the perpetrators of the violence in Gaza be held to account.

Gissou Nia is the director of the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.

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Dec 8, 2025

States shouldn’t waste the chance to establish a Syria Victims Fund

By Kate Springs, Celeste Kmiotek

A centralized fund would better support victims of international law violations in Syria, who face unique challenges.

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North Africa is a rising priority for US policy

North Africa is poised to move closer to the center of US regional policy for 2026. The past year of quiet US engagement, including the work of US President Donald Trump’s Senior Advisor Massad Boulos, is beginning to reduce tensions and open political space. Algeria and Morocco are edging towards some degree of a detente, creating space for practical steps on the Western Sahara file.

Additionally, Libya may see modest but meaningful progress. Headway on an agreement between the divided governments on a unified development funding mechanism may reduce parallel spending and put less pressure on the dinar, as well as release the funds for long-awaited reconstruction and modernization projects. The decision to include Libyan units from both east and west in AFRICOM’s Flintlock 2026 special operations forces exercise suggests an incremental movement on military unification in Libya, an area where US diplomacy with key partners has grown more active.

Egypt will remain an integral partner as Washington tries to deal with situations in Gaza, states located on the Red Sea, and Sudan. At the same time, renewed attention to commercial diplomacy signals a shift toward advancing US business interests across North Africa.

Taken together, these dynamics make the region harder to overlook and suggest that 2026 may be the year North Africa becomes a sustained policy priority in Washington.

Karim Mezran is the director of the North Africa Initiative and resident senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

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Oct 3, 2025

US, Italy, and Turkey alignment could push the needle in Libya

By Frank Talbot and Karim Mezran

The US, Italy and Turkey can—through balanced diplomacy—reinforce the economic opportunities presented by institutional unification in Libya.

Italy Libya

Key questions remain for Palestinians

This was a tectonic year of realignments for the Palestinian people, as well as their heavily divided and largely powerless leadership. Next year is likely to be equally important and trend-setting—and four major threads have emerged that could shape its trajectory.

For Palestinians and what’s next for Gaza, the top four trends to look for in 2026 are the following:

1. The Trump administration’s commitment to the Palestinian issue and its willingness to engage the Palestinian Authority, which remains subject to US sanctions and restrictions. Will elements of a comprehensive peace deal between Palestinians and Israelis, like the one that Trump proposed during his first term, return?
2. What becomes of the Gaza cease-fire that the United States and international players are hoping to cement into a lasting peace deal that transforms the coastal enclave? The year 2026 is either going to be one in which Hamas is disarmed and fundamentally changed—or it will be one in which the Palestinian terror group continues to dominate Gaza’s affairs and prevent substantive change to revitalize the decimated Strip after two years of devastating warfare.
3. The prospect of Saudi-Israeli normalization—which could unlock immense potential for the kingdom, the Palestinians, Israel’s regional integration, and a regional anti-Iran coalition—is enormous. The year 2026 will set the tone for whether Saudi Arabia proceeds with integration based on its often-stated requirement for Palestinian statehood, or if this ends up in further stalemate and stagnation.
4. The fourth critically significant trend to watch is the impact the Gaza war and Israel will have on influencing voters in the upcoming midterm elections. As with the Trump election, this issue increasingly played a role in rallying US voters to the ballot box, including the high-profile race to elect New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani. The year 2026 will reveal whether this trend persists or if it is a fad that passes once the Gaza war comes to a more permanent end.

Ultimately, 2026 will either mark the end of the Gaza war and the initiation of reconstruction and hope in the Strip—or it will perpetuate a state of stagnation and stalemate, risking a return to fighting, devastation, and more tragic deaths.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is the director of Realign For Palestine at the Atlantic Council.

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Nov 10, 2025

A little-discussed point in Trump’s Gaza plan could be an opportunity to build interfaith understanding

By Peter Mandaville

Peace efforts don’t need more gleaming Abrahamic baubles, they need a genuine commitment to supporting grassroots religious peacebuilding.

Civil Society Freedom and Prosperity

Iraq must maintain unprecedented stability

Amid continued regional turmoil, Iraq ended 2025 in a period of relative stability and security, avoiding being drawn into the Twelve Day War between Israel, Iran, and the United States—and holding successful parliamentary elections. The challenge for Iraqi political leaders in 2026 will not only be to maintain this unprecedented stability, but also to navigate Trump administration pressure to rein in Iran-aligned militias and avoid being pulled into the broader US maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Iraq is also likely to continue its efforts to appeal to the Trump administration through investment, pitching new energy deals to US companies, but it is not yet clear whether these efforts will be successful.

With Iranian influence in the region at an all-time low, Iraqi leaders have an opportunity to forge a more independent foreign policy that prioritizes continued partnership with the United States and differentiates Iraqi from Iranian interests. Core to this effort will be progress toward Iraq’s regional integration and strengthened political and economic ties to the Gulf and other regional partners such as Jordan and Egypt. In the face of Iraqi efforts to challenge the militias and strengthen partnerships with the United States and the Gulf, 2026 may bring attempts by Iran and Iran-aligned militias to act as spoilers who obstruct Iraq’s progress and imperil Iraq’s stability. Iraq’s next prime minister has an opportunity to transform the country.

The next year will be critical in determining whether the Iraqi government can seize the opportunity and whether the United States and other regional partners will support it in doing so.

Victoria J. Taylor is the director of the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East program.

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Dec 10, 2025

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A recent visit to Iraq following parliamentary elections reveals a growing divide between the political elite and the people.

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A political transition in Iran approaches

Political transitions are hard to predict, but there is no doubt Iran is approaching one. With a frail, unpopular, eighty-six-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei nearing his actuarial and conceivably political limits, 2026 could be the year.

Any transition has the potential to unleash dramatic changes in Iran, across the region, and in relations with the United States. The potential positive implications of new Iranian leadership and a change of approach are massive: relief from brutal suppression for the Iranian people, new possibilities in nuclear diplomacy and toward normalization with the United States, broadened detente with Iran’s Arab neighbors, and an end to the arming of violent terrorist proxies across the region that have squandered hundreds of billions of dollars of Iranian resources—driven by an ideological crusade to destroy Israel—while the Iranian people endure manmade water and electricity shortages. The beneficial effects would be felt from Iran to Lebanon to Gaza to Yemen and beyond.

None of this is preordained or automatic. A transition could cement a new generation of the Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership, bring to power an even more hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or devolve into chaos and civil war with massively destabilizing effects. What Washington should engage in through 2026 is transition planning—not in order to cause a regime change, which must be left to the Iranian people, but to be prepared to provide support for the Iranian people, resources and expertise, potential sanctions relief, and coordination with international partners to assist in steering a transition when it comes toward one of the better possible outcomes. The United States has moved smartly in 2025 to support a stable Syrian transition, and while the jury is still out on long-term stability there, there has been significant progress. An even more consequential transition awaits in Iran. Washington must not be caught flat-footed.

Daniel B. Shapiro is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.

Will the Israel-Iran cease-fire hold?

Following the Twelve Day War in June, Iran retains large quantities of highly enriched uranium and advanced centrifuges, without oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency. At the same time, while Iran’s missile program and support for nonstate proxies were diminished, Iran is rebuilding its capabilities and still threatens US, Israeli, and regional security.

After initially declaring Iran’s nuclear program obliterated, Trump has also repeatedly called for resumed negotiations and a new nuclear deal with Tehran. Although still nominally implementing the US “maximum pressure” campaign, Trump also made a high-profile gesture by inviting Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to the Gaza Peace Summit in October.

For its part, Iran appears to remain in a largely reactionary posture. It is attempting to rebuild its missile and defense capabilities but is not currently enriching uranium or advancing its nuclear program (that we know of). Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Iran is open to talks at the United Nations, but also foolishly rejected the Cairo invitation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded by reminding the world of the Iranian missile threat and increasingly targeting Iranian proxies. There is no written cease-fire in place, and continued peace is partially reliant on Trump holding Netanyahu back. As Israeli elections approach, will Trump’s “complete and total ceasefire” hold? Will Iran do something that gives the Israeli’s an excuse or opportunity to re-engage Iran militarily? Or will Iran give negotiations another chance? Either way, 2026 should make for a pivotal year for Iran.

Nathanael Swanson is a resident senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.

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The Israeli prime minister’s preferred path to survive a treacherous election will be to show Israeli voters that he is advancing their country’s regional integration and staying within the US president’s embrace.

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A duality of possible trajectories

2026 is a year of potential opportunity—and potential peril—for the Middle East.

Gulf states are determined to advance their political, economic, and security autonomy. Syria and Lebanon could either emerge as models of forward movement from instability or revert to sectarian strife and conflict. Pockets of normalcy could continue to advance in Iraq as exists today in parts of Baghdad and other cities, or it could descend back into political stasis and conflict. Israel could find itself more secure in the region by continuing to undertake kinetic strikes, or it could choose the path of less violence by completing meaningful security and cease-fire agreements with its neighbors. Choose the wrong option, however, and Israel could find itself more vulnerable to threats on its borders, not less. Palestinians could find space to grieve and begin to rebuild after two years of devastation—or face continued violence from West Bank settlers and a renewed war in Gaza, as well as some intra-Palestinian conflict. Jordan and Egypt will continue to muddle through their economic challenges and associated domestic social and political pressures, or this will be the year that they face collapse, and the world will look back and say the warning signs were there, we just missed them. 

Most of the region has an opportunity at this moment in which it can seize and advance its desire for greater autonomy, global influence, and further integration. The Middle East can envision a calmer, more prosperous region driven by technological opportunity across sectors, including by leveraging artificial intelligence and US-exported advanced chips, while taking advantage of the economic integration pathways that are being developed, such as IMEC.

But the duality of possible trajectories laid out above reflects that in the Middle East, more often than not, positive opportunities are interrupted by internal or exogenous factors that regional capitals have to manage in a manner they did not expect. How the region grapples with the enduring and emerging risks of 2026 will determine whether it can prosper as a whole or whether only some will thrive while many continue to struggle. But if those regional countries that are advancing economically, politically, socially, and in their security only look inwards and do not seek to stabilize their neighbors facing social and physical insecurity, they will risk the latter impeding their development, as well. And then 2026 will once again be a year of missed regional opportunities instead of progress.

Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs.

The post What will 2026 bring for the Middle East and North Africa? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The fact that Pakistan’s commitment pales in comparison with the US contribution to Saudi security quickly led commentators to dismiss the defense pact as a mere message to the United States that Riyadh would pursue other partners. Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman’s visit to Washington in early November and the accompanying arms sales (including the F-35s) further supported this view. However, this framing of the Saudi-Pakistani deal omitted one significant dimension: its negative implications for India. In fact, the agreement is much more consequential and more detrimental to Indian interests in the Middle East than to the United States.

Saudi-Pakistani ties are nothing new. Both countries have long-standing ties that involve Pakistan’s migrant labor and close security cooperation. Saudi armed forces have historically relied on Pakistani officers for training purposes. Since 1963, Pakistani soldiers have regularly been deployed to secure the kingdom’s territory, including holy cities like Mecca and Medina. Back in the 1980s, the intelligence services of both countries coordinated (with the United States) their support and training of the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union. Saudi Arabia is also widely believed to have financially supported Pakistan’s nuclear program.

For a long time, this Pakistani influence in Saudi Arabia—and, to a lesser extent, across the Gulf—limited India’s ability to expand its footprint in the area. India’s presence in the Gulf is first a matter of its diaspora: Approximately 9.7 million Indians live in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. In 2024, they sent $47 billion in remittances back home. However, over the past decade, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s premiership went beyond this demographic dimension and raised Indian ambitions to become a strategic player in the Gulf. Modi’s policy toward the region translated into a surge in high-level visits. It also included new trade deals, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement of 2022, and Gulf investments to support the modernization of Indian infrastructure. Finally, it also involved greater cooperation on security issues, such as counterterrorism and maritime security.

It helped that during this period, Gulf-Pakistani diplomatic relations deteriorated. In March 2015, after Saudi Arabia formed a coalition to intervene in Yemen against the Houthi insurgency, Pakistan declined Riyadh’s request to participate. Islamabad’s refusal angered Saudi and Emirati officials, who saw it as an ungrateful move from a country that relied heavily on Gulf financial support to avoid bankruptcy. Seen from Abu Dhabi or Riyadh, the growing gap between India, a rising power, and Pakistan, a nation on the brink of financial collapse, prompted Gulf leaders to reevaluate their South Asian partnerships.

However, ten years later, India’s momentum has slowed down. Many Gulf investments in India took years to materialize due to the local byzantine bureaucracy, casting doubt on Delhi’s ability to become the great power it aims to be. As a result, the Asia-Gulf partnerships that truly took off during that period were with China, not India.

And just like with Pakistan, Gulf states moved closer to China in sensitive areas that directly undermined Indian interests. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE procured missiles and unmanned systems from China. Then Western governments started suspecting that the UAE and Oman had been discussing with Beijing the provision of Chinese warships with a permanent facility in their ports. The prospect of Chinese naval basing in the Gulf triggered warning signals in Washington. But the presence of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy in Oman, whose shores are about 2,084 kilometers from India, is an even bigger worry for Delhi. 

Until recently, Indian officials were careful not to pressure their Gulf partners (at least publicly) on policies that ran counter to Delhi’s interests. When asked, Indian diplomats acknowledge that the scope of Beijing’s influence in the Gulf may be worrisome, but, as elsewhere in Asia, they also recognize that India can’t yet compete with China in the Middle East on business deals or security cooperation.

Likewise, in my discussions with Gulf officials and intellectuals, India is rarely mentioned in their strategic equation, as if the only actual great power competitors that matter in Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, or Muscat are Beijing and Washington. That is not to say India is neglected, but it is seen as an Asian power—not a global one—that mainly represents a destination for investments and a potential partner on regional issues. In other words, Gulf states believe they can decouple their India policies from their China and Pakistan ones, and Indian officials do not challenge that belief.

The gap between Gulf and Indian perceptions stems from Delhi’s lack of a clear regional ambition. To date, India has not articulated a strategy for the Middle East or the Gulf. China has one (to promote trade and investment while refraining from domestic interference), and so does the United States (to deter Iran, counter terrorist organizations, and contain China’s influence).

Conversely, India only has a collection of bilateral relations. Some remain strong (Israel, the UAE); others are stable, though limited (Saudi Arabia, Iran). Altogether, they do not form a cohesive regional strategy. This is not because Delhi cannot develop one, but because not having one allows its decision-makers to avoid facing inconvenient contradictions in those bilateral policies. For example, India heavily relies on Israel for military procurement (the third supplier of Indian arms imports), but it keeps buying oil from Iran. The Modi government supported Israel for most of its Gaza operation after October 7, but it also increased its financial aid to the United Nations’ Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, despite Jerusalem’s allegations of ties between the agency and Hamas. (The International Court of Justice rejected in October Israel’s allegations about UNRWA “infiltration by Hamas”).

Indian diplomats may argue that it exemplifies their multi-aligned approach, i.e., maintaining good relations with everyone. However, this multi-alignment can have adverse effects for India, especially when Gulf states adopt it as well and deepen security cooperation with China and Pakistan—the two most significant security threats to India’s national security. 

Eventually, India’s difficulties in the Gulf also affect US policy. Over the past five years, Washington has viewed India as a potential new partner in the Middle East. It has engaged Delhi in several new initiatives, including I2U2 (alongside Israel and the UAE), and the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor. However, if Gulf states increase their strategic engagement with China and Pakistan, that will weaken India’s ability to play such a role and could jeopardize the development of those initiatives. US diplomats should take stock of those constraints on Washington’s plans.

Despite these challenges, India’s Middle East policy could still evolve. Noticeably, after Riyadh announced its new defense agreement with Pakistan, Delhi did not stay silent. Asked by the media, the spokesperson from India’s Ministry of External Affairs emphasized the need for Saudi Arabia to remember “sensitivities” surrounding its pact with Pakistan. The diplomat did not dwell on it, but his statement revealed that multi-alignment eventually has its limits. It’ll be worth watching if India also gets more vocal when Gulf states engage with China in the security domain. When push comes to shove, if India wants to be treated as a major power in the Middle East, it must develop a clearer and more assertive regional strategy.

Jean-Loup Samaan is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore.

The post Is India losing clout in the Gulf? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Accounts of human rights abuses in Iran are so frequent and so well-documented that it’s easy to gloss over how much worse things are for the country’s minority populations. They face both official discrimination and day-to-day prejudice. Moreover, after June’s Twelve Day War between Israel and Iran, the United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran found that Kurds, Balochis, Arabs, and other minorities faced disproportionate arrests, penalties, and executions inside the Islamic Republic. This follows a predictable pattern: Whenever the regime feels under threat internally or externally, it tightens the screws on minorities. This intensifies resentment felt in those communities, thus creating a vicious circle. The regime’s paranoia about threats to national security from these groups risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

As Western policymakers and analysts try to discern possible futures for Iran—be it after the leadership of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or potentially post-Islamic Republic—they should pay attention to the peripheries of the country. Most analysts point out that a regime overthrow or a revolutionary uprising remain unlikely scenarios. The regime is powerful, despite its unpopularity—and the state is more deeply established than in most Middle Eastern countries. Nevertheless, instability cannot be ruled out, and it is worth considering scenarios for Iran’s minority regions should the highly centralized security state become distracted by a power struggle or an external conflict.

Iran’s minority communities

The experiences and aspirations of Iran’s minorities are not all the same. How far people identify as Iranian and how much as another nationality varies widely, making population statistics imprecise. Broadly, ethnic Persians are believed to be between 50 and 60 percent, Azerbaijanis between 16 and 20 percent, Kurds 10 percent, Baloch and Arabs 2 percent each, and there are also small populations of Turkmen, as well as others. Minorities can be counted in many different ways.

Of these groups, Kurdish national identity in the northwest of Iran has a long history, including in the modern era with the short-lived Republic of Mahabad in 1946 and the violent suppression of Kurdish autonomy after the revolution in 1979. Meanwhile, Arabs in Khuzestan are keenly aware of how little they benefit from the province’s oil wealth and that government mismanagement has left their water resources depleted. The Baluchi population, which is largely concentrated on the border with Pakistan, suffers socioeconomic deficits, as well as structural exclusion (as both an ethnic and religious minority). Hundreds of thousands of them have no official documents, which excludes them from school and the workplace, as well as political life. And the largest linguistic minority, the Azeri-speakers, have a complicated relationship with the majority Persian population. Under the Islamic Republic, this previously well-integrated community has developed an increasingly separate identity—energized by the independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 1991 and its successive bouts of conflict with Armenia. When fans of the Tractor Tabriz football team riot, as they regularly do, they chant not only the phrase “death to the dictator,” but also jibes against ethnic Persians. Yet Azerbaijanis are not excluded from the inner circles of power in Iran—President Masoud Pezeshkian is one, and even Khamenei hails from that community, although he does not identify as such. 

The response to the Twelve Day War

The Islamic Republic’s internal messaging in the wake of the Twelve Day War was somewhat confused. On the one hand, the regime singled out minorities for repression and allegations of espionage. On the other, it sought to portray a nation united and defiant under attack. In the rather heavy-handed propaganda after the war, this has even extended to drawing on pre-Islamic Persian national myths.

Ironically, the prevalence of this very Persian nationalist iconography risks looking mono-ethnic and further alienating minority populations. Yet senses of identity are hard to pigeonhole in Iran as elsewhere: Anyone who has talked to people from these areas knows that it’s possible to be, for example, Kurdish, Arab, or Azeri, resentful not to have schooling in your mother tongue, and mistrustful of the centralized Islamic Republic, and yet still identify proudly as an Iranian.

In recognition of these tensions, Pezeshkian and his government have stressed inclusiveness in Tehran’s nationalist messages since the Twelve Day War. In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Pezeshkian said, “even if we had made no achievements in this war, the fact that it united the nation in defense of territorial integrity was the greatest achievement for us.” And interestingly, the government has also announced plans for a decentralization of powers to provincial governors.

That latter initiative is significant: Anything that looks like federalism has been stamped out by the Islamic Republic (right from the early days when it was on the agenda of some of the groups who joined the revolution). The constitution is firmly unitary, so even figures like former President Mohammad Khatami, who mused about the virtues of federalism during his term, concluded it was not possible. And sure enough, even Pezeshkian’s timid moves towards allowing governors more powers to implement policy locally have been condemned as “federalist” by hardline critics. Yet, these moves are evidence of a nervousness at the center about the risks of unrest and the need to appease minorities.

There isn’t much true separatism or irredentism in Iran’s minorities, although their ethnic identities are cross-border. The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, for example, contains a spectrum of views about what self-determination looks like, but its mainstream aspiration has shifted over the years from independence to some form of autonomy within the framework of the Iranian state. Cultural and linguistic rights are particularly important for all of these minorities.

The local development agenda is also relevant here. For example, the staggering mismanagement of Iran’s water usage over the years has recently led to acute problems across the country. While this has long been a problem in underdeveloped provinces, only now is water scarcity impinging on the capital. For local Iranian Azerbaijanis, for example, the drying up of Lake Urmia and its environs is blamed on national policies and is thus intertwined with their political grievances towards Tehran. It would be natural for populations that already feel marginalized by the center to believe that they could do a better job if they managed their own affairs.

The Islamic Republic did, in fact, make progress in its early decades in leveling up regional inequalities by investing in rural education and development, but more recently, centralization, corruption, the domination of the economy by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and sanctions have overwhelmed any sense in the peripheries that Tehran has their interests at heart. That is the context in which Pezeshkian’s initiative to devolve powers to governors makes sense. 

Growing distrust of the regime’s competence

The greater risk for the regime may be the general collapse of belief in the regime’s competence and political will to do more than look after its own survival. That is true across the country. But in areas with strong local identities and long-standing grievances, it likely would not take much for charismatic local leaders to emerge and challenge the center—not necessarily on an overtly ethnic or cultural platform, but on one of good governance. 

A number of things would need to apply for that to happen. If the central government remains united and the IRGC and Basij militia stay loyal to whichever regime is in place, these centrifugal tendencies will have little scope to grow. Genuine steps towards decentralization could take the heat out of local resentments. A rapprochement with the West and a degree of sanctions relief could bring a new lease of life for regime legitimacy. But analysts and Western policymakers should not assume any of these. 

And if the regime’s central authority does indeed falter and bonds holding the unitary state together are loosened, the situation could snowball rapidly. All these groups have, or have had, armed factions willing to take on the regime in one way or another. On the one hand, Iran might be set off on a pathway to a new, federal settlement that allows greater civil and cultural rights to all its people. But perhaps more likely, a forceful reaction from the center could lead to prolonged conflicts and more radicalization on both sides. In that case, it is easy to imagine support coming from over Iran’s borders to support specific resistance groups, whether from governments or nonstate actors. 

Few would want to see such a situation. Regional governments would rapidly feel the effects of instability in Iran and may well prefer a unitary, if threatening, Islamic Republic to a failed state on their doorstep. Europe could face a refugee flood dwarfing the earlier waves from Syria during its decade-long war. The emergence of ungoverned space in Iran would invite the emergence of radicalization and terrorism, and the history of Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan suggests this would lead to transnational threats. Nevertheless, for those in the diaspora whose ideological commitment is to the end of the Islamic Republic regime at all costs, or for some in Israel who might see a failed state as a satisfactory outcome, this scenario may not be unwelcome.

All of which suggests that now is the time for Western and regional policymakers to form a clear-eyed view of what such a fragmentation would mean, and how they should engage with Iran’s minorities—both now and through any regime transition. 

Rob Macaire is a member of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project advisory committee and a former British ambassador to Iran. 

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States and international organizations—including the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Gulf Cooperation Council, among others—have a vital role to play in Syria’s reconstruction and recovery, including for the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who suffered detention, torture, and abuse. But states have been responding to the conflict since its start in 2011 by initiating legal actions related to international law violations occurring in Syria. These included prosecuting companies for providing material support to terrorist organizations in Syria and imposing fines for breaching sanctions imposed in response to the conflict in Syria. From these settlements and judgments, states collected or seized significant sums—over $600 million in one instance. While the ongoing harms suffered by Syrians underpinned these cases, states have generally directed the recovered funds to their own treasuries, even as Syrians continue to desperately need international assistance to move on from over a decade of conflict.

States always had the opportunity to divert these funds to victims and survivors within Syria, but doing so while the Assad regime controlled vast portions of the country would have been complicated. Now, as states settle into their relationship with the interim government in Damascus, they should redirect the penalties they’ve collected to the underlying victims who were directly harmed. This support should be facilitated through an intergovernmental Syria Victims Fund—a mechanism for states to transfer Syria-linked funds collected from monetary judgements to a central location to better support victims of international law violations in Syria. The Strategic Litigation Project and a working group of Syrian civil society representatives have been advocating for such a fund for the past several years.

Urgent needs in Syria remain

For victims and survivors of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other human rights violations in Syria, the fall of the Assad regime marked a turning point in Syria’s history and an end to fifty-three years of state-enforced repression. It also presented significant opportunities—namely, increased access by international organizations and observers to those in need of assistance in previously inaccessible areas of the country. Both international and domestic human rights defenders and humanitarian workers have already begun administering legal and medical aid to victims and survivors living in former regime-controlled areas, and investigators have begun cataloging former detention sites and exhuming mass graves to identify the bodies recovered. Regime records are helping identify the fate of those missing.

However, the country still faces dire needs across all sectors to recover from the past decades of conflict and repression. States, international organizations, and civil society moved swiftly to support Syria after Assad fell —including lifting sanctions and providing millions in aid—but a year of aid remains insufficient in the face of decades of grievous harm, especially in light of US foreign aid cuts. While many Syrians across the country face similar humanitarian needs—such as a lack of medical, legal, or education support, the danger of unexploded ordinances, and general reconstruction in many areas devastated by the conflict—victim and survivor communities across Syria face unique challenges.

Thousands of regime detainees (who were often arbitrarily detained and subject to torture and other violations) freed from Assad’s brutal prison system—such as Sednaya prison, which has been referred to by Syrians as a “human slaughterhouse”—now need assistance in rebuilding their lives. These freed detainees, and other survivors of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians subject to regime detention, torture, and other abuses, require specialized medical care. Survivors and families of the over 500,000 Syrians believed to have been killed and of the over 100,000 believed to have been forcibly disappeared additionally require specialized psychosocial, legal, and other related aid.

Opportunities for asset collection

As Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces moved toward the Syrian capital in December 2024 in a rapid offensive across the country, regime officials—including financial administrators, leaders of state security forces, and Assad himself—fled the country in droves. Many are known or believed to have relocated their valuables and portable assets out of Syria or to have fled to the jurisdictions where they had stashed their wealth before Assad fell. Investigators should now follow the trails of evidence left behind to identify and collect these private assets.

Experts such as those at intelligence firm Alaco have indicated their long-held belief that the Assad family’s and associates’ wealth—largely accumulated through drug trafficking, corruption, and market manipulation—is in tax havens abroad. Many high-ranking government, military, and business officials connected to the regime fled to Russia to escape rebel forces. Others simply disappeared, along with millions of dollars collected through corruption and money laundering. Financial Times investigators have already uncovered troves of documents and intelligence related not only to the years of illicit wealth accumulation and the financing of human rights abuses but also to where Assad and his associates may have moved their ill-gotten wealth as they fled.

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Dec 7, 2025

One year after Assad’s fall, here’s what’s needed to advance justice for Syrians

By Elise Baker and Ahmad Helmi

The second year of a post-Assad Syria requires structural reform, victim-centered leadership, and international reinforcement.

Democratic Transitions International Norms

According to reporting from Reuters, as opposition forces closed in on Damascus, Assad transported significant wealth to the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—including at least fifty thousand dollars in cash, as well as documents, laptops, and artwork. Reuters reported that the assets moved to the UAE reportedly included financial records, real estate, and partnerships, and details of cash transfers, offshore companies, and accounts.

Documents and intelligence recovered by HTS forces after the fall of the regime additionally revealed previously unknown dealings between prominent Syrian businessmen and the Syrian state, including millions poured into the infamous Fourth Division of the Syrian Arab Army, known for committing severe human rights abuses and stealing from the civilian population during the war.

States should now dedicate resources to identifying ill-gotten assets in their jurisdictions, pursuing legal processes to seize the funds, and repurposing them for disbursement to the Syria Victims Fund. Pursuing these actions prevents private actors from profiting off atrocities and creates an easy and sustainable pathway for states to support Syrian victims and survivors.  

While assets moved to authoritarian states such as Russia may be difficult to recover, international investigators should dedicate resources to analyzing recently revealed information and recovering this ill-gotten wealth from states with asset recovery frameworks in place. Legal teams have in the past successfully secured asset freezes linked to the Assad family’s misconduct in Syria—for example, the collection by a Spanish court in 2017 of the assets of Rifat al-Assad, the uncle of Bashar al-Assad.

The need for a Syria Victims Fund

The Syrian interim government is developing a state-led transitional justice plan  through the recently established National Commission for Transitional Justice and the National Commission for the Missing. This is welcome news, and the interim government must continue its efforts to work with Syrian civil society, victims and survivors, and others to create a comprehensive and representative plan. However, the urgent needs for victim communities in Syria necessitate an immediate response, and the Syria Victims Fund can fill this gap.

It must be noted that the Syria Victims Fund would not take the place of reparations, which will come through transitional justice processes. As has taken place in other post-conflict countries, such as Colombia, the Gambia, and Guatemala, reparations have the potential to restore victims’ dignity, acknowledge the harms which took place, and help victims to rebuild their lives—though only with input from survivors and affected populations can reparations programs be truly sustainable and restorative.

Instead, the Syria Victims Fund could draw on prior examples of repurposing seized funds, such as the BOTA Foundation in Kazakhstan. It could repurpose funds that morally belong to Syrian victims and survivors—in that they were seized in legal processes related to serious violations of international law in Syria—to provide interim reparative measures to victims, therefore equipping survivors with resources to seek the care that they want or need. The Syria Victims Fund’s efforts—such as working with victim communities and identifying needs—can also help facilitate transitional justice processes, such as by mapping violations or creating victim registries.

The creation of a Syria Victims Fund can help facilitate repair and recovery for Syrian victims, one year after the fall of the Assad regime. States shouldn’t waste this opportunity.

Kate Springs is a program assistant in the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council. Previously, she was a young global professional with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs.

Celeste Kmiotek is a staff lawyer for the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project. Her work focuses on corporate accountability and addressing the financial aspects of atrocities such as the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, as well as legal efforts to hold the Islamic Republic of Iran to account for its domestic, transnational, and transboundary crimes.

The post States shouldn’t waste the chance to establish a Syria Victims Fund appeared first on Atlantic Council.

He recalls holding his wife as she recited the Tashahhud before the gas and the airstrikes that followed “erased all life,” and he later lost a second wife to another strike during the siege.

This September, sitting in his workshop that he rebuilt from the rubble, Khaled told one of the authors that he is working hard to restart the furniture business that once sustained his family. After years in Idlib and Turkey, he has returned to Eastern Ghouta—strictly driven by what he calls a “simple hope for peace and stability,” and a vow to “do whatever it takes to rebuild” his devastated town.

His suffering, he says, would be worth reliving “so long as it means I get to rebuild this country.”

One year since Assad’s fall and amid the steepest US development aid cuts in decades, Syria—a country that for over a decade was regarded as one of the worst humanitarian crises of the modern century—stands to have the most potential to showcase how local ownership, civil society, and a grassroots focus can accelerate reconstruction.

As is the case in many other parts of the region that have endured years of conflict, invasion, and destruction, Syria’s real infrastructure today is not physical, but human—the one thing that cannot be replaced, bypassed, or shortchanged by aid or the deficit of it. Syrian civil society must be a central architect to Syria’s rebuilding—not an afterthought to anyone’s investment. Today, the future of development rests not in big donor money or foreign aid but in a country’s most valuable asset: its people.

A 2017 State Department evaluation of Syrian civil society projects highlighted “local buy-in and ownership are key to project success in the short and long-term.” The evaluation recommended that there should be “consistent opportunities” for civil society organizations and grassroots communities to “provide input” to the project at hand from the get-go regarding community needs, training topics, and feedback throughout the project’s life cycle. For a country with a pre-war economy of roughly $60 billion, and whose physical reconstruction alone the World Bank now estimates at around $216 billion, Syria represents not just a humanitarian obligation, but a momentous opportunity to reimagine how investment, local ownership, and rebuilding can go hand in hand—setting an example for the rest of the Middle East and North Africa region, where tragically other conflicts linger in Gaza, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan.

One year on from the start of life in a post-Assad Syria, the country faces a historic moment to set a regional example anchored in the most durable, valuable, and scalable asset of any nation, which remains its civil society.

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Dec 7, 2025

One year after Assad’s fall, here’s what’s needed to advance justice for Syrians

By Elise Baker and Ahmad Helmi

The second year of a post-Assad Syria requires structural reform, victim-centered leadership, and international reinforcement.

Democratic Transitions International Norms

Rebuilding in Syria

In just the first few months since Syria’s emergence on the international stage, the country signed more than $14 billion worth of major investment agreements with regional and international companies—including investments from European donors, Gulf states (such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar), multilateral banks, and private companies that have moved into the country’s reconstruction sector. This includes the $5.8 billion in grants and loans pledged at the 2025 Brussels conference to the expansion of economic engagement with Turkey, the hundreds of millions of dollars in new Gulf-backed port and industrial-zone deals that are still a fraction of the roughly $216 billion the World Bank estimates full rebuilding will require.

Saudi Arabia, whose de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is a key backer of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government, signed forty-seven investment agreements and memorandums of understanding at the July 2025 Saudi-Syrian Investment Forum. Most of these investments are focused on rebuilding Syria’s infrastructure across various sectors, including transportation and construction—especially residential—as well as energy, maritime, and industry.

However, what’s indispensable to any form of sufficient, scalable, and sustainable development is that these public and private actors treat local Syrian councils, civic organizations, educators, and technicians as co-designers, facilitators, and contract partners.

Civil society as Syria’s greatest asset

These sectors provide a unique opportunity for engaging local actors in Syria. This includes the civil society organizations and community leaders that played a prominent role in maintaining basic services and key development projects amidst the horrors of the country’s civil war.

The White Helmets represent a key example. The humanitarian grassroots organization was formed in Aleppo and the surrounding countryside, saving civilian lives under perpetual airstrikes and shelling by the Assad regime and clearing the rubble and debris afterward, all at a time when no international aid could reach them. Their role grew into successfully repairing roads, reconnecting water networks in rebel-held districts, and providing key services to Syrians, including health and training to local community members.

It therefore came as no surprise that their founder, Raed Saleh, was appointed to Syria’s new cabinet as minister of emergencies and disaster management when the new government came to power. Today, he is bringing his decade-plus experience and community networks to the entire country.

In the northern Idlib province, previously ruled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—the Islamist militant group that ultimately broke with Assad’s rule—various civil society organizations such as Kesh Malek, the Mazaya Women’s Organization, and the Violet Organization for Relief and Development provided educational and literacy support, women’s empowerment initiatives, teacher trainings, vocational training, and civic-leadership programs designed to prepare the next generation of Syrians to rebuild their country.

In Duma, a suburb of Damascus that endured years of siege (including the deadly April 2018 chemical attacks claimed to be executed by the Assad regime), people such as Ameen Badran, an activist and local community council member, started arranging garbage pickups and today continue to engage in reconstruction efforts even after al-Sharaa’s government appointed a mayor.

Similarly, in Zabaadni, after the fall of Assad, English teacher Alaa Zain Al Den told one of the authors that “the trauma on us was so much that we don’t even know what to do with this newly found freedom and joy.”

“However,” he added, “what we do know is that we want to rebuild, we want to start our work—the work that was taken from us.”

Today, Syria’s education system lies in ruins, with over half of the five million school-age children currently out of school and around seven to eight thousand schools damaged or destroyed across the country. This educational breakdown underlines why rebuilding must rely on local knowledge and community-rooted institutions that only Syrians, with firsthand awareness of what their neighborhoods truly need, can design. This is one sector that incoming investments should focus on as it helps to develop a new generation of Syrians for a revived economy.

Alaa and many hundreds of educators alike remained in Syria through the war. Expelled from his government teaching post in 2017 after refusing conscription into Assad’s army, Alaa spent years in limbo, unable to find stable work as the economy collapsed. The cost of that decision was immense. For years, he lived in hiding, while his brother was arrested during the war. Alaa’s family found out recently that his brother was killed in prison. Despite the scars, he and other teachers now hope for a chance to return to their classrooms and rebuild a broken educational system.

“Reconstruction in Syria will be meaningless if it is not built on the lived experience of Syrians themselves. Our communities know exactly what was destroyed—and what it takes to rebuild in a way that lasts,” said Anas, another educator who works in the same school as Alaa in Zabadani.

Private sector-led workforce development

These are just a few examples of some of the individuals, grassroots organizations, and local initiatives that have the experience, local knowledge, and networks to work with the private sector—both Syrian and international—to effectively contribute to this essential rebuilding process.

Where there is a skills gap, especially in technology-heavy sectors, companies investing in Syria must commit to training and up-skilling Syrians, not just as future employees, but as future managers, executives, and leaders. This requires a workforce-development formula that moves beyond traditional international-aid models and instead places private enterprises at the center of project design, implementation, and assessment, allowing their sector-specific needs to shape training pipelines and employment pathways.

A successful example of this approach is Jordan’s Luminus Technical University College (LTUC)—a private-sector–funded institution that reimagined vocational and technical education by linking all its programs directly to labor-market demand and employer input. Today, LTUC offers fifty accredited programs across twelve specializations, including information technology, engineering, creative media, construction, and health and safety—all fields that mirror the urgent reconstruction needs identified for Syria in assessments by the World Bank and United Nations Development Programme that emphasize shortages in skilled engineers, technicians, digital-economy workers, and construction professionals.

Local ownership of reconstruction initiatives brings with it core elements that may sound frivolous for international heavy hitters but are proven to be key ingredients of long-lasting success. Chief among these foundational pillars are local integrity and purpose, in addition to deep knowledge of a complex and multidimensional sociocultural context.

Hisham Tinawi—a once successful shopkeeper in Zabadani whose home was destroyed under heavy artillery and airstrikes—explains how “local communities possess the precise knowledge of the destruction and how to build viable solutions.”

He added that “those who remained inside the country possess accumulated field experience that no external party can replace; excluding them from the reconstruction process means excluding the truth from the picture.” Syrians see themselves not as bystanders to a new future that they paid for with their blood and tears, but as core partners in rebuilding.

“Effective reconstruction cannot be conceived without linking it to the voice of Syrians on the ground; we are not just beneficiaries but key partners with a clear vision of the future we want,” Tinawi told the author.

Today, investors—regional and global—must heed Tinawi’s advice and invest in education and workforce development training, as a start. Syria’s civil society remains its biggest asset and has proven ready and effective at rebuilding a Syria they so deeply deserve.

Tara Kangarlou is an award-winning global affairs journalist, author, and humanitarian who has worked with news outlets such as NBC, CNN, CNN International, and Al Jazeera America. She is also the author of the bestselling book The Heartbeat of Iran, the founder of nonprofit Art of Hope, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, teaching on humanized storytelling and journalism.

Merissa Khurma is the founder and chief executive officer of AMENA Strategies, an associate fellow at the Middle East Institute, and a nonresident fellow at the Baker Institute. She formerly headed the Middle East program at the Wilson Center. 

The post Syria’s civil society must take center stage in reconstruction appeared first on Atlantic Council.

But the prospect of justice in Syria changed overnight on December 8, 2024. Assad fled his presidential palace and later Syria, flying to Russia as opposition fighters advanced on Damascus, liberating hundreds of political prisoners from Sednaya prison and other notorious detention centers along the way.

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Dec 7, 2025

Syria’s civil society must take center stage in reconstruction

By Tara Kangarlou and Merissa Khurma

One year since Bashar al-Assad’s fall, Syria stands to have the most potential to showcase how local ownership can accelerate reconstruction.

Civil Society Middle East

Over the past twelve months, there have been notable developments in Syria’s justice and accountability space. But progress has been conservative, likely due to a combination of factors. One such factor is the overwhelming nature of the task to secure justice for countless violations from over a decade of brutal war. Another is the Syrian transitional government’s need to build up from zero and its decision to centralize power within the ruling inner circle at the expense of civil society participation. An additional factor at play is a preference across many foreign governments to observe developments in Damascus before determining their level and modes of engagement.

In order to advance prospects of justice for Syrians after more than a decade of war, the second year of a post-Assad Syria requires structural reform, victim-centered leadership, and international reinforcement to prevent this opening from being squandered.

Justice developments in Syria since Assad’s fall

Syria has begun building out its national architecture of transitional justice. In May, transitional President Ahmad al-Sharaa issued Decree No. 20, establishing the National Commission for Transitional Justice with “financial and administrative independence.” Commissioners were appointed three months later, and they have begun meeting with civil society organizations, Syrians across the country and in the diaspora, and representatives from foreign governments, international bodies, and other post-conflict societies. However, the commission’s structure and internal regulations remain unclear, without a statute or terms of reference, and its scope of work is limited to Assad regime violations, excluding violations by other actors and those committed after December 8, 2024.

Syria’s Ministry of Justice has also begun investigating and building cases on Assad regime violations. The Ministry of Justice is investigating judges from the Assad-era Counter Terrorism Court and requesting complaints from citizens. These judges are responsible for presiding over tens of thousands of sham trials that imprisoned or sentenced to death detainees based on vague, trumped-up charges that considered the provision of medical aid and the documentation of human rights abuses, among other acts, to amount to terrorism. The Ministry of Justice has also, according to media reports, requested that Lebanon extradite former Assad regime officials accused of war crimes who fled Syria after the fall of the regime.

Finally, Syria has made progress addressing violations since December 8, 2024. The government established national committees to investigate two episodes of mass sectarian violence: in Alawite-majority coastal areas in March this year and in Druze-majority Sweida in July. The coastal committee was criticized for not releasing its report publicly and failing to acknowledge the government’s responsibility for the crimes. Nevertheless, the committee’s efforts have led to Syria’s first public trial in decades, of fourteen suspects in the March violence in coastal Syria.

Justice developments outside Syria since Assad’s fall

There have also been notable justice developments outside Syria over the past year. Foreign countries have continued pursuing universal jurisdiction trials that were in development before Assad’s fall, and Syrian civil society continues to file new complaints. After German and Swedish authorities carried out arrests in July 2024, parallel trials are now underway in both countries against Assad regime-allied suspects accused of violations in Yarmouk Camp, a district south of Damascus that regime-affiliated forces besieged and bombed during the war.

The United States is scheduled to begin the trial of former Assad regime official Samir al Sheikh in March 2026, after his arrest in July 2024 for immigration fraud, with torture charges added days after the fall of the Assad regime. In France, judicial authorities issued a new arrest warrant against Assad for his role in the 2013 chemical weapon attacks in Damascus suburbs, replacing a French warrant that was annulled in July this year due to his head of state immunity at the time it was issued in 2023. In late November, victims and survivors, supported by Syrian civil society organizations, filed a criminal complaint seeking an investigation into the role Danish maritime fuel company Dan-Bunkering may have played in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria by supplying jet fuel to Russian forces that was used in strikes against Syrians.

Foreign states have also launched new arrest warrants, charges, and indictments against high-level Assad regime figures since the fall of the regime. One day after Assad’s fall, US authorities unsealed war crimes charges against Jamil Hassan and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, two architects of Assad regime detention and torture practices, who in May 2024 were convicted in absentia of crimes against humanity in France, along with a third regime official. In November this year, France issued an extradition request to Lebanon for those three former Assad regime officials. This followed France’s September arrest warrant against Assad and six officials for their roles in the targeted killings of journalists in Homs in 2012 (which came one month before the chemical weapons arrest warrant was reissued in October). Finally, in mid-November, Austrian authorities indicted Assad regime official Brigadier General Khaled al-Halabi, who had reached Vienna with support from Israeli and Austrian intelligence, according to media reports citing Austrian intelligence agency memos.

Recommendations to advance justice for Syria

There has been notable progress on justice for Syria. Many of the developments discussed above—namely Syria’s National Commission for Transitional Justice, domestic investigations for Assad-era abuses and public trials, and multiple arrest warrants for Assad himself—were unimaginable just over a year ago. But the work of securing justice for Syria has only just begun, and more significant steps are needed from Syrian, foreign, and international actors.

As an overarching recommendation, Syria’s transitional justice process must center the calls from and preferences of Syrian victims, survivors, human rights defenders, activists, lawyers, and other civil society members who have dedicated more than a decade to pursuing justice for violations. Syria’s justice process should be Syrian-led, but that does not mean it should be led only by Syrian transitional government authorities. Syrian civil society has significant expertise, having led justice and accountability efforts for fourteen years, and the justice process must be designed to serve victims and survivors. It is certainly a welcome sign that victims, survivors, and human rights defenders have been appointed to posts in the National Commission for Transitional Justice, National Commission for Missing Persons, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But appointments alone are not enough; efforts must continue to ensure these individuals have influence in their posts, that they are not overpowered by more senior officials or executive authority, and that broader civil society expertise is incorporated within and outside formal structures.

Syrian authorities must undertake significant domestic reform to ensure future domestic accountability efforts will follow human rights standards. The Ministry of Justice, court system, and legal infrastructure helped to commit and enforce violations and corruption under the Assad regime. It will take years to rebuild these institutions and structures—to ensure they support victims rather than further victimize them, and to ensure transparency and legitimacy. Syrian law and procedure also requires significant reform: to abolish vague criminal charges that were weaponized against dissidents under the Assad regime; to adopt legislation criminalizing war crimes, crimes against humanity, enforced disappearance, and torture in line with international standards; to adopt procedures that will ensure victim and witness protection; and to abolish the death penalty, to name only a few. Given that Syrian government institutions have never untaken this work previously, it will also take years for national bodies to develop the specialized expertise required to investigate and prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other international crimes that are quite complex, and to amass the evidence required to prosecute these cases.

The new Syrian parliament should also adopt an inclusive law allowing for the prosecution of all criminals, regardless of perpetrator group, and committing to undertake all pillars of transitional justice. Syrian authorities should welcome support from specialized foreign and international experts, in addition to victims, survivors, and Syrian civil society actors who have been leading justice efforts for more than a decade. These individuals can advise on rebuilding and reforming national systems and support documentation and case-building—transitional authorities could benefit from more expertise on these tasks, especially from the expertise of international experts and Syrian civil society that have engaged on these tasks deeply. In the meantime, the Syrian authorities should grant victims’ associations and civil society organizations access to both prisons and trials, to monitor, improve transparency, help guarantee best practices, and ensure that torture and enforced disappearances do not occur again.

Finally, Syria’s transition and transitional justice process requires ongoing support and engagement from foreign and international actors. Such engagement and pressure has proven essential for post-conflict trials and transitional justice efforts in other contexts. Although foreign states’ priorities may be the stabilization and return of refugees, this agenda will be best achieved by supporting transitional justice and the rule of law. First, foreign states should continue to pursue universal jurisdiction trials, which are a necessary complement to domestic and international trials. The many perpetrators who fled Syria during the conflict or after Assad’s fall cannot evade justice simply because they left the country. Second, foreign states and international organizations should support Syrian transitional authorities in developing and rebuilding national institutions, systems, and expertise by offering trainings, expertise through secondments, and financial support. Third, foreign and international actors should push Syrian transitional authorities to take reforms or other actions to advance justice when progress stalls. Foreign and international actors should support Syrian victim, survivor, and broader civil society calls on the transitional authorities, using their influence to help ensure Syria’s transitional justice program is victim and survivor-centered. Fourth, foreign and international actors should continue to support the work of victim, survivor, and civil society organizations in documentation, case-building, and advocacy. A robust civil society will be essential to ensuring a just transition for Syria.

The Assad family controlled Syria for more than half a century. The task of securing justice for Assad-era violations is monumental. Syrian transitional authorities, civil society, and foreign and international actors must work together to have the best chance of success.

Elise Baker is a senior staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project. She provides legal support to the project, which seeks to include legal tools in foreign policy, with a focus on prevention and accountability efforts for atrocity crimes, human-rights violations, terrorism, and corruption offenses.

Ahmad Helmi is a nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute and a founding manager of the Taafi Initiative, supporting survivors of enforced disappearances and torture. He has worked for justice and human rights in Syria for twelve years and survived three years of imprisonment and torture in Assad regime prisons.

The post One year after Assad’s fall, here’s what’s needed to advance justice for Syrians appeared first on Atlantic Council.

However, this growing conversation in Israel—and the Knesset bills pushing towards West Bank annexation—fails to recognize that any annexation proposal is illegal under international law. This is not open debate. Under current international law, annexation is always illegal, under all circumstances. While politics certainly play into international responses to annexation, Russia’s annexation of Crimea—widely condemned by the West—is just as illegal as any potential Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

This article lays out international law prohibiting annexation before discussing international responses to Israeli proposals for annexing the West Bank. Should Israel actually seek to implement any annexation plan, all other states have a legal obligation to not recognize Israel’s annexation as legal or otherwise aid or assist in it. Recognizing, aiding, or assisting in any annexation both violates international law and risks jeopardizing foundational principles in international law, thereby undermining the law and increasing the risk of annexation in other contexts.

What is annexation, and what does international law say about it?

Annexation is a state’s forcible acquisition of territory of another state or recognized non-self-governing entity. Annexation is distinct from other modes of acquiring territory, for example by cession through mutual agreement, by means of prescription, or by accretion or natural development of new territory.

International law has not always prohibited annexation. Prior to World War I, there were no restrictions on the rights of states to wage war on other states and forcibly acquire territory. Peace treaties concluded at the end of World War I resulted in annexation—the transfer of territory from the defeated Central Powers, to the victorious Allies or new states.

However, the law began to change in response to World War I. Seeking to establish a new world order with international peace and security and prevent wars of aggression, which had just cost millions of lives, the League of Nations Covenant called for member states to “respect and preserve … the territorial integrity” of other member states and restricted the ability to wage war. However, the League of Nations proved ineffective at preventing the next war of aggression in World War II, including the scale of territorial occupation and annexation that cost tens of millions more lives globally.

Following World War II, states collectively founded the United Nations (UN) as a second attempt to establish a new world order with international peace and security. The UN Charter doubled down on preventing wars of aggression and forcible acquisition of territory. Article 2(4) requires all member states to “refrain … from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity … of any state” except in self-defense (Article 51) or pursuant to a UN Security Council decision (Article 42). By prohibiting the use of force, Article 2(4) makes annexations illegal for all 193 UN Member States and prohibits states from recognizing as valid territorial changes by other states’ annexation.

The UN Charter reflects customary international law (legal obligations arising from established practice, rather than written texts, which all countries are required to abide by), and thus annexation is prohibited under customary international law. Further, the prohibition of aggression is a “peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens),” or “a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted.”

The prohibition against aggression relates to annexation in that it prohibits the use of armed force by one state against another—acts that often precipitate annexation—and some definitions of aggression even include “annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof.” The prohibition of annexation under customary international law is reflected in additional sources, including binding UN Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), recognizing the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war,” and 662 (1990), declaring annexations, including Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait, as “null and void,” with “no legal validity.” Additionally, UN General Assembly Resolution 2625 (XXV) states that “territory of a State shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force” and that “[n]o territorial acquisition resulting form the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal. Resolution 2734 (XXV) reaffirms that “no territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal,” and regional agreements like the Helsinki Final Act of 1970 state that participating states will “refrain from any demand for, or any act of, seizure and usurpation of part or all of the territory of any participating State.”

Aside from outlier states like Russia, virtually all states recognize annexation as illegal. This is reflected in statements and discussions in 2022 regarding Russia’s attempted annexation of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions in Ukraine.

In September 2022, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued an unequivocal statement that “any annexation of a State’s territory by another State resulting from the threat or use of force” violates the UN Charter and international law. In October 2022, the UN General Assembly resumed its emergency special session regarding Russia’s wholescale invasion of Ukraine to address the latest annexation attempt. Dozens of UN member states made statements in the General Assembly, which then-US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield described as sharing “the same resounding message over and over again. It is the same message shared by the Secretary-General, the one I started with: It is illegal, and simply unacceptable, to attempt to redraw another country’s borders by force.”

On October 12, 2022, the General Assembly adopted Resolution ES-11/4, which condemned Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” in Ukraine—with 143 states voting in favor, and only five against, including Russia, joined by Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua, and Syria under the regime of its former dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Responses to proposed Israeli annexation of the West Bank

Discussions around Israel’s potential annexation of portions of the West Bank are not new. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said in past election campaigns that he would annex portions of the West Bank, as an attempt to appeal to right-wing Israelis. These statements have typically resulted in strong international condemnation because annexation is illegal.

Guterres said in 2020 that Israel’s threatened annexation of the West Bank, if implemented, “would constitute a most serious violation of international law.” Guterres has repeated similar statements this year—that “annexation is illegal” and “[t]he creeping annexation of the occupied West Bank is illegal”—as discussion of West Bank annexation has grown inside Israel ahead of elections next year.

The International Court of Justice also issued an advisory opinion in 2024 finding that Israel’s policies and practices—including imposition of Israeli law, construction of the wall and infrastructure, and establishment and expansion of settlements—“amount to annexation of large parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The court concluded that this annexation, or Israel’s attempt “to acquire sovereignty over an occupied territory … is contrary to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations and its corollary principle of the non-acquisition of territory by force.” While advisory opinions are not binding, they “carry great legal weight and moral authority” and are persuasive sources in national and international courts.

Other states have also condemned recent Israeli proposals to annex the West Bank and noted their illegality. Even staunch Israeli allies like US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio opposed the latest Knesset votes to advance annexation plans, although their statements have not condemned the annexation plans as illegal. It is an open question whether the Trump administration will maintain this hard stance against West Bank annexation proposals, especially given Trump’s 2019 recognition of Israel’s annexation of the occupied Golan Heights—an annexation that the international community recognized as illegal, is opposed by virtually every other state, and the UN Security Council condemned as “null and void and without international legal effect.”

Despite international law clearly prohibiting such action, West Bank annexation proposals are gaining traction in Israel. This is likely due to a combination of factors, including increased security concerns after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza, as well as an increasingly right-wing Israeli government and base, and a gamble that the Trump administration may allow (or support) West Bank annexation.

Select international lawyers have argued that West Bank annexation proposals are legal, because they dispute the idea of Palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank and/or assert that Israel has sovereign claims to the West Bank. Other arguments posit that annexation is required for Israel’s self defense, and that the Jewish people have deep historical ties to the land and thus a legal claim to it. However, these first two claims run counter to international consensus and are in the distinct minority of legal opinions; all UN bodies and virtually all countries, including Israel’s own supreme court, recognize the West Bank as Palestinian territory. And the second two arguments are contradicted by international law; the absolute prohibition against annexation has no exceptions for self defense or historical ties.

While Israeli politicians are debating West Bank annexation proposals, there must be recognition that any such proposal is illegal. Failure to recognize the illegality of annexation will help to undermine the law, while opposition to annexation can help reinforce the legal prohibition. Under international law, foreign states must reject any annexation attempts as illegal and refuse to assist or aid in annexation.

States agreed to respect territorial integrity following the two world wars because they knew the deadly consequences of wars of aggression and annexation. Failure to resist all annexation proposals or attempts, regardless of location or actor, risks further breaking the already imperfect international order—and returning to a state of heightened global conflict.

Elise Baker is a senior staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project. She provides legal support to the project, which seeks to include legal tools in foreign policy, with a focus on prevention and accountability efforts for atrocity crimes, human-rights violations, terrorism, and corruption offenses.

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On November 18, the United Nations (UN) secretary general briefed the UN Security Council on “a moment of profound urgency” and the risk of “a disastrous domino effect” across West Africa and the Sahel. The ongoing blockade is an escalation by JNIM, with the group extending its reach further south than ever before. It is possible that the blockade forces the junta, led by Mali’s President Assimi Goïta, to the negotiating table, or in a replay of 2012 events, militant advances could provoke a coup d’état. A JNIM seizure of power, though less likely, is possible—and threatens to turn Mali into Africa’s Afghanistan, similar to the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in 2021, where terrorists can train, operate, and plan freely in a safe haven.  

How did the situation arrive here? And what are the implications of a jihadist takeover in Mali? A JNIM takeover in Mali would represent the first time an al-Qaeda affiliate had taken power in a country, with major regional and underappreciated global implications. This strategic turning point in Mali’s decade-long insurgency could, in the short term, mark the beginning of the end of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) between Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, as well as Russian influence in the region. In the long term, a JNIM regime heightens risks of transnational terror.

A jihadist takeover is now on the board

Since 2012, Mali has suffered three military coups (in 2012, 2020, and 2021) and an escalating separatist-turned-Islamist insurgency. Domestic insecurity contributed to growing public and military unrest that led to the ouster of two democratically elected presidents, Amadou T. Touré and Ibrahim B. Keïta.

Attempts to restore democracy and stability have only had temporary successes since. In 2012, major population centers fell to Islamists and Tuareg rebels who sought to establish a regime in the north (sometimes referred to as the “Azawad” by some northern groups). French intervention with Operation SERVAL in 2013 saved Mali’s government and prevented extremists from moving further south on Bamako. The UN launched the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali in 2014 to bolster stabilization efforts. 

In 2017, a conglomerate of four smaller organizations, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), merged to form JNIM. Problematically, the security situation worsened in spite of the presence of UN and French forces, prompting calls for the West to leave Mali after the 2020 and 2021 coups. Ultimately, both France and the UN withdrew their forces, as Malian protestors waved Russian flags and called for Moscow’s support. They got it. By 2022, the Russian private military Wagner Group became Mali’s principal security partner. Human rights abuses and armed conflict only increased.

In 2024, Mali was ranked fifth among countries most affected by terrorism in the Global Terrorism Index. Armed conflict in Mali caused at least 1,900 fatalities last year, the third-highest figure on record (behind 2022 and 2023). JNIM expanded its geographical reach in central, northeast, and southern Mali. With the army and Wagner Group unable to protect many communities, pro-government Dozo militias have mobilized for self-defense across central Mali, often exacerbating insecurity. Army and Dozo operations to combat the fuel blockade brought record levels of violence and mass atrocities to Mali’s Segou and Sikasso regions last month.

The beginning of the end of the Sahel alliance

Burkina Faso and Niger have similar stories—a poor security environment as a result of JNIM and ISIS-Sahel attacks, military coups, and a fragile post-coup political environment as juntas repudiated Western security assistance and turned to Russian forces (initially Wagner Group, which morphed into Russia’s Africa Corps).

In September 2023, the three countries withdrew from the long-standing regional body, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and in its place established the AES, a defense pact to defeat jihadists and maintain power. The fall of Bamako would lead one of three core members to leave the Sahel alliance; the rump Burkina-Niger axis would be imperiled and on the defensive.

A setback for Russia in the Sahel

Although JNIM sees itself as an alternative to “puppets of the West,” a JNIM takeover would first and foremost see Russia’s star over the Sahel dim. JNIM, which has been fighting Russian mercenaries for years, will not be lining up to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The failure of the AES and Russia to defend Mali serves as a cautionary tale that Russian intervention often exacerbates conflicts on the ground. Ditching security cooperation with Western democracies for Russia’s Africa Corps in the name of national sovereignty may have been popular, but it is a losing strategy.

Russia’s influence across the African Sahel has expanded since 2017, with Russian forces arriving in Burkina Faso in January 2024 and Niger in May 2024. Russia will not receive such invitations from others at this rate.

Inviting the French back in may be out of the question in light of public opinion in the Sahel on French intervention, but regime change in Mali by either a rival military faction or JNIM extremists might provide a window of opportunity for the United States to bolster cooperation with eager states outside of the Sahel alliance—especially among the West African littorals and Mali’s neighbors. 

Risks of state-sponsored terrorism in Africa

If there is one group to watch on the continent other than al-Shabaab (one of al-Qaeda’s most competent branches that once had a pilot in flight training for a 9/11-style attack), it’s JNIM. If it were to capture the state apparatus in Mali, the country could easily become a haven for jihadists in the region and become a leading state sponsor of terrorism on the continent, much like Sudan became after Islamists (Muslim Brotherhood affiliate National Islamic Front) came to power following a 1989 coup.

Many terrorist groups in Africa that have pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda senior leadership or ISIS remain fixated on local grievances despite rebranding—but JNIM has the potential to evolve given its al-Qaeda identity is baked into its roots. JNIM’s DNA is comprised in part of an organization, AQIM, that, despite also having local gripes, had leadership (though now deceased) that fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and had historical links to Osama bin Laden. JNIM maintained its allegiance to al-Qaeda senior leadership and maintained AQIM’s relevance and reach in the Sahel with a newer, larger, and more lethal brand under the leadership of Iyad al-Ghali.

Countries beyond the Sahel could become targets, and JNIM could expand its area of influence. At the end of October, JNIM claimed responsibility for its first attack in Nigeria, which killed a Nigerian soldier. It is worth noting that a Boko Haram spinoff, Ansaru, operates not terribly far from where this attack occurred—this group was once believed to have a connection to AQIM, though to what extent is unclear.

Bamako faces a stronger enemy than ever, but unlike in 2013, it now lacks Western support to defeat it. The African Union offers rhetorical support, but no boots on the ground. Military support from ECOWAS seems like the only plausible intervention. Despite the Sahel alliance rebuking Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso’s membership earlier this year, ECOWAS offered to keep the door for reengagement open. If there is a lifeline, Bamako should grab it. If left unchecked, JNIM could grow bolder, bigger, acquire additional affiliates, and, one day, sponsor or enable operations beyond the region.

Haleigh Bartos is an associate professor of the practice in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. She teaches courses on policy writing and national security at Carnegie Mellon University.

John Chin is an assistant teaching professor of political science in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the lead author of the Historical Dictionary of Modern Coups D’état, which was named one of the best historical materials published in 2022–2023 by the American Library Association.

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These key decisions include removing al-Sharaa from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list, renewing the pause on Caesar Act sanctions to help spur investments, and allowing Syria to reopen its embassy in Washington to “exercise its diplomatic role with full freedom on US soil,” as Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted. Both are important and strategic gestures highlighting where the United States stands on Syria’s future.

Syria’s head of state did not come empty-handed to the White House meeting. One day after al-Sharaa’s visit, the US embassy in Damascus announced that Syria became the ninetieth member of the Global Coalition To Defeat ISIS. This marks a significant shift in Syria’s regional and international alignment—from one that was deeply seated in the Russian and Iranian spheres of influence under Bashar al-Assad, to its current position in the regional orbits of NATO allies and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members. While US-Syria coordination against ISIS began shortly after Assad’s fall, in close cooperation with neighboring countries including Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, this formal participation underscores Damascus’s readiness and commitment to strategically partner with the United States, enhance its own security, and advance Washington’s counterterrorism interests in the region.

Nevertheless, Syria joining the coalition presents multifaceted opportunities, as well as key challenges and inherent risks—especially considering al-Sharaa’s violent jihadist background as head of Jabhat al-Nusra, which was Syria’s al-Qaeda offshoot earlier on in the country’s civil war.

Regional endorsements and emerging opportunities

The opportunities include the potential for increased intelligence sharing between Damascus and Washington. It also means enhanced military coordination and deeper regional cooperation in the fight against ISIS and other extremist groups rebooting in Syria. The intelligence sharing includes foreign fighter flows and money tracing, as well as disinformation and misinformation campaigns, according to former US diplomats familiar with the coalition’s work.

Diplomats from both Jordan and Iraq reinforced that Syria joining the coalition is a constructive and positive step toward enhancing their own national security interests, while strengthening Amman’s and Baghdad’s relations with Damascus. This is an important priority, especially for Iraq, given al-Sharaa’s violent past in the country amid the US occupation beginning in 2003. According to the authors’ diplomatic sources, both countries shared intelligence about one of the two ISIS plots to assassinate al-Sharaa, which the Syrian government announced on the heels of his historic US visit.

GCC members welcomed Syria’s entry into the anti-ISIS coalition. From the Gulf Arab states’ perspective, ISIS resurfacing is always a challenge, so having Syria on board is key to reducing the threat posed by the terrorist group.

The GCC states, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have played a significant role in persuading the Trump administration to view al-Sharaa as a legitimate and reliable partner. For example, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s influence was a factor contributing to Trump deciding to lift sanctions on Syria earlier this year. Gulf Arab leaders broadly believe that Syria should be reintegrated into the regional and international fold rather than left isolated. Without sustained external support and cooperation, officials across the GCC worry that the Syrian state could be too weak to govern effectively—creating power vacuums, and worsening economic and humanitarian crises that extremist groups like ISIS could exploit. In this context, Syria’s decision to join the coalition aligns with the Gulf states’ view that deeper international engagement with Damascus is essential to addressing the country’s challenges, including the renewed threat posed by ISIS in Syria.

That enhanced security cooperation also encourages the reopening of trade and transit routes, benefiting the Syrian economy through increased investment pledges beyond those already secured from key GCC members—namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Further, coalition-related stabilization funds, channeled through the United Nations or regional bodies, could indirectly support reconstruction in areas previously liberated from ISIS if the right oversight mechanisms are in place. The coalition also oversees humanitarian and developmental assistance to the areas affected by ISIS.

Complexities, contradictions, and risks of partnership

There are also complexities tied to these opportunities. Partnering with a government that, to varying degrees, remains politically and ideologically contentious domestically in Syria presents potential pitfalls—especially given al-Sharaa’s past. This history drives a reluctance in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—the group most instrumental to fighting ISIS with the coalition—to integrate into the Syrian state. While some diplomats in Washington see this as an opportunity to nudge the SDF to accelerate its integration into the new Syria, other policy analysts believe Syria’s joining undermines the SDF’s role in the coalition. Nevertheless, from the perspective of key allies in the region, including GCC states, a unified Syria is key, and thus, working on SDF-Damascus integration should be prioritized.

Reactions from violent Islamist militias aligned with ISIS who see al-Sharaa as an “infidel” remain a significant risk: one that al-Sharaa is aware of. One preemptive and timely measure taken last week was the fatwa issued by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) mufti Abdullah Al Mheissni supporting Syria’s decision to join the coalition to beat ISIS, which he called Khawarij/Kharijites, or a group of heretics. The fatwa affirmed that the presence of the international coalition necessitates “organizing the situation and controlling matters to ensure unity of decision and sovereignty, until the new state’s conditions stabilize, and the threat of ISIS is not used as a pretext for greater interventions or infringement.”

Other key challenges include the enduring influence of certain pro-government militias in Syria, some of which appear to be ideologically tied to specific global terrorist organizations, as well as the relative fragility of Damascus’s political authority and the broader security landscape. Armed factions aligned with the Syrian Ministry of Defense, such as the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade and the Hamzat Division, were implicated in sectarian-motivated massacres of Alawites along Syria’s coast in March. Such actions may cast serious doubt on the wisdom of treating the new Damascus government as a trustworthy partner in the fight against a virulently sectarian Sunni extremist organization such as ISIS. Compounding these concerns is the reality that foreign jihadists from China, the Western Balkans, the North Caucasus, and other parts of the broader Islamic world now occupy roles within the Syrian state apparatus. Their backgrounds, affiliations, and ultimate loyalties remain opaque, further complicating the picture for al-Sharaa’s government.

It remains to be seen what Syria’s membership looks like in the coalition, which continues to operate without a formal charter, according to Jim Jeffrey, Washington’s former special presidential envoy to the coalition during the first Trump administration. As Jeffrey elaborated, active membership in the coalition includes two pillars: military and diplomacy. Most members designate a military representative to the coalition, which Syria has yet to name. Rotating foreign ministerial meetings make up the main function of the coalition’s diplomatic pillar, which Syria can most certainly participate in.

“For now,” Jeffrey noted, “Syria joining the coalition is largely symbolic as it is unlikely to contribute financially or provide troops.”

However, he adds, al-Sharaa and “his colleagues know something about fighting ISIS,” and can be constructive in future US-led operations against the terrorist group. According to our sources from the Gulf, Syria joining the coalition formalizes a relationship that began during the Assad years when HTS was the de facto government in Idlib, and it cooperated with the coalition at a time when HTS was successfully driving out al-Qaeda and ISIS elements in the province.

Ultimately, Syria’s entry into the coalition represents an opening for deeper cooperation with the United States and its regional partners. However, the challenges posed by sectarian militias and foreign fighters embedded within the state underscore how fragile and conditional this partnership could prove. Ultimately, the success of Syria’s membership in the coalition will depend not on symbolism alone, but on whether Damascus can demonstrate consistent, credible commitment to countering ISIS while stabilizing its fractured political and security institutions. Syria’s strategic partners in the region and globally should also support its efforts as it deepens its engagement with the coalition to eliminate the threat of terrorism once and for all.

Merissa Khurma is the founder and chief executive officer of AMENA Strategies, an associate fellow at the Middle East Institute, and nonresident fellow at the Baker Institute. She formerly headed the Middle East program at the Wilson Center. 

Giorgio Cafiero is the chief executive officer of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy. He is also an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University.

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The kingdom is committing one trillion dollars of investments to the United States while receiving advanced US technologies such as next-generation semiconductors, AI-driven data infrastructure, energy systems, and even civilian nuclear technology.

The critical question is whether Saudi Arabia can simultaneously be a net importer and exporter of capital, new technologies, energy, ideas, and talent, while producing accretive financial results and a sustainable society.

Saudi Arabia is approaching the tenth anniversary of Vision 2030, a sweeping reimagining of its economic and social identity built on three pillars: a vibrant society, a thriving economy, and an ambitious nation. As the ten-year milestone approaches, it is worth reflecting on how far the kingdom has come and what lies beyond the horizon. At the heart of Vision 2030 was a bold commitment: to diversify away from an overreliance on hydrocarbons and to build an economy that is more resilient, innovative, and equitable.

The results have been substantial, though challenges remain.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), non-oil real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4.5 percent in 2024, driven by sectors such as retail, hospitality, and construction. In the IMF’s most recent country report, after GDP rebasing, the non-oil economy now accounts for roughly 76 percent of total GDP—a major structural shift. The World Bank similarly highlights a dramatic rise in women’s economic participation. Female labor force participation increased from 17.4 percent in 2017 to around 36 percent by the first quarter of 2023, with reforms under Vision 2030 cited as a key driver.

Yet Riyadh still needs to take critical steps to foster a deeper culture of risk-taking and to fully support small and medium-sized enterprises, the true engines of job creation. As emphasized at the US–Saudi Investment Forum by leaders including Steve Schwarzman (chief executive officer and co-founder of Blackstone) and Michael Milken, another priority is the development of a stronger domestic capital market. To assess risk and returns effectively, investors require greater transparency, reliable financial reporting, and consistent rule of law—elements essential to attracting sustained private investment at scale.

Economic progress and the next frontier

According to the IMF, Saudi Arabia’s economy continued to grow in 2024 despite global volatility, expanding 1.3 percent and supported by stronger non-oil activity. Non-oil sectors grew 4.3 percent in 2024, reinforcing long-term diversification momentum. Saudi Arabia’s digital economy has accelerated significantly, with information and communication technology now estimated at 15.6 percent of GDP, according to the General Authority for Statistics. Tourism is emerging as a major non-oil contributor. Vision 2030 targets tourism at 10 percent of GDP and 1.6 million jobs by 2030, according to official Vision 2030 reporting and the Tourism Development Fund.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has also been rising. Vision 2030 sets a target of FDI equal to 5.7 percent of GDP, and Ministry of Investment reporting indicates continued growth.

Saudi Arabia’s next phase of growth is increasingly shaped by knowledge and technology-based industries, including artificial intelligence, fintech, biotechnology, next-generation energy, and advanced computing. The kingdom combines several strategic advantages: low-cost energy, deep capital reserves, abundant industrial land, and a rapidly improving regulatory environment for foreign investors. These conditions are accelerating the development of domestic intellectual capital through joint ventures, research partnerships, and structured global knowledge transfer.

At the US–Saudi Investment Forum this week, Elon Musk announced that xAI will build a large-scale data center in the kingdom in partnership with Humain, a Saudi artificial intelligence company. With a five-hundred-megawatt power requirement, the data center would be xAI’s largest facility outside the United States. At the same forum, Schwarzman announced plans to develop AI data centers in Saudi Arabia in partnership with Blackstone-backed company AirTrunk, using Nvidia AI chips. In the opposite direction, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has made a commitment of twenty billion dollars to a Blackstone infrastructure fund in 2017.

Fiscal headwinds and capital market realities

Despite progress, the road ahead presents meaningful challenges. Fiscal policy remains a delicate balance. New revenue streams—including value-added and excise taxes—have expanded the non-oil fiscal base, yet budget deficits persist, pressured by oil price volatility and the political sensitivity of adjusting certain expenditures.

Saudi authorities have raised the estimated 2025 fiscal deficit by about 3 percent of GDP, according to IMF projections. Meanwhile, JP Morgan estimates the fiscal breakeven oil price at approximately $98 per barrel, underscoring a revenue gap amid growing capital needs for megaprojects such as NEOM.

These megaprojects require not only capital but also parallel enabling infrastructure to deliver long-term returns. The kingdom has faced delays, scalability challenges in new technologies, and revised timelines, increasing perceived execution risk. Market pricing reflects this: despite ratings of Aa3 (Moody’s) and A+ (S&P and Fitch), Saudi sovereign debt trades at a discount to comparable single-A issuers, as reflected in spreads and Credit Default Swap levels. Limited inclusion in major bond indices may also contribute to this valuation gap, raising borrowing costs at a time when falling oil prices and a widening current account deficit suggest the need for more debt issuance.

Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia starts from a position of comparative strength. Government debt remains low by international standards, and access to capital markets is robust. Monetary stability continues to be underpinned by the long-standing riyal–US dollar peg, reinforcing both domestic and investor confidence.

Human capital: The critical path to success

Perhaps the most decisive factor in the long-term sustainability of Vision 2030 is human capital. Roughly 70 percent of Saudi citizens are under thirty-five, meaning the kingdom’s greatest asset is, as MBS noted, “not beneath the ground; it is in its people.” This generation seeks not only marketable skills but also purpose, authenticity, and global connectedness.

Women’s participation has made major gains, but ensuring equitable access to employment, investment capital, and institutional support remains essential. Structural inefficiencies still constrain the full economic potential of a large segment of the workforce.

In the near term, skills shortages, particularly in AI, biotechnology, blockchain, fintech, and next-generation energy, must be addressed through vocational programs, apprenticeships, employer partnerships, and applied learning aligned to market needs. Education systems must become more dynamic, fostering not only technical mastery and analytical reasoning but also imagination, creativity, and adaptability.

Over the longer term, primary and secondary education must evolve to match the demands of a globally competitive economy while expanding inclusion across genders and nationalities. Education must inspire as much as it instructs, nurturing the mindset and capabilities needed to compete and lead in the decades ahead.

Looking beyond Vision 2030, policymakers should adopt a transparent, data-driven focus on human capital. A national “talent scorecard” could track employment outcomes, female participation in technology fields, survival rates among small and medium-sized enterprises, and patents per 100,000 people. Publishing these metrics annually would not only sustain investor confidence but also give citizens a clear sense of progress.

Policy levers are already in motion. The Human Capability Development Program, part of the Vision 2030 framework, targets education reform and lifelong learning. The government should expand this initiative with measurable outputs such as graduate employability, private-sector training placements, and start-up participation—aligning policy intent with practical results.

Meanwhile, the global competition for talent is intensifying. If Riyadh can become a regional magnet for skilled professionals through lifestyle improvements, competitive taxation, and credible career mobility, it will solidify its status as the Middle East’s business capital. In a world where capital follows capability, talent may prove the most strategic form of investment.

Khalid Azim is the director of the MENA Futures Lab at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

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This visit follows a significant bilateral exchange in May when US President Donald Trump undertook one of his first major international visits of his second term to Saudi Arabia. The summit concluded in a series of bilateral agreements between Saudi Arabia and the United States, including trade and investment agreements, designed to deepen economic linkages and enhance cross-sectoral cooperation. Most notably, the countries announced a $600-billion strategic partnership package, encompassing defense, investment, and technology collaboration—marking one of the largest bilateral commitments in recent years.

While these outcomes assure of a strong bilateral partnership, the upcoming MBS visit also presents an opportunity to revive a flagship regional connectivity initiative that has been on pause for over two years: the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC).

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Announced with much fanfare during the 2023 G20 Summit in New Delhi, IMEC was envisioned as a transformative economic corridor linking India, the Gulf, and Europe. The corridor is framed as a strategic alternative to existing maritime routes through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal—regions increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical tensions and disruptions. The US-backed initiative brought together India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), France, Italy, Germany, and the European Union as signatories to the IMEC. The corridor structure also includes Jordan and Israel as participating countries. Trump, during his February meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, defined IMEC as “one of the greatest trade routes in history.”

Structurally, the transportation component of the IMEC comprises two primary legs. One is an eastern maritime link connecting India’s western ports with the UAE. The other is a northern maritime leg connecting Israel’s Haifa Port to key European ports such as Marseille in France and Piraeus in Greece. Bridging these two oceanic segments is a proposed 2,600-kilometer (approximately) rail network from the UAE’s Jebel Ali Port through Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Israel. This multimodal route can potentially reduce transportation time and costs, offering a faster and secure alternative trade route between Asia and Europe. MBS has commended IMEC as a beneficial trade corridor for its time and cost savings, as well as its contribution to international energy security.

However, shortly after its announcement, the project encountered a major setback. Israel’s war in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack, which erupted soon after the 2023 IMEC announcement, disrupted the regional political equations. The conflict froze any engagement between Israel and several Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, halting progress on the corridor. Over the subsequent two years, only limited movement was seen. France and Italy appointed special envoys to coordinate efforts, but Gulf partners, particularly Saudi Arabia, remained disengaged. The corridor that once symbolized economic integration became a victim of regional instability.

A renewed opening for IMEC

Now, in late 2025, a window of opportunity appears to be reopening. Following last month’s US-brokered cease-fire deal in Gaza, regional diplomatic channels are cautiously reviving—including the recent announcement that Kazakhstan will join the Abraham Accords. Washington’s renewed focus on stability and reconstruction could pave the way for IMEC’s reactivation. The upcoming visit of MBS offers an opportunity for both the United States and Saudi Arabia to reinitiate the discussions on IMEC and reassess Saudi Arabia’s potential role. For Washington, reengaging Riyadh is critical not just for the corridor’s viability but also for strengthening its long-term strategic foothold in the Middle East. For Saudi Arabia, participation in IMEC aligns with Riyadh’s Vision 2030—the Kingdom’s blueprint for economic diversification and infrastructure-led growth. Saudi Arabia, being the largest economy in the Middle East and a key geopolitical player, holds a central role in shaping regional connectivity and trade frameworks.

Engaging Saudi Arabia on IMEC: A multilayered approach

A multilayered conversation between MBS and Trump could potentially reinvigorate movement on Saudi Arabia’s involvement in IMEC. Saudi Arabia is an important US partner in the Middle East, and its political alignment with the IMEC will give a much-needed impetus to the corridor—other regional countries, following Saudi leadership, are likely to feel more comfortable about engaging in IMEC conversations. Riyadh’s proactive engagement in reopening discussions on the IMEC will serve as a strong signal of renewed momentum in the initiative.

Given Saudi Arabia’s clear position that normalization with Israel is contingent upon a credible pathway to Palestinian statehood, Washington should initiate a structured dialogue with Riyadh on alternative political pathways that could satisfy Saudi requirements. Additionally, a US-backed dialogue to creatively develop a political pathway between Saudi Arabia and Israel can prepare the ground for forward movement. Without such steps, Saudi-Israeli engagement and the IMEC corridor may remain stalled.

For IMEC, the United States should begin by encouraging Saudi participation in multilateral discussions on IMEC. Riyadh’s absence has been a key missing link for the progress on IMEC, and its engagement is essential to shaping the corridor’s Middle Eastern segment. Understanding and addressing Saudi concerns—both political and operational—will be crucial to rebuilding trust.

As part of the renewed engagement on the IMEC, the upcoming Trump-MBS meeting should propose Saudi Arabia as the host location for the IMEC Secretariat. This would be a strategically significant step, reflecting both the geographical centrality of Saudi Arabia within the IMEC route and its geopolitical influence across the broader Middle East. Establishing the Secretariat in Riyadh would not only underscore Saudi Arabia’s leadership role in regional connectivity initiatives but also provide a neutral, credible, institutional base for coordination among partner countries. The secretariat will play a pivotal role in conducting necessary feasibility studies for infrastructure and traffic estimations, as well as interoperability research. These will help identify policy, regulatory, and digital frameworks for seamless corridor operations.

Additionally, Trump should encourage MBS at their upcoming meeting to appoint a Saudi special envoy for IMEC, aligning with similar designations already made by France and Italy. It would demonstrate Saudi Arabia’s tangible commitment to the corridor’s strategic objectives. This could serve as a strong signal of political commitment, potentially catalyzing other countries to follow suit and reinvigorating the overall momentum for IMEC’s implementation. A consistent push from the United States for all IMEC members to appoint national envoys should continue, as it will help put in place the corridor’s governance structure and ensure sustained diplomatic attention.

Saudi Arabia’s active participation in IMEC conversations (such as working group meetings, IMEC envoys/sherpa meetings, and summits) could also be the route for including the broader Middle East—including Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar—in the network. Their participation would not only strengthen regional economic ties but also open potential channels for humanitarian and reconstruction aid, particularly for Gaza, where infrastructure rebuilding remains an urgent priority.

MBS’s visit to Washington thus comes at a critical juncture. While bilateral discussions will likely span defense cooperation, energy transition, and technological investment, introducing IMEC back onto the agenda could be a step toward long-term regional integration. Reviving the corridor aligns with Saudi Arabia’s aspirations to become a global logistics hub, bridging Asia, Africa, and Europe through its strategic geography.

Afaq Hussain is a nonresident senior fellow at the N7 Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. In this role, much of his work focuses on the economic aspects of the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor. He is the co-founder and director of the Bureau of Research on Industry and Economic Fundamentals in New Delhi. 

The post The MBS visit to the White House could revive IMEC appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The Trump administration has emphasized that it feels no pressure to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran as long as Tehran does not submit to all of its demands, primarily the cessation of enrichment in Iran and restrictions on its missile program.

However, MBS has significant incentive to raise the need to renew Iran nuclear deal negotiations in his meeting with Trump, given the negative consequences for the Middle East region—particularly Saudi Arabia—if hostilities between Israel and Iran resume. The best way to prevent a future regional conflict is to achieve a nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States that ensures Tehran cannot produce nuclear weapons—and, importantly, prevents war in the Gulf region.

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Nov 18, 2025

The MBS visit to the White House could revive IMEC

By Afaq Hussain

After October 7, the corridor that once symbolized economic integration in the Middle East became a victim of regional instability.

India Middle East

MENASource

Nov 18, 2025

The Trump-MBS meeting comes at a pivotal moment for Vision 2030

By Frank Talbot

Saudi Arabia is looking to attract more international investors, keep supply chains running, and maintain a consistent stream of visitors.

Economy & Business Middle East

To understand why a nuclear deal with Iran should, certainly in Saudi eyes, be an essential part of meetings with the Trump administration, one must go back to the end of this year’s June war between Iran and Israel. The Twelve Day War ended without any nuclear agreement between Washington and Tehran, and in its aftermath, Iran has already embarked on rebuilding its military capabilities. Moreover, it is safe to say that the war also damaged hopes of a nuclear deal, deepening the mistrust between the Iranian regime and the US administration.

Israel and the United States did achieve significant operational achievements in the war—including significantly damaging the Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan and killing the Iranian nuclear scientists. On top of that, Israel significantly damaged Tehran’s air defense system and destroyed hundreds of its surface-to-surface missiles. But Iran’s moves in the weeks and months since the end of the Israeli and US military campaign, primarily the restoration of nuclear sites and the construction of Tehran’s conventional capabilities, indicate that Tehran has not surrendered. It continues to strengthen militarily, apparently in preparation for the next confrontation with Israel, according to regional media reports.

This fact should worry the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia. Even if the Gulf’s leadership believes that increasing diplomatic relations with Tehran—which have strengthened in recent years—will protect Saudi Arabia in any future war between Israel and Iran, it might be surprised—and not pleasantly.

The likelihood of another conflict between Israel and Iran, as mentioned, seems very real—and experts assume the next conflict may be more intense and could include the Gulf states. This is backed up by the fact that Iran is threatening to use its navy and other weapons at its disposal in the next war, as well as by public discussions in Iran about a possible blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Moreover, to the extent that Iran assumes that the United States will be involved in the fighting, it will probably seek to attack US bases throughout the Middle East, including those in the Gulf region.

In general, the more the Iranian regime feels that it is fighting for its life, the greater the likelihood that it will take desperate steps to stop the war, including bringing the Gulf states into the firing line, so that it can pressure Washington and Israel to stop the war. And since Israel is already aiming to overthrow the Iranian regime in the next campaign, the likelihood of those desperate moves could increase.

The fact that Trump likes MBS gives the Saudi crown prince good leverage if he chooses to raise the following points:

• MBS could point out that the status quo is unstable and does not serve US interests, including the risk to the global economy if another Israel-Iran war breaks out.
• The crown prince could also make the case that negotiations should be resumed as soon as possible—and the Saudis could even serve as mediators (although it is likely that the Omanis will be the ones to host the meetings).
• Perhaps most importantly, MBS could accept, on behalf of the Saudis, the idea of ​​a regional nuclear consortium, in a way that will also advance Riyadh’s nuclear ambitions, including the establishment of a regional nuclear fuel bank.
• It is possible that MBS could argue to Trump that he is ready for a symbolic enrichment in Iran (which would advance an agreement with Tehran)—on the condition that Saudi Arabia also receives the ability to enrich on its soil.

In addition, it is true that MBS, who knows the Iranians well, will need to clarify to Trump what is possible and what is impossible to achieve in negotiations with Iran. At the moment, it seems that the Trump administration’s demands on Iran are perceived in Tehran as surrender, and not as a compromise.

The bottom line is that ignoring the Iranian issue in the dialogue between Trump and the Saudi crown prince could harm Saudi interests, given the increasing likelihood of renewed war in the Gulf. MBS needs to invest in trying to bridge the gaps between Iran and the United States; otherwise, he could bear the cost of a future war.

Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He is also a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies.

The post The Trump-MBS meeting should center on Iran nuclear strategy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Saudi leadership is looking to bring in more international investors, keep supply chains running smoothly, and maintain a consistent stream of visitors to the country. Meanwhile, US policymakers are hoping for a calmer Middle East and a Saudi Arabia that’s both stronger and able to weather challenges. Both sides understand that Vision 2030 now depends on what happens outside the kingdom’s borders as much as on the reforms taking place within.

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After October 7, the corridor that once symbolized economic integration in the Middle East became a victim of regional instability.

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Nov 18, 2025

Peace, pacts, and recognition: Saudi Arabia at the forefront of a new Middle East

By R. Clarke Cooper

Trump and other US officials remain eager to add Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords rota and to strike a defense pact.

Middle East Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

The timing matters because Vision 2030 has reached a more demanding stage. The kingdom has made clear gains in entertainment, tourism, public administration, and industry. At the same time, its most visible projects face delays, rising costs, and heavier reliance on public financing. Experts have documented higher construction expenses, shortfalls in foreign investment, and repeated capital injections into regional development projects such as Neom—all of which place pressure on state finances and investor confidence.  

These challenges explain why Saudi policymakers are increasingly sensitive to regional shocks—including conflicts between Israel and Iran, increased maritime threats in the Red Sea, and political instability in the Levant—that can slow progress or weaken investor trust. Vision 2030 is now shaped not only by domestic choices but by the stability of the neighborhood around Saudi Arabia. 

Regional instability

Increased attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea from Yemen’s Houthi rebels in recent years show how regional instability directly affects Vision 2030. The Houthis continue to disrupt global supply chains and raise insurance premiums for vessels heading toward the Suez Canal. The campaign of attacks has prompted companies, such as Maersk, to divert ships around the Cape of Good Hope. These changes increased transit times and created uncertainty in the logistics networks that Saudi Arabia hopes to anchor along its western coast. Tourism in the Red Sea has also slowed as travelers reassessed security conditions. These trends matter because the western coastline sits at the center of the kingdom’s tourism and infrastructure plans. 

Sudan’s conflict reinforces these pressures. The war has destabilized a region that matters for Saudi food supplies, investments across Africa, and security around Port Sudan’s shipping lanes. Gulf states have considerable leverage in Sudan because of their financial and political ties, yet competing agendas have complicated efforts to reach a durable peace. Analysts warn that the conflict is reshaping Red Sea security and that instability on land is spilling over into the maritime environment. For Saudi Arabia, prolonged fighting threatens the long-term viability of coastal tourism and logistics projects that rely on predictable security conditions. 

With Israeli strikes in Gaza continuing and Hamas yet to disarm, the Gaza peace plan continues to face strong headwinds. This unsettles global markets—including in the energy sector—and harms tourism in this region. Riyadh has signaled readiness to support postwar stabilization, but any substantial Saudi commitment hinges on governance reforms in Gaza and a recognized Palestinian political authority.   

The Twelve Day War between Iran and Israel this June was a reminder of how quickly this region can drift into a bigger conflict, as well as Saudi Arabia’s vulnerability to spillovers. Saudi officials see the renewed Iran-Israel tensions as a direct threat to the energy security and investment climate Vision 2030 relies on. Cognizant of Israel’s strike in Qatar last September as well as Iran-supported strikes on commercial facilities in Saudi Arabia in 2019, Riyadh likely views its decent relationships with both Israel and Iran as helpful for reducing miscalculation and maintaining communication.  However, they do not replace Riyadh’s need for sustained US engagement to deter a wider confrontation. 

Saudi Arabia’s stabilizing role and its alignment with US interests

Saudi Arabia’s regional diplomacy has expanded as Vision 2030 has taken shape, positioning Riyadh as a stabilizing force in the region. It continues to play a role in mediating the decade-long conflict in Yemen while supporting Yemen’s government in Aden. Along with the United States, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, Riyadh pursues an end to the war in Sudan via the Quad mechanism and remains an active partner in supporting post-Assad Syria through its transition. These diplomatic and development efforts not only support stabilization efforts but ultimately create the conditions Vision 2030 requires for Saudi Arabia’s own economic transformation.   

This approach is also visible in emerging Saudi defense policy, which centers on deterrence, diversification of partnerships, and the development of domestic defense-industrial capacity. Riyadh believes that security cannot be outsourced and is seeking a more structured security relationship with the United States. This aligns with a wider trend in the Gulf, where Washington and its partners are exploring a more formal regional security architecture built around burden sharing, defined guarantees, and joint operational planning.   

Washington wants secure sea lanes, an energized market, and partners in the Middle East capable of preventing or resolving conflicts without the expectation of significant US resources or military support.  A Saudi Arabia that achieves an economic transformation is a better, more reliable partner in international diplomacy for US national security needs. This week’s visit by MBS reflects this recognition of shared priorities for Riyadh and Washington: The United States sees an economic transformation unfolding in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia sees the United States as a partner critical for creating a stable regional context in which its Vision 2030 is possible.  

For the Trump administration, stability in the Middle East is essential to the regional strategy it is building. The White House is placing political and economic bets that a partnership with Saudi Arabia results in increased energy security, investment partnerships, and conflict-ending diplomacy in places like Gaza, Yemen, and Sudan.  

Frank Talbot is a nonresident senior fellow with the North Africa Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Rafid Hariri Center & Middle East programs.  Previously, he served in the Department of State supporting stabilization initiatives in the Middle East and North Africa.

The post The Trump-MBS meeting comes at a pivotal moment for Vision 2030 appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Soon after phase one of the cease-fire deal was announced, the Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a supportive statement, saying that US President Donald Trump’s comprehensive plan “seeks to pave the way for a comprehensive and just peace.” A regionally supported reconciliation and reconstruction of Gaza could enable a Red Sea rapprochement and mark the opening of a new chapter: one that recognizes the mutual benefits of cooperation while honestly confronting the grievances that have fueled conflict. It could realize the long-sought normalization with Israel—not as an eventual endpoint, but as a platform for shared prosperity and security in which Gaza’s reconstruction becomes the measure of regional seriousness. If mismanaged, there is the danger of a diplomatic mirage—all optics and little substance—that leaves residents of Gaza more disillusioned and regional tensions exposing heightened levels of risk to shared US and Saudi interests.

Now, with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s—or MBS’s—first official visit to Washington since 2018, Trump and other US officials remain eager to add Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords rota and to strike a defense pact. Regardless of whether a normalization deal proves achievable during this visit, officials in Washington and Riyadh still have the opportunity to enhance defense cooperation to address shared security interests.

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Nov 18, 2025

The Trump-MBS meeting should center on Iran nuclear strategy

By Danny Citrinowicz  

The Saudi crown prince has significant incentive to raise the need to renew Iran nuclear negotiations in his meeting with the US president.

Iran Middle East

MENASource

Nov 18, 2025

The Trump-MBS meeting comes at a pivotal moment for Vision 2030

By Frank Talbot

Saudi Arabia is looking to attract more international investors, keep supply chains running, and maintain a consistent stream of visitors.

Economy & Business Middle East

In a Washington-Riyadh bilateral defense pact, Saudi armed forces would benefit from continuous technical advice and support from the US military, and the United States would enjoy greater access to Saudi territory and airspace. Further, as a foundation to increase security cooperation, the defense elements of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan aim for the kingdom to spend 50 percent of its military budget domestically, and there is a mandate that foreign defense firms establish partnerships with local Saudi firms or open local offices inside the kingdom. Since 2018, US firms have increasingly taken note and sought to support localization and co-production.

From the US perspective, the door for Israeli-Saudi normalization has been wide open since the 2020 Abraham Accords, penned under Trump’s first administration— and followed up into the Biden administration and Trump’s second term. Before the horrific October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel that launched the war in Gaza, Saudi Arabia had been working toward a significant deal with the United States to normalize ties with Israel, in return for a US defense cooperation agreement and cooperation on the development of a civil nuclear program.

Even before the war in Gaza, it was generally recognized that in order to formalize bilateral relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem, Washington could not ignore the Saudis’ steady advocacy for a two-state solution, with the Palestinians achieving a formally recognized statehood.

During the US-Saudi Strategic Dialogue in the autumn of 2020, then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged his counterpart, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al Saud, toward recognition of Israel, stating, “we hope Saudi Arabia will consider normalizing its relationships as well, and we want to thank them for the assistance they’ve had in the success of the Abraham Accords so far.” 

Since the war in Gaza began, MBS and other senior Saudi officials, have re-emphasized the commitment to the two state solution. That includes Saudi Ambassador to the United States Princess Reema bint Bandar, who observed that the “two-state solution is the only framework that can end the bloodshed, rebuild Gaza, and create a sustainable future.” She also emphasized that any Saudi normalization with Israel would only occur with credible, irreversible efforts towards Palestinian statehood.

On the margins of the 2024 UN General Assembly, the kingdom formed a global alliance to push for a two-state solution, and this summer, the Saudi foreign minister affirmed the kingdom’s efforts “to advance the implementation of relevant UN resolutions calling for the establishment of two states.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has historically rejected the idea of a Palestinian state. After last month’s cease-fire deal, he noted that “Palestinians should have all the powers in a peaceful day to govern themselves, but they can’t have the powers to threaten our survival. That sovereign power of security must remain with Israel.”

Security concerns dominate Israeli thinking, and justifiably so. Any rapprochement that does not take seriously Israel’s legitimate security requirements will have little staying power. That reality need not be incompatible with robust reconstruction. In fact, a Gaza reconstruction program that improves living conditions and creates credible, locally accountable governance reduces the long-term security threats that feed cycles of violence.

Israel, its Arab partners, and wider international actors should therefore craft arrangements that couple reconstruction with security cooperation, aimed at preventing arms smuggling, extremist exploitation, and the reconstitution of militant capabilities—while ensuring that such measures do not subvert civilian oversight or the delivery of aid into Gaza.

If Palestinian statehood is achieved in the future, it will be incumbent upon neighboring states, particularly Saudi Arabia, to ensure the Palestinian state exists according to both law and practice. Any sort of two-state solution cannot allow for the development of a proto-state permissive to radicalization and terrorist facilitation to exist next to thriving neighboring countries. Understandably, Israel’s neighbors that are committed to border integrity and a shared interest in regional security, such as Egypt and Jordan, will expect other Arab states to recognize the requirement to de-radicalize Gaza and keep Hamas out. This is where the United States, via its Central Command, will have an essential regional security cooperation role as a trusted agent for information sharing and coordination.

This autumn, officials in Riyadh publicly signaled—and internally communicated—that Saudi Arabia will back multilateral efforts to disarm and marginalize Hamas and strengthen the role of the Palestinian Authority as part of a political settlement in Gaza. According to an internal Foreign Ministry report, the kingdom plans to “support the deployment of an international peacekeeping mission in Gaza,” and that it “aims to present the kingdom’s vision for enhancing stability in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian territories.”

There are practical reasons why Saudi engagement matters. Riyadh offers economic heft with the $600 billion investment deal, diplomatic legitimacy in the Arab world with the Saudi-French push for the two-state solution, and a strategic relationship with the United States that can help underwrite security guarantees and reconstruction financing. Saudi buy-in could broaden the donor base, encourage private investment, and make sanctions relief or targeted incentives politically palatable in capitals that might otherwise be reticent.

The art of modern diplomacy is sometimes critiqued for the trading of ideals for expedience. The real test of statesmanship in this transitional moment is whether pragmatism can be married to principle: whether diplomatic openings for rapprochement can be structured so that political normalization pays dividends for Palestinians through concrete stability, reconstruction, and governance.

A rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel that addresses Riyadh’s key defense requests and places Gaza’s reconstruction at its moral and practical center could turn a new alignment into something more than a strategic realignment—it could become a test of whether the Middle East can convert rapprochement and security cooperation into stabilization, reconstruction, and a rebuilt Gaza into viable regional reconciliation.

R. Clarke Cooper is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and is the founder and president of Guard Hill House, LLC. He previously served as assistant secretary for political-military affairs at the US Department of State.

The post Peace, pacts, and recognition: Saudi Arabia at the forefront of a new Middle East appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Last month’s vote—which constitutes a rupture from the status quo of the international community’s decades-long balancing act between Moroccan and Algerian interests—came days before the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1975 Green March. The event saw a peaceful, Moroccan-led march of 350,000 people lead to the liberation of Western Sahara from Spanish colonialism.

When Spain withdrew, Morocco asserted historical claims of sovereignty over the territories, while the Polisario Front declared the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and sought full independence. The ensuing war and its 1991 cease-fire left the region divided by a fortified berm and a frozen political process.

Originally brought to the UN in 1963 as a decolonization issue, Western Sahara remains one of the world’s most protracted, unresolved conflicts.

Persistent challenges remain after last month’s landmark vote. Importantly, the Polisario Front has categorically rejected the UN resolution, stating that “it violates the territory’s decolonization status and undermines the UN peace process by supporting Morocco’s autonomy plan.”

But today, Morocco is nevertheless experiencing a similar dynamic to that hopeful moment in 1975, with the success of a series of well-orchestrated diplomatic victories, “marching” intently toward a lasting resolution of the conflict.

This resolution marks a decisive turn in the future of the dispute, as it eliminates the possibilities of a partition or a referendum, focusing instead on crafting “genuine” autonomy and on the practicalities of the advanced regionalization plan under Rabat’s flag. The document expresses “full support of the Secretary General and his Personal Envoy in facilitating and conducting negotiations taking as basis Morocco’s Autonomy Proposal” and “calls upon the parties to engage in these discussions without preconditions, taking as basis Morocco’s Autonomy Proposal.”

The other previous proposals by the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) since the 1991 cease-fire, including a territorial partition or a referendum, were becoming increasingly obsolete and impractical in the eyes of key political players, given the demographic complexities on the ground. Drawing a line in the sand dividing Western Saharan people—who are a transnational community extending from Mauritania to northern Morocco, Algeria, and Mali—would only compound colonial border disputes, which led to the current conflict in the first place.

Similarly, a referendum is nearly impossible. Western Saharan people are not indigenous to the current disputed territories, and any voting lists would have to take into consideration the Hassani people’s movement since the fourteenth century. Not to mention, there is much ambiguity around the populations, which over the past fifty years moved to the Moroccan-administered territories (around 80 percent of the disputed land) and the Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria.

The UN is playing catch-up

While this recent shift is deemed a turning point in the semantic sense, the UN is barely catching up with the fast-evolving realities on the ground. The Moroccan autonomy plan has been gaining momentum since 2020, when US President Donald Trump’s first administration recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and stated that the conflict can only be resolved within that framework.

Soon after, France and Spain—the former colonizers of the region, both at the very source of the current territorial disputes due to the legacy of colonial borders—decided to side with Morocco. Other key international allies have since joined this new momentum in favor of Rabat, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, Israel, and numerous Arab, Latin American, and African countries that opened diplomatic representations or undertook significant investment projects in Western Sahara in support of the Moroccan stance.

The second Trump administration has taken a more assertive approach, largely advocating for the autonomy proposal and offering to host mediations between the parties to the conflict. Trump’s current cabinet has been pressuring the UN, Morocco, and Algeria to push for a fast and sustainable deal—likely seeing resolution to the Western Sahara dispute as low-hanging fruit that Trump can add to his arsenal of peace trophies, according to sources from the current administration.

The United States in September signaled to UN Special Envoy for Western Sahara Staffan de Mistura that the only way forward for the conflict was under Moroccan sovereignty. Washington’s UN funding cuts added more pressure on MINURSO. MINURSO, which was becoming outdated and dysfunctional within the current context, had no other option but to play along to survive.

A firmer US leadership to harness peace

The United States has, meanwhile, been directly pursuing its own mediation efforts outside the corridors of the UN. Massad Boulos, Trump’s senior advisor for Africa, has prioritized the conflict and led several bilateral negotiations to address the dispute with North African leaders over the summer. He has also repeatedly reiterated Washington’s support of Morocco’s claim to the territory, even promising to open a consulate in Dakhla, Western Sahara, to cement this position.

Additionally, US Peace Envoy Steve Witkoff recently revealed in a televised interview that a Morocco-Algeria peace deal could be imminent. The interview, which was conducted alongside Jared Kushner—another strong Rabat advocate in the Trump administration and the de facto broker of the Morocco-Israel peace deal—reveals firmer US leadership aimed at advancing peace in North Africa, starting with Western Sahara.

The United States has been holding the pen on this recent UNSC resolution and trying to shape the conversation in line with its vision of the dispute. An earlier draft leaked to the media this week disclosed a more decisive tone in favor of Morocco and a less nuanced vision for the future of MINURSO, limiting the mission’s renewal to only three months.

Another less-known fervent supporter of Moroccan territorial integrity is the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Abu Dhabi put its full diplomatic weight behind this new resolution by fielding multiple calls with UNSC permanent members, including France and Russia, to ensure their support of the US-proposed draft, according to my discussions with diplomatic sources.

Besides the UAE’s long-term push to build a pan-Abrahamic bloc in North Africa with Morocco, Mauritania, and Sahel countries, its president, Mohamed Bin Zayed, also has a lesser-known connection to the dispute. Indeed, the UAE president had lived and spent his formative years at the Royal Academy in Morocco. At age fourteen, he became one of the youngest participants of the 1975 Green March to Western Sahara alongside members of the Moroccan kingdom’s royal family. Once more, the UAE is walking along its historical ally, pouring thirty billion dollars in investments into the North African country and becoming the first Arab state to open a consulate in Laayoun, Western Sahara, in 2020.

The challenges ahead for an autonomy plan

Now that the diplomatic dust has settled, all eyes are on Morocco and whether it can practically operationalize its autonomy plan.

Rabat has been heavily investing in ambitious infrastructure and strategic projects in Western Sahara. Projects include the Atlantic Initiative, which is promising economic prosperity and integration for Western Sahara with landlocked Sahel neighbors. Additionally, the Dakhla Atlantic Port, a $1.2-billion project, is estimated to handle 35 million tons of goods a year starting in 2028. Other strategic projects include significant investments in adventure and business tourism infrastructures.

However, economic prosperity alone cannot guarantee a sustainable and genuine autonomy plan. Morocco will have twelve months to deliver a detailed, advanced regionalization workplan that outlines the territories’ governance and economic management through elected local representatives. This will also require constitutional reforms and a referendum on the Moroccan side, but, more importantly, an agreement from the Polisario Front to sit at the negotiation table and to operate under the Moroccan flag—a distinct challenge given their rejection of the resolution.

Meanwhile, serious diplomatic moves are at play. The Moroccan king recently visited the UAE. Additionally, there are signs of appeasement between Algeria and France, with Algeria’s recent pardon of detained French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, a prominent advocate of a Moroccan Western Sahara.

King Mohamed VI also clearly stated in his address following the vote that he wants “no winners or losers” in this conflict and invited “his brother,” the president of Algeria, to revive the Maghreb Union together. These are all positive signals for meeting Witkoff’s prediction of a Morocco-Algeria peace deal within the next sixty days.

The UN Western Sahara resolution is an essential milestone in US leadership, aligning the international community with “the most credible and realistic” solution to end the fifty-year-long agony of the Sahrawi people. Still, much needs to be unpacked at the levels of local governance, economic resource management, and local culture promotion to achieve “genuine autonomy,” and to organize a second, peaceful Green March.

Sarah Zaaimi is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. Her research focuses on North Africa, the Western Sahara conflict, and Arab-Israeli normalization.

The post The UN’s Western Sahara vote marks a diplomatic ‘Green March’ appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In a big step reshaping Red Sea connectivity, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have recently announced finalized plans for the Moses Bridge, a thirty two-kilometer causeway linking the Saudi coast of Ras Hamid with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula at Sharm el-Sheikh. Named after the biblical tale of Moses parting the Red Sea, this ambitious megaproject aims to physically connect Asia and Africa, bolstering trade, tourism and pilgrimage routes between the Gulf and North Africa. Fully financed by Riyadh, the initiative reflects Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s broader infrastructure diplomacy under Vision 2030, and it marks a shift from decades of discussion toward implementation.

The project carries important geopolitical and economic implications for the region. While the bridge promises logistical gains and deeper Gulf–Africa integration, it also poses strategic challenges, particularly for Israel. The new land link bypasses Israel entirely, creating an alternative to the proposed India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), in which Israel was expected to serve as a key transit node. Together with emerging land corridors through rehabilitated Syria and Iraq, the Moses Bridge highlights a possible future in which Israel is excluded from regional integration if political tensions persist.

These alternative routes may challenge Israel, but they should also serve as a wake-up call about what is at stake and what is possible. Israel should resist viewing these new corridors as a zero-sum threat; rather, the multiple transit routes can coexist and even complement one another if approached with strategic foresight and pragmatism. Perhaps most important, the United States and Israel must treat these developments not as competition to outmaneuver, but as momentum to harness; through coordination, quiet diplomacy, and shared economic gains.

From vision to reality: The Moses Bridge

The Moses Bridge project reflects Saudi Arabia’s and Egypt’s intent to diversify connectivity on their own terms. Originally proposed decades ago, and agreed in principle by Saudi King Salman and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2016, the plan gained momentum after Egypt transferred the strategic Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi Arabia in 2017—removing a major diplomatic hurdle.

In June 2025, nearly a decade later, with planning finalized and diplomatic sensitivities resolved, Egyptian Transport Minister Kamel al-Wazir confirmed that all planning for the Red Sea bridge is complete and that construction can begin “at any time,” pending final approval.

The project’s strategic location is critical. The Strait of Tiran is the gateway to Israel’s only Red Sea port, Eilat, and falls under international guarantees stemming from the Camp David Accords. However, with US-backed security assurances in place, Israel has not opposed the plan.

From a logistical standpoint, the Moses Bridge has the potential to significantly streamline regional trade and travel. Designed to support both road and potentially rail traffic, it is expected to connect with Saudi Arabia’s expanding rail network and Egypt’s developing infrastructure in Sinai. The bridge will also support Saudi’s NEOM megacity project, which lies near the Saudi endpoint. Officials estimate the bridge could serve over one million travelers annually, including pilgrims traveling directly from North Africa to Saudi Arabia’s holy cities. By offering an overland alternative, the bridge may ease pressure on maritime chokepoints and help reduce transit times and shipping costs, particularly important given the recent financial strain on the Suez Canal caused by Houthi disruptions in the Red Sea.

For Saudi Arabia, the project represents far more than a civil engineering ambition; it is a cornerstone of the kingdom’s broader geo-economic strategy. Vision 2030 prioritizes infrastructure development as a means to transform Saudi Arabia into a logistical powerhouse connecting Africa, Asia, and Europe—with the goal of ranking among the world’s top ten logistics hubs. In this context, the bridge is not merely a connector of land masses, but a strategic tool of influence, physically linking continents while reinforcing Saudi Arabia’s role as an indispensable regional nexus for connectivity and commerce.

The IMEC Context: Israel’s bypassed role

The Moses Bridge has emerged at a time when regional powers are racing to establish East–West connectivity. At the 2023 Group of Twenty (G20) summit, the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the European Union (EU) announced the IMEC initiative, a proposed trade corridor linking Indian ports to Europe via the Gulf and Israel. The plan included two legs: an Indian Ocean maritime link to the Arabian Peninsula, and a northern overland route through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel to Mediterranean ports.

For Israel, IMEC was a strategic boon, offering both economic and diplomatic benefits by generating transit revenues and attracting foreign direct investment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the corridor as a “blessing of a new Middle East that will transform lands once ridden with conflict and chaos into fields of prosperity and peace.” It aligned with the momentum of the Abraham Accords and the vision of Israel as a vital partner in regional logistics and trade.

However, the IMEC project faces headwinds. The outbreak of war in Gaza in late 2023 dulled regional enthusiasm and put Saudi–Israeli normalization talks on hold, casting doubt over Israel’s political reliability as a partner. Meanwhile, regional actors started to diversify their options.

Saudi Arabia’s strategic hedging

The Moses Bridge reflects Saudi Arabia’s broader hedging strategy. Riyadh is investing in multiple corridors: east to India, west to Africa, and north through Iraq, and Syria to Turkey. All these routes sidestep Israel. While the IMEC plan placed Israel at the center, the Moses Bridge allows Saudi Arabia to connect to Europe independently, through Egypt’s Mediterranean gateway, offering a depoliticized alternative that avoids the risks of entanglement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Saudi officials have been clear on this front. In October 2024, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan reiterated that normalization with Israel is “off the table” until there is a “resolution to Palestinian statehood.” Moreover, recent polling indicates that 81 percent of Saudis oppose normalization with Israel, a figure that reflects deep public resistance to engagement with Israel absent meaningful progress on Palestinian rights. With tensions high and public opinion hostile, the kingdom is unlikely to embrace infrastructure projects tied to Israel in the near term.

Egypt’s expanding role

Egypt, for its part, sees this as a way to reinforce its own logistics ecosystem, ensuring that freight coming over the Moses Bridge can move efficiently to ports such as Port Said or Damietta. The bridge integrates with Egypt’s national transportation and logistics strategy, which includes investments in new east–west rail lines, port upgrades on the Mediterranean, and logistics zones in the Sinai Peninsula. It could also help boost tourism in Sharm el-Sheikh, a hub in the Sinai Peninsula.

Cairo is also eager to reduce its reliance on the Suez Canal, whose revenues have dropped by nearly 50 percent amid Red Sea tensions, by expanding overland trade routes. If successful, this infrastructure could help Egypt reposition itself as a land bridge between Africa, the Gulf, and Europe; again, bypassing Israel.

Beyond the Moses Bridge, two additional overland routes have been discussed: the gradual reopening of Syria, which could reconnect Gulf states to Turkey via Saudi Arabia or Jordan, and Iraq’s proposed “Development Road,” linking the al Faw Grand Port to Turkey. Both offer theoretical alternatives, though each faces significant financial, political, and security hurdles.

Geopolitical implications for Israel

Taken together, these developments suggest several overland alternatives that could reduce the strategic necessity of Israel as a transit center. The Moses Bridge is more than a physical connection, it is a strategic message. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are building the infrastructure of a post-conflict Middle East that might no longer depend on Israel. For the United States, this shift can erode one of its potential key channels of influence in the region. As other regional actors, including: Syria, Iraq, and Turkey rejoin the economic conversation, and Arab partners appear indifferent to explore other routes, Israel must act to reinstate its geopolitical advantage.

Recent diplomatic signals reinforce this shift. During his May 2025 Gulf tour, US President Donald Trump visited Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi, but conspicuously skipped Israel. In remarks delivered in Riyadh, he proposed new economic incentives to Saudi Arabia without linking them to normalization with Israel, a striking departure from past US policy that underscores shifting regional priorities. The message was clear: The Middle East’s road to Washington no longer necessarily runs through Jerusalem.

Strategic pathways forward

How should Washington respond to these developments? To begin with, the United States should assume a more proactive leadership role in advancing IMEC and coordinating with parallel initiatives. This includes fostering multilateral working groups among Israel, Egypt, India, Jordan, and Gulf states; encouraging interoperability between infrastructure projects; and providing political cover and technical support to accelerate implementation. A consistent US presence is essential to prevent fragmentation and ensure that economic corridors deliver on their strategic promise.

In parallel, the United States should elevate IMEC as a strategic priority. The corridor anchors Washington’s influence in the infrastructure domain, counterbalancing the influence of rival powers while reinforcing ties between its allies in the region. To achieve this, it could embed IMEC into national economic and foreign policy frameworks through interagency coordination, perhaps by appointing a dedicated envoy or task force. It could also take steps to integrate corridor diplomacy into the operational workflows of the State Department, National Security Council, and Department of Commerce. Such measures could help ensure continuity across administrations, demonstrate long-term US commitment to regional partners, and allow Washington to better align connectivity infrastructure with its broader geopolitical interests.

More broadly, both the United States and Israel should advocate for a depoliticized framing of IMEC—one that emphasizes mutual economic and logistic benefits rather than symbolic normalization. Quiet diplomacy that underscores shared interests in connectivity, climate adaptation, food security, and digital infrastructure may create space for engagement with Arab and Muslim states still cautious about ties with Israel.

Israel, for its part, must respond not with alarm, but with action. Rebuilding trust with Saudi Arabia should be a top priority. The cease-fire agreement in Gaza offers a window to re-engage regional partners: sustained de-escalation, paired with meaningful steps toward a sustainable and hopeful future for Palestinians, could help revitalize stalled dialogue and restore confidence among Arab states.

Finally, Israel should invest in its own logistical infrastructure, especially in digitization and artificial intelligence–powered logistics. Doing so will enhance its attractiveness and make participation in IMEC and future corridors more compelling.

If approached pragmatically and in close coordination with Washington, Israel can still position itself as a valuable partner; not just within IMEC, but in an emerging web of regional corridors. The window is open, but not forever.

Amit Yarom is a graduate student at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He is a foreign policy researcher, specializing in the Arabian Gulf.

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More specifically, point eighteen reads:

“An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence to try and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.”

Most have glossed over the point, likely dismissing it as rhetorical padding or meaningless fluff. They are wrong to do so. In fact, engagement with religious actors will be a crucial aspect of long-term peacebuilding in Israel and Palestine. If implemented wisely, Trump’s point eighteen could make a real contribution to peace. Implemented poorly, however, it risks becoming another exercise in empty symbolism.

Point eighteen can’t be about returning to the interfaith status quo. During a memorable conversation last year in Bethlehem, Palestinian pastor Mitri Raheb told me that when it comes to interfaith dialogue in Palestine and Israel, “the current paradigm is broken.”

The juncture the region faces today thus provides an opportunity to take up the challenge of bridging religious divides and to explore what a new model for effective local religious peacebuilding might look like—by questioning many underlying assumptions and learning from what has and hasn’t worked in the past.

At its heart, of course, the Israel-Palestine conflict is not a religious dispute. It’s a conflict over territory. Yet that land—Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem—carries immense religious significance for Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. Sacred geography makes the conflict not only political but also existential, rooted in identities, rituals, and sacred narratives. Sites like the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif are not just bargaining chips in negotiations. They are living spaces of prayer and devotion.

One thing Palestinian and Israeli religious leaders all agree on—as I’ve learned from many conversations with them—is that official negotiators have consistently marginalized their respective voices in efforts to achieve peace over the years. The assumption by political leaders—Israeli, Palestinian, and international alike—has been that religion is about absolute truths unamenable to the kind of transactional logic needed to negotiate peace. While this perspective is understandable, it couldn’t be further off the mark. Religious leaders possess unique forms of moral authority and social capital that no politician or diplomat can replicate.  

For example, in the summer of 2017, Jerusalem teetered on the brink of spiraling into violence after Israel installed new metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount or Ḥaram al-Sharif, leading to rapidly escalating protests and clashes. What ultimately helped defuse the crisis was not the local security forces or another round of shuttle diplomacy from foreign envoys but quiet intervention by local rabbis and Muslim scholars. Sustainable peace will ultimately require communities on both sides to embrace narratives that allow for coexistence—narratives that must be articulated in religious as well as political terms if they are to take root.

The inclusion of point eighteen in Trump’s plan is, therefore, a welcome development. But there is a significant risk of it being implemented in a manner that would be feckless at best and possibly even damaging.

The Abraham Accords—a geopolitical framework painted in religious overtones—supercharged an already burgeoning cottage industry of religious diplomacy largely centered on the Gulf Cooperation Council region. With the encouragement and endorsement of the United States, countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have organized a continuous parade of interfaith summits focused on peace, tolerance, and coexistence—many of them generating lofty-sounding declarations and charters affirming shared values and universal fraternity across faith divides.

These interfaith summits suffer from two shortfalls. First, the inspiring and, to be sure, very welcome words they produce are rarely followed by concrete plans to transform them into actions or deeds. This is not surprising because genuine social transformation of the kind that would be needed to realize their aspirations is deeply threatening to the governments whose patronage makes these convenings possible. For example, in some cases, it would require regional leaders to shift away from deeply entrenched policies of discrimination against their own religious minorities. Declarations of tolerance and coexistence make for excellent public relations, but they demand nothing of the signatories and change nothing on the ground.

Second, the religious leaders who attend these conferences, many of whom dwell at the top of their respective denominational hierarchies, are without doubt among the most eminent clergy in the world. Because of this, however, very few of them possess organic connections to or trust within communities on the ground. Many of them are also closely tied to one or another government, constraining their credibility and sometimes tainting them by association with official policies that often promote something very different from tolerance and coexistence. When a government-appointed mufti or state-approved bishop speaks about peace, communities struggling under occupation or siege have every reason to question whether these figures truly represent their interests or merely provide religious cover for political agendas.

The danger, then, is that point eighteen becomes the pretext for yet another round of comfortable interfaith conferences that produce ethereally beautiful statements wholly divorced from the local conflict settings in which communities struggle daily for peace with and through religion. This risks creating “peace theater”—performances of reconciliation designed more for international consumption than for any genuine transformation of relationships. Already, there are worrying signs that things once again may be heading in that direction.

Instead, point eighteen should lead back to the always-difficult work of ground-level interfaith peacebuilding in Palestine and Israel. This work has been going on for decades, often quietly and at great risk to those involved. It has involved rabbis, imams, priests, and lay religious leaders meeting in living rooms, walking the streets of contested neighborhoods together, and standing guard at each other’s holy sites during times of heightened tension. It has meant religious educators developing curricula that teach the history and theology of the other, and religious leaders jointly confronting extremism within their own communities. And it has often seen women of different confessional backgrounds risking everything to reach across lines that no one else is willing to cross.

This grounded religious peacebuilding has both done good and caused harm. On the one hand, it has prevented violence at flashpoint sacred sites, but on the other, it has masked and reinforced sharp inequities and power asymmetries. When interfaith dialogue occurs between parties in profoundly unequal positions—with Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and Israelis enjoying full sovereignty—there is always a risk that such engagement normalizes injustice rather than confronting it. These are not reasons to abandon interfaith peacebuilding, but they underscore why such work must be undertaken with careful attention to context, power dynamics, and the complex ways religion can both challenge and legitimize oppression. Once-celebrated initiatives such as the Seeds for Peace camps that brought young Israelis and Palestinians together have come under criticism for ignoring power imbalances between the participants.

If, against all odds, the current cease-fire does somehow produce the contours of a new political and security framework acceptable to all parties, religious leaders will have a crucial role to play in providing legitimacy for those arrangements. Political agreements, no matter how carefully negotiated, remain fragile abstractions until they are embraced and internalized by communities. Religious leaders can help translate the language of diplomatic protocols into the idiom of lived faith—explaining why a particular compromise is not a betrayal but rather an expression of religious values, or how a specific security arrangement honors rather than violates sacred obligations.

Most importantly, in the long run, sustainable coexistence will require a religious grammar that can only come into existence through the collective work of rabbis, imams, and clergy living and working on the front lines of broken and traumatized communities. This theology will not emerge from conference halls in Abu Dhabi or Riyadh. It will be forged in the much more difficult and dangerous spaces where people live with the daily consequences of this conflict—in Jerusalem and Hebron, in Gaza and the West Bank, and in villages and cities where the work of building peace means risking accusations of collaboration and betrayal from one’s own community.

The region doesn’t need more gleaming Abrahamic baubles; it needs a fraught, hopeful, and seemingly impossible new theology born from the rubble of Gaza. Point eighteen could facilitate that work—but only if it is implemented with genuine commitment to supporting grassroots religious peacebuilding rather than staging another round of well-catered interfaith spectacles. The choice between these two paths will determine whether this provision becomes a meaningful contribution to peace or simply another missed opportunity.

Peter Mandaville is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center. He is also a professor of international affairs in the Schar School of Policy and Government and director of the Abu Sulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. From 2024 to 2025, he served as the director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and senior advisor for faith engagement at the United States Agency for International Development.

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Those defining lines of tension were this month underscored at a pivotal moment for the region. Intense rainfall over the Ethiopian Highlands this month triggered severe flooding in several northern Egyptian governorates, including Beheira, Kafr el-Sheikh, and Menoufia.

The floods triggered renewed hostility over Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Ethiopia presents the GERD as a developmental milestone aimed at poverty reduction and energy self-sufficiency. For Egypt and Sudan, however, the project’s unilateral management represents an existential risk.

Egypt’s Ministry of Irrigation blamed Ethiopia for “reckless dam management,” claiming that abrupt water discharges from the GERD exacerbated the recent surge in floodwaters. Addis Ababa—having formally inaugurated the dam only weeks earlier, on September 9—countered that operations followed technical protocols and mitigated what would otherwise have been worse flooding in Sudan. This episode underscores how data opacity fuels political mistrust.

The latest escalation coincides with a renewed diplomatic shift. In a recent interview with Al Arabiya Arabic, Massad Boulos—senior adviser to US President Donald Trump on African, Arab, and Middle Eastern Affairs—stated that Washington now supports a “technical, not political” approach to the GERD dispute. According to Boulos, “the GERD issue must be resolved through technical means, not political pressure,” a position that signals a recalibration of US engagement and places the emphasis on data transparency, operational coordination, and joint risk mitigation rather than on coercive diplomacy.

Cairo warned more than once that rapid filling or uncoordinated water releases could sharply reduce downstream flows, disrupt irrigation, and even increase flood risk during heavy rains—challenges that pose real risks for a deeply water-stressed country.

The GERD and Egypt’s water stress

Costing roughly five billion dollars, located fourteen kilometers from the Sudanese border, and designed to hold 74 billion cubic meters of water, the GERD represents Africa’s largest hydroelectric plant. Following the fourth and final filling in September 2023, Addis Ababa declared the dam fully operational, doubling national power capacity and consolidating its ambition to become a regional energy hub.

The hydrological risks of the project for Egypt’s Delta are both immediate and structural. In the short term, large or poorly coordinated releases from upstream reservoirs can overwhelm outdated drainage systems, provoking floods and disrupting irrigation cycles. In the medium to long term, a new operational regime at GERD will alter seasonal flow patterns, affecting groundwater recharge and salinity levels, and challenging agriculture and infrastructure alike. Without transparent data-sharing and coordinated management, Cairo will struggle to anticipate these shifts.

With over 118 million people and relying on the Nile River for nearly 97 percent of its freshwater, the Nile represents not merely a resource but Egypt’s national bloodstream. Average water availability per person has declined from almost 1,900 cubic meters in 1959 to fewer than six hundred today—well below the United Nations’ water-poverty threshold—and is expected to fall below five hundred by 2050, signaling an absolute water scarcity level. Climate change, sea-level rise, and irrigation inefficiencies compound these pressures, placing food production and social stability at risk.

Cairo, therefore, faces a dual challenge: modernizing its irrigation and drainage infrastructure while preventing upstream states from restricting flows. Meanwhile, Ethiopia—despite contributing 86 percent of the Nile’s waters—remains among the world’s lowest in water-use capacity, struggling with recurrent droughts and power shortages.

Historical legacies and legal asymmetries

The current diplomatic crisis cannot be understood without recalling colonial-era water agreements between Egypt and Sudan. The 1929 British-brokered Nile Waters Agreement granted Egypt 48 billion cubic meters per year and Sudan 4 billion, along with Cairo’s veto over upstream projects—an agreement negotiated solely between Egypt, Sudan, and their former colonial power, the United Kingdom. Ethiopia was never a party to this treaty and has consistently rejected its legitimacy, arguing that no upstream state can be bound by colonial-era arrangements in which it had neither representation nor consent. The 1959 Egypt–Sudan accord reinforced this asymmetry, allocating about 84 percent of the river’s flow (55.5 billion for Egypt and 18.5 for Sudan) and creating a joint commission to oversee water management between these two countries—again without Ethiopian participation. Addis Ababa regards both treaties as legally irrelevant and historically obsolete.

For decades, these treaties anchored Egypt’s claim to “historic rights,” while upstream countries rejected them as colonial relics. The result is a structural mismatch between legal legitimacy and hydrological reality: Upstream states see their development prospects as constrained, while Egypt perceives any alteration in river flow as an existential threat.

But structural tensions escalated with Ethiopia in 2011 when Addis Ababa launched construction of the GERD. Years of negotiations mediated by the African Union, the United States, and the World Bank have yet to yield a binding trilateral agreement, leaving both hydrological and political uncertainty unresolved and tensions high among these states. In this context, water management has become inseparable from national security, energy policy, and regional diplomacy.

Ethiopia insists that dam operations follow seasonal hydrology and turbine requirements, while Egypt argues that opaque management violates the 2015 Declaration of Principles on equitable use of Nile waters. From a geopolitical and security perspective, the return of tensions among these states confirms the reemergence of hardened positions and the risk of a prolonged hydropolitical confrontation. Addis Ababa continues to argue that the GERD symbolizes a new order based on equitable development and regional interdependence, rather than dominance. Yet, this new order still lacks a legal and technical framework acceptable to all. No binding agreement exists on how the dam will be filled and operated during droughts or flood years, leaving each side vulnerable to the other’s decisions.

Sociopolitical tensions further magnify these physical risks. Recurrent floods and perceived external threats to national water security could exacerbate domestic grievances, fuel nationalist rhetoric, and push policymakers toward confrontational postures—including legal or, in extreme cases, military options. Indeed, Egypt has repeatedly framed control over Nile waters as an existential issue and has at times indicated that it would consider armed intervention if upstream dam operations were to threaten downstream flows.

Recommendations

Today, three overlapping deficits continue to undermine Nile Basin governance: a technical deficit (lack of real-time data on releases and inflows), an operational deficit (absence of agreed rules for drought or flood management), and a political deficit (mutual distrust and competing national narratives). The recent floods starkly reveal the cost of these gaps. Egypt’s repeated assertion that the Nile constitutes a “red line” underscores how water security remains inseparable from national sovereignty, making compromise politically difficult.

Cairo should consider a strategic path forward from this dilemma, based on a dual approach.

On the one hand, it must intensify external engagement—pursuing legal and diplomatic efforts through mechanisms such as the International Court of Justice, which reframes the dispute in legal rather than existential terms, while sustaining negotiations under the African Union (regional legitimacy) and the United States (one of the few external actors able to exert leverage on all three capitals).

Representatives of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia will establish an independent trilateral technical commission under African Union oversight to analyze hydrological data and develop predictive flood models. At the same time, an integrated early-warning system that interconnects the existing hydrological, meteorological, and dam-operation monitoring platforms in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt—allowing real-time data sharing and coordinated response to droughts, floods, and irregular water releases—would help avert humanitarian crises and improve coordination during extreme weather events. Equally important is the negotiation of legally binding operational guarantees—however minimal—that can anchor political trust in measurable hydrological parameters. International partners, including the United States, have promoted technical confidence-building measures designed to calm tensions, such as installing automated flow gauges and satellite-based monitoring to increase transparency. Yet such measures will build trust only if embedded within a political framework for data sharing and collaborative drought management.

On the other hand, Cairo should prioritize domestic adaptation by investing in water efficiency, desalination, and drainage upgrades to enhance resilience regardless of upstream actions. Egypt must accelerate its adaptation efforts by upgrading drainage infrastructure, modernizing pumping stations, and expanding agricultural insurance schemes to protect vulnerable communities. Ultimately, international diplomacy should be reframed toward the goal of shared resilience, encouraging Ethiopia to view coordination as an expression of responsible sovereignty, rather than an externally imposed constraint.

The recent floods serve as a warning: Technical cooperation cannot remain hostage to political rivalry. Whether the GERD becomes a driver of regional integration or a lasting fault line will depend on how quickly riparian states shift from mutual accusations to shared management. The alternative—a future of recurrent floods, escalating mistrust, and securitized water politics—would threaten not only livelihoods in the Nile Delta but also the broader stability of the Horn of Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Alessia Melcangi is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs. She is also an associate professor of contemporary history of North Africa and the Middle East at the Sapienza University of Rome, an associate research fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies in Milan, and a member of the scientific committee of the Fondazione Med-Or Leonardo SpA in Rome.

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Iraq held parliamentary elections on November 11, 2025. Two decades after the fall of Saddam Hussein, elections remain the formal mechanism of democracy in Iraq, but they have largely evolved into exercises in power redistribution among established political actors. The 2025 elections and the coalition-building process that follows will test whether Iraq’s political order can maintain equilibrium without meaningful reform or whether mounting disillusionment will push it toward deeper paralysis. 

As the coalition-building unfolds, our experts are mapping what to expect next for Iraq’s governance and its people.

This post will be continue to be updated as developments take place.

Key points about the election

The Shia Coordination Framework (CF), a coalition of establishment Shia parties with strong institutional and militia networks, is expected to retain dominance. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s coalition is positioned as the frontrunner, but as in previous cycles, the premiership will likely be determined through post-election bargaining among CF leaders, Kurdish blocs, and Sunni coalitions. This process is reflective of Iraq’s political equilibrium, in which an informal elite pact trades reform for order and stability.  

Campaigns are visible across Baghdad and the provinces, yet public enthusiasm is muted, with low turnout expected, underscoring the deep disconnect between citizens and the state. That turnout is projected to fall below the already–low 41 percent recorded in 2021. Persistent corruption, patronage, and coercive political financing have eroded trust in elections as paths to accountability. Party spending has reached record levels, making financial leverage and control over state employment decisive in mobilizing votes. The boycott by prominent Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Sadrist Movement, once the largest parliamentary bloc, further reduced competition and narrowed participation. 

Elections Law No. 9, passed in 2020 to address demands of local protests, reverts to larger provincial constituencies, in the end favoring dominant parties and diminishing space for independents who gained traction in 2021. The outcome of these elections will shape Iraq’s balance of power more through elite negotiation than through popular mandate. For international observers and partners, particularly the United States, the main concern lies in whether the process reinforces stability or reignites factional contestation. 

What to know about the electoral system

Iraq’s parliamentary elections are governed by the amended Election Law No. 9 of 2020, which reinstated proportional representation through a mathematical formula that divides votes by odd divisors (1.7, 3, 5, 7, and so on) to determine how many seats each political list receives. Each of Iraq’s eighteen provinces acts as a single voting district, and its seats in the 329-member parliament are distributed according to population. Once a list wins seats, they are given to the candidates on that list who earned the highest number of votes. Iraqi law requires that 25 percent of parliamentary seats, eighty-three in total, be reserved for women, and that nine seats be reserved for minorities such as Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, Mandaeans, and Feyli Kurds. Vacant seats are filled by the next-highest vote-getter from the same list or community. 

While supporters of the current law argue that it strengthens stability and party cohesion, critics contend that the return to larger districts and closed party lists weakens independent candidates and concentrates power among established elites.

Key political players and alliances

What the parliament has looked like over time

Election results

Note: This does not include smaller winning coalitions that are affiliated with the larger blocs listed above. For example, two separate coalitions in Anbar with a total of six seats are generally considered to be affiliated with Taqadum but have not been added to Taqadum’s tally.

What to expect for government formation

Iraq’s elections rarely produce an outright winner. Instead, coalitions and political negotiations determine who leads the country. 

After the election, the parliament elects Iraq’s president, who then formally nominates the prime minister, who is chosen through post-election bargaining among the largest parliamentary blocs. The prime minister designate has thirty days to propose a cabinet and win a vote of confidence in parliament. Until that vote, which in recent years has taken many months of negotiation, the previous cabinet remains in place as a caretaker government, allowed only to manage day-to-day affairs and not to launch major policy changes. 

Victoria J. Taylor is the director of the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs.

Nibras Basitkey is the associate director of the Iraq Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs.

Daniah Jarrah is a young global professional at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs.

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The November election will not necessarily determine who the next prime minister will be, but it will provide an opportunity to shift power dynamics within the fractious Shia bloc.

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Iraq is set to hold elections on November 11. Our experts unpack the key questions looming over the landmark vote.

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The current draft resolution has many strong elements, and the United States should resist efforts by other Security Council members to weaken it. The draft resolution gives international legitimacy to the Trump peace plan, including the Board of Peace (BoP), an International Security Force (ISF) with a robust authority to demilitarize Hamas and other terrorist groups, and civilian “operational entities” under the BoP, including an international oversight body and “a Palestinian technocratic, apolitical committee of competent Palestinians” from Gaza.

One of the “operational entities” could be the Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA). It was referenced by name in the Trump plan but is not mentioned specifically in the draft resolution—perhaps because GITA and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair met some resistance from Egypt and elsewhere. The relationship between international oversight and the Palestinian committee is ambiguous in the draft resolution, and this is where improvements could make the difference between success and failure for the Trump plan.

The US experiences in Bosnia and Iraq show the importance of getting the early decisions right. In Bosnia, United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution 1031 (1995) provided a one-time-only authorization to set up the Office of the High Representative and an International Force (IFOR) to enforce the Dayton Peace Agreement. Like the ISF for Gaza, IFOR was not a UN peacekeeping force, keeping it out of the hands of a Russian or Chinese veto and the UN bureaucracy, either of which would have made a lasting peace impossible. However, the United States focused more on the military side of implementation, leaving civilian implementation in the hands of Europeans who, in the first crucial months, tried to compromise decisions that should not have been compromised. Bosnian Serb recalcitrance, in particular, threatened to unravel the peace. There are many celebrated but unpublished stories about how US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and his team rescued the peace deal in a February 1996 conference in Rome. The result was not perfect, but Bosnia has not fallen back into war for almost thirty years.

The US experience in Iraq shows how early, bad decisions are often unrecoverable. The United States delayed deciding how to administer Iraq and was not ready when Baghdad fell to US forces. Washington’s decisions to disband the Iraqi army and extend de-Baathification down to the firqa level (i.e., beyond what was necessary) led to an insurgency that crippled Iraq. Failures to understand the role of money in Iraqi elections, and to provide border security from day one, allowed Iran to gain the upper hand in Iraqi politics. The decision to let Iraqi political parties appoint individual ministers led to crippling corruption and the deeply unpopular muhasasa system.

The biggest challenge to lasting peace in Gaza is Hamas’s unwillingness to lay down its arms. Both Trump and the Israeli government are adamant that Hamas must be disarmed. Arab governments will not contribute to Gaza’s reconstruction if Hamas can keep its weapons, even if limited to AK-47s, to intimidate the locals and allow Hamas to attack Israel whenever it wants. This would result in an Israeli counterattack that would likely destroy anything that was rebuilt. Gaza will not have peace or reconstruction unless Hamas is disarmed.

At the same time, no Arab force likely wants to fight Hamas to take away its weapons. Jordan’s King Abdullah II said this publicly in October.

Instead, disarmament will have to proceed along two tracks. First, paragraph seven of the draft resolution gives the ISF the mandate “to use all necessary measures” for “ensuring the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, including the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of the military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.” The ISF will need some Western special operations forces or contractors able to carry out targeted raids on Hamas remnants and their weapons caches. But the language in paragraph seven is strong.

There needs to be a second track: Take away Hamas’ control over the money, jobs, and contracts in Gaza. This was how Hamas built up its fighters, weapons, and tunnels. Keeping money away from Hamas has to be a core mission of the BoP’s “operational entities.” This will require initial international control of Gaza’s tax revenues, government contracts, and key appointments to prevent Hamas from intimidating local Palestinians, as it will certainly try to do. This can be phased out when it is unnecessary, but international control is absolutely essential for both Israel and Gaza at the outset.

Just four additional words, italicized here, added to paragraph four of the draft resolution, would clarify that the BoP’s “operational entities shall be responsible for day-to-day operations of Gaza’s civil service, finance, contracts, and administration.” The present draft is ambiguous on this point, and to avoid a knock-down-drag-out bureaucratic argument, the resolution should make it clear that the entities created by the BoP, not just the Palestinian committee, are responsible for Gaza’s finance, contracts, and key personnel. Hamas will no doubt object, and Egypt may as well, but no government will invest billions of dollars if Hamas’s disarmament is not a priority—and keeping the money away from Hamas is the best nonmilitary way to ensure Hamas is unable to rebuild and rearm.

Control over the money, contracts, and key officials in Gaza is absolutely essential for the success of Trump’s plan. In the next few days, the United States and its regional allies should work to strengthen the draft resolution by ensuring that the operational entities created by the BoP will have the ability to ensure that Hamas can never come back to power.

Thomas S. Warrick is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. From 1997 to 2007, he served in the US Department of State on Middle East and international justice issues, including heading postwar planning on Iraq from 2002 to 2003.

The post The important change needed in UNSC’s Gaza resolution: Control over the money appeared first on Atlantic Council.

US President Donald Trump officially announced the news in a Truth Social post. By joining the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, Kazakhstan is signaling its commitment to the principles of the accords. But it likely won’t be the last to join. Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan are in talks to join the pact.

The move highlights Central Asia’s somewhat quiet, but unusually strong, diplomatic ties with Israel, which are likely to increase should more regional nations follow in Kazakhstan’s footsteps. While some have dismissed an expansion to Central Asia as “largely symbolic,” this interpretation overlooks deeper implications.

Extending the Abraham Accords into Central Asia marks a new phase—building a coalition of pro-US Muslim nations committed to tolerance and engagement with Israel. Such a coalition strengthens efforts to counter extremism, particularly state-sponsored ideology from Iran, and fosters cooperation among US partners across a region vital to US interests.

Why Kazakhstan moved first—and who might follow

Trump has been eyeing an expansion of the Abraham Accords into Central Asia for months, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly appealed for “trilateral relations” among Israel, the United States, and Azerbaijan. Baku had appeared the most likely to join first, given its longstanding partnership with Israel across diplomacy, conflict mediation, defense, and energy.

Azerbaijan’s successful balancing of its Muslim identity with close ties to Israel has strengthened its access to Washington and set a precedent in the Turkic world. Kazakhstan likely coordinated with Azerbaijan, similar to how Saudi Arabia tacitly supported Bahrain joining in 2020.

Simultaneously, Kazakhstan’s move carries a competitive subtext vis-à-vis Uzbekistan. While the nations share fraternal ties, they compete for regional leadership and closer engagement with the West. This rivalry was on display when Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev committed to purchasing Boeing aircraft for eight billion dollars and was granted a sit-down meeting with Trump during the UN General Assembly—an opportunity that eluded Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. By contrast, Kazakhstan had earlier concluded a four-billion-dollar deal with US firm Wabtec to modernize its locomotive fleet—a significant but comparatively smaller deal.

By joining the Abraham Accords, Kazakhstan has bought Washington’s favor by aligning itself with US regional priorities and an initiative personally important to Trump.

Kazakhstan and Israel: A partnership rooted in tolerance and strategy

Kazakhstan’s ties with Israel are built on a tradition of coexistence and mutual respect. In 2023, former Israeli Ambassador Ran Ishay said that Kazakhstan is “a country without antisemitism,” a reputation echoed by diaspora Jewish leaders such as Malcolm Hoenlein.

Jewish traders first arrived along the Silk Road in what is now Kazakhstan as early as the fifteenth century. During Stalin’s forced deportations and World War II, Kazakhstan became home to over a hundred ethnic groups exiled from other parts of the Soviet Union, as well as tens of thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. Despite severe famine leading to the death of more than a third of the Kazakh population due to Soviet collectivization policies, these newcomers found relative safety and dignity in Kazakhstan—a legacy that endures today.

The relationship extends beyond tolerance, all the way to fashion trends. Three years ago, young Kazakhstani women took to wearing Hebrew pendants bearing the word chai—or life—displaying an appreciation of Jewish culture. Kazakhstan’s acceptance of Jews reflects its broader ethos of hospitality and religious tolerance. For example, Muslim Kazakhs often join their Orthodox Christian neighbors during the Epiphany holiday, plunging into icy waters to commemorate the baptism of Jesus.

Diplomatically, Israel was one of the first countries to recognize Kazakhstan’s independence in 1992, after which the two nations quickly established full relations. Since then, cooperation has grown steadily across several industries. Israeli know-how has helped Kazakhstan modernize its irrigation systems and healthcare sector, while Kazakhstan has become one of Israel’s top oil suppliers. Together with Azerbaijan, it provided roughly 60 percent of Israel’s energy needs as of 2023.

Kazakhstan’s relations with Israel have deepened even during moments of regional tension. Following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Tokayev became the first Central Asian leader to condemn the massacre, asserting that “terrorist tactics are never justified.” Days later, Astana called for the unconditional release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Rather than retreating from its partnership with Israel under pressure from Iran and segments of the Muslim world, Kazakhstan pursued discussions on visa-free travel, tourism, and technology partnerships. Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana visited Astana in April, praising Kazakhstan as a “model of peaceful coexistence and mutual respect.”

These warm relations carry risks. In August 2024, Iranian operatives attempted to target Israeli and Jewish institutions in Kazakhstan’s city of Almaty, including the Jewish Agency offices and the Or Avner Center. The attacks, carried out by a Tajik national recruited by Tehran, underscored the risks of Astana’s policy of religious tolerance and openness.

For Israel, Kazakhstan represents a stable, pragmatic partner—a Muslim-majority state that shares its concerns about extremism, and values practical cooperation over ideology. For Kazakhstan, ties with Israel offer not just technological and security dividends but also a bridge to the United States and global Jewish communities, with whom Astana has cultivated ties for years.

In an era of rising global antisemitism, Kazakhstan’s record is a model of harmony and pragmatic diplomacy, making accession to the Abraham Accords a logical extension of its history.

Kazakhstan’s role in US strategic interests

For Washington, Kazakhstan’s accession aligns with broader objectives—securing critical mineral supply chains and expanding access to the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route or Middle Corridor. The Middle Corridor, which connects Central Asia to Europe via the Caspian Sea and the South Caucasus, offers the West a vital alternative trade route that bypasses both Russia and Iran. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have underscored the need for such alternatives, as traditional trade routes have been affected by conflict.

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan’s vast reserves of rare earth elements and other critical minerals make it attractive for the United States’ diversification strategy. The country may hold the world’s third-largest rare earth reserves as well as large deposits of other critical minerals, including lithium, tungsten, and copper, all essential for clean energy technologies and defense manufacturing. By partnering with Kazakhstan, Washington can reduce its reliance on China, which supplies 70 percent of US rare earth imports and has twice this year threatened export controls on rare earths.

For Astana, cooperation with the United States complements its “multi-vector” foreign policy, balancing relations with Russia, China, and the West to preserve sovereignty. Kazakhstan shares the world’s longest border with Russia, making strategic diversification an urgent national security priority, especially as Moscow actively destabilizes the majority ethnic-Russian north. As Russia’s influence has receded, as Moscow’s capacity is overloaded with its invasion of Ukraine, China has largely filled the vacuum, expanding its economic and political footprint across Central Asia through trade, infrastructure, and energy projects. Joining the Abraham Accords gives Kazakhstan a channel to deepen ties with the United States without overtly antagonizing either neighbor.

Turning the Accords into a trans-Eurasian network

The Abraham Accords offer Washington a framework to coordinate influence through its allies—particularly Israel and the Gulf states—whose economic and political footprint in Central Asia is expanding rapidly. In recent years, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have poured billions into renewable energy, infrastructure, and digital technology projects in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.

Organizing these expanding relationships under the Abraham Accords amplifies Washington’s influence by proxy, linking Central Asia’s resource wealth and trade routes with Gulf capital and Israeli technology. This could evolve the Abraham Accords from a Middle Eastern peace framework into a trans-Eurasian architecture based on promoting prosperity, tolerance, and stability as an alternative to China, Russia, and Iran.

Next steps

The path to a broader regional framework still requires significant work and deliberate engagement. Beyond consolidating the gains of the accords, Washington should draw in new partners, such as Azerbaijan and other Central Asian nations, while elevating initiatives promoting business, people-to-people, and technological cooperation.

Outdated US legislation remains an obstacle. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment, a Soviet-era law that restricts trade with countries that limited Jewish emigration, remains technically in force and inexplicably still applies to Central Asia, Kazakhstan included. Likewise, Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act, which prohibits US assistance to Azerbaijan due to its conflict with Armenia, remains a barrier, despite the Trump administration presiding over a peace summit between the two countries in August. Congress should align with the administration to repeal or permanently waive such outdated laws, enabling deeper cooperation with the region. Congress has introduced legislation to repeal Jackson-Vanik following Kazakhstan’s accession to the accords.

At the executive level, a stronger presence is overdue. No sitting US president has visited Central Asia, an omission that signals neglect. The Uzbek president was quick to invite Trump to Samarkand, a welcome opportunity to showcase US interest. Simultaneously, Washington should work with Gulf partners and Israel to encourage mutually beneficial investment and technological cooperation, helping to turn the Abraham Accords from a diplomatic milestone into the foundation of a lasting regional order.

Kazakhstan’s decision to join the Abraham Accords reflects a calculated effort to redefine its place in a shifting geopolitical landscape—rooted in tolerance, pragmatism, and its multi-vector strategy. By linking the Middle East, the Gulf, and Central Asia, the accords now hint at something larger than their original intent: a geography of peace that extends beyond old frontiers. For Washington, the task will be to nurture this momentum through steady engagement rather than episodic diplomacy. For Astana, the reward is stature, a chance to act as a bridge between the Muslim world and the West, reaffirming to the world that pragmatic cooperation can transcend cultural divides.

Joseph Epstein is the director of the Turan Research Center, a senior fellow at the Yorktown Institute, and a research fellow at the Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Program at Bar Ilan University’s Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

The post Kazakhstan joins the Abraham Accords—and redefines the geography of peace appeared first on Atlantic Council.

China was already the biggest international player in Iraq’s upstream sector—operating several large oil fields across southern Iraq—before Chinese companies were awarded new oil and gas blocks under al-Sudani’s premiership. The only oil and gas contract auction held during al-Sudani’s administration—the May 2024 “Fifth+ and Sixth” licensing round—was dominated by a combination of Chinese national oil companies and privately held Chinese exploration and production (E&P) companies. Interest from large Western oil companies (supermajors) was tepid (only Shell placed a bid, and it was unsuccessful), and interest from US companies was virtually nonexistent. Beijing’s dominance of the bid round was so complete that the only non-Chinese company to land an asset was an Iraqi firm, KAR Group.

Chinese financing has also appeared to give Chinese companies an inside track to winning critical energy infrastructure projects. Under a program that was initiated well before al-Sudani’s government, in 2019, Iraq now directs about 150,000 barrels per day worth of oil revenues into an escrow account, which then functions as collateral to unlock loans via the state-owned firm Sinosure. In its early days, this vehicle was used to fund projects outside of the energy sector, but al-Sudani’s government has recently leveraged the Chinese financing program to push forward two pieces of critical energy-sector infrastructure:

• A $2.6 billion pipeline project to bring treated seawater to giant oil fields for water injection, awarded to the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation
• A one-billion-dollar gas pipeline project linking an Anbar province gas field to power generation facilities, some of which are also built by Chinese companies.

Chinese financing is also likely to make or break an $18 billion integrated project that was awarded earlier this year to China’s Geo-Jade Petroleum for the upstream development of the Tuba oil field in the Iraqi city of Basra and the construction of an oil refinery, two power plants, a petrochemical plant, and a fertilizer plant.

China’s appeal to Iraq is obvious. On the upstream side, Chinese companies will accept commercial terms that Western majors and US E&Ps simply will not. Indeed, China’s success in Iraq’s 2024 oil and gas contract auction was less a function of any deliberate Iraqi strategy to favor Chinese companies than it was a reflection of the structure of the auction, in which the sole criterion for deciding a winning bid was a company’s willingness to accept a narrow profit margin. This structure put Chinese companies at an advantage, because vertically integrated Chinese national oil companies can make money on projects by assigning major contracting opportunities to their subsidiary entities. At the same time, small Chinese E&Ps can operate at a lower cost than their Western counterparts. Chinese companies can also access state financing with relative ease since Beijing sees a strong presence in Iraq’s upstream sector as a strategic priority for securing long-term crude supply.

Supermajors and US E&Ps have also found al-Sudani’s government eager to do business, even as these companies cannot compete with Chinese firms in open bid rounds. Al-Sudani’s administration inked major contracts with both TotalEnergies and BP after bilateral negotiations, and it is holding ongoing talks with both Chevron and ExxonMobil. Sudani’s government has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the privately owned US E&P company HKN Energy.

Al-Sudani’s government appears to see significant strategic value in courting supermajors and US E&Ps, even if the terms these companies demand are less advantageous for Iraq than those accepted by Chinese companies. Successive Iraqi governments have long been wary of creeping Chinese consolidation over Iraq’s upstream sector. For example, Iraq’s former oil minister, Ihsan Ismaael, told the Iraq Oil Report in 2021 that he rejected an effort by Lukoil to pursue an asset sale at West Qurna-2 to a Chinese company, because, “we need to keep the same balance of market share in the south.”

Additionally, a range of oil officials have told the authors that Iraqi oil officials often voice a preference for the technology and approach of supermajors. Meanwhile, increased US investment in Iraq’s energy sector is perceived by policymakers in Baghdad—based on our research and conversations with key leaders speaking on background—as a tool for mitigating the risk of sanctions enforcement against Iraqi entities by the US Treasury Department.

With Iraqi parliamentary elections looming, US and Chinese companies alike will be engaging a new government at some point in 2026. Even if there is a new prime minister at the helm, the next Iraqi government’s policy toward international energy investment is likely to be shaped by the same forces that have informed al-Sudani’s approach. Regardless of the specific makeup of the next Iraqi government, it is likely that Chinese firms will continue to enjoy an advantage—stemming from Iraq’s desire for favorable commercial terms and the relative ease of access to Chinese financing. At the same time, Iraq is also likely to continue soliciting megaprojects with supermajors due to their technical capacity and potential geopolitical value.

Jared Levy is the director of the Iraq Oil Report‘s research services division. He oversees a team of data collectors and analysts that provide private sector and government clients with a range of subscription products and bespoke research and briefing services. He previously ran the Iraq office of a market entry advisory company.

Ben Van Heuvelen is the editor-in-chief of the Iraq Oil Report. His work has also been published in the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the Atlantic, and Foreign Policy. He regularly briefs investors, diplomats, governments, and nongovernmental organizations on Iraq’s political and business environment. He previously worked as a research fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC.

The post Why China is here to stay in Iraq’s energy sector appeared first on Atlantic Council.

There are thousands of candidates running for 329 seats in parliament, at a consequential moment for the country. Iraqis face questions whose answers will shape governance in Baghdad and Erbil, the development of Iraq’s crucial energy sector and economy, and Iraqi security and sovereignty—all as the country continues to balance its relationships with the United States and Iran.

Our experts unpack all of this ahead of the landmark election.

1. What are the key issues for Iraqi voters, and what’s at stake this election cycle?  

The Iraqi voter continues to cast their ballot primarily along sectarian and ethnic lines, with few instances of voters supporting candidates outside their own group. This persistent pattern highlights the enduring influence of sectarian and ethnic identity in shaping electoral behavior and political preferences inside Iraq. 

Beyond identity-based voting, policy priorities vary significantly across Iraq’s provinces. According to a public opinion survey conducted by the Rewaq Baghdad Center for Public Policy, a center I founded and now lead, electricity was not among the top concerns for voters in the Kurdistan Region and Basra, while it remained a central issue in other provinces. In these areas, voters prioritized essential services such as infrastructure (roads and bridges), education, and healthcare. 

These differences in priorities have influenced voter orientation. In provinces such as Wasit, Karbala, and Basra, many voters favored governor-affiliated political blocs, perceiving that local administrations had provided substantial services. Notably, the governor of Karbala is affiliated with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s coalition, which may enhance the coalition’s standing in that province. 

Overall, it is projected that al-Sudani’s coalition could secure approximately sixty parliamentary seats, contingent on the extent to which he convinces voters that his government has effectively delivered public services during his tenure. In Baghdad, Shia political blocs are expected to lose around five seats, largely due to lower Shia voter turnout and a corresponding increase in Sunni voter participation.  

—Abbas Anbori is the founder and president of the Baghdad Rewaq Center for Public Policy, based in Iraq. He began his professional career as the head of international relations at the Iraqi Council of Representatives. Since 2014, he has been serving as a political advisor to the Foreign Relations Committee of the Council.   

The Iraqi parliament, at a glance: 2018 versus 2021

2. How likely is it that al-Sudani will return for a second term?  

The likelihood of al-Sudani securing a second term appears highly unlikely, primarily due to the deep divisions within the Coordination Framework (CF)—the Shia political coalition that initially selected him for the premiership. Tensions among its constituent blocs have escalated significantly both in the pre-election period and during the campaigns, making consensus around his reappointment difficult to achieve. 

While the CF remains the most influential factor in determining al-Sudani’s political future, it is not the only one. Two additional variables play an important role in shaping the post-election government formation process: 

One is the international factor, particularly the positions of Iran and the United States, whose tacit approval—or at least lack of objection—often shapes the boundaries of acceptable political outcomes in Iraq. 

The second is the role of the city of Najaf’s religious authority (the Marja‘iyya), which has historically exerted significant moral and political influence. However, it is unlikely that Najaf will play a decisive role in the selection process this time. That’s because its religious leadership’s approach this time has been to minimize involvement in political affairs to the lowest possible level.

The only plausible path for al-Sudani to retain the premiership would be if he and his Sunni and Kurdish allies managed to secure a two-thirds majority of parliamentary seats. This scenario appears highly improbable under current political conditions.  

—Abbas Anbori 

3. What is the Coordination Framework, and how has it impacted the trajectory of the government formation process? 

The Coordination Framework (CF) is Iraq’s principal Shia political bloc, originally formed by Islamist parties seeking to counter Moqtada al-Sadr’s coalition, after Iraq’s disputed 2021 parliamentary elections. The CF has since become the leading power broker in Baghdad, responsible for installing al-Sudani as prime minister in 2022, and it dominates the State Administration Coalition that governs Iraq today. The CF this cycle has adopted a controlled fragmentation strategy: multiple lists to maximize votes under Iraq’s new electoral law, followed by a likely post-election reunification to choose the prime minister and divide cabinet posts. The maneuver reflects deep internal rivalries, yet enduring necessity—the Shia parties know they will have a plurality in parliament, and no government can be formed without them. 

—Sajad Jiyad is an Iraqi political analyst based in Baghdad. He is a fellow at The Century Foundation. His main focus is on public policy and governance in Iraq, and he has published dozens of papers on Iraq. He is the author of God’s Man in Iraq.

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Oct 31, 2025

Inside the divides of Iraq’s Coordination Framework—and why they matter ahead of landmark elections 

By Rend Al-Rahim

The November election will not necessarily determine who the next prime minister will be, but it will provide an opportunity to shift power dynamics within the fractious Shia bloc.

Elections Iraq

The CF is behaving as it usually does—competing for Shia votes separately and, post-election, congregating in one parliamentary bloc to maximize its bargaining power. At this stage, it seems to again face a common danger, the prime minister’s electoral list. This list is aiming high this time, seeking a crushing defeat of the CF’s separate lists in the hope of securing a second term for al-Sudani, something that the CF strongly rejects at this stage. If al-Sudani’s list does not secure enough seats to form a governing coalition with the winning Kurdish and Arab-Sunni lists without the CF, we will likely see al-Sudani’s “return to the fold,” allying himself with the CF. 

—Akeel Abbas is a DC-based academic and journalist. His research and publications deal with national and religious identities, as well as modernity and democratization in the Middle East.

4. Who is Moqtada al-Sadr, and how will his followers impact the electoral process? 

Moqtada al-Sadr is a powerful Iraqi Shia cleric, and his National Shia Movement is likely to exert a profound influence on the elections through its ongoing boycott. Al-Sadr has effectively transformed electoral abstention from an individual act of protest into a collective position adopted across his movement, which remains the most potent mass-mobilizing force in central and southern Iraq. 

Unlike in the 2018 and 2021 elections, as well as previous ones, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has thus far refrained from issuing a public call urging Iraqis to participate in the forthcoming polls. When prompted to comment this year, Sistani merely stated in a fatwa that voting should be determined “according to the citizen’s own conviction.” This lack of a public call to participate, in contrast to his interventions in previous elections, leaves Sadr’s boycott unchallenged by Najaf’s highest religious authority, thereby weakening the moral counterbalance of Sadrists’ political rivals. 

Should Sadr maintain his boycott and Najaf refrain from issuing a statement, the signal to hesitant voters, particularly within the Shia electorate, will be unmistakable: The next parliament and government are likely to suffer from a legitimacy deficit. Such a perception would further erode public confidence in the next government’s capacity to provide stability and welfare amid intensifying financial strain. 

—Tamer Badawi is an Iraq-focused analyst and associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the founder and editor of Iraq Nexus, a Substack platform offering in-depth analysis of Iraq’s media and security landscapes.

This is a difficult question because the Sadrists and their leader are unpredictable, and relish in the element of surprise. The primary Sadrist interest in this election is to see the rival CF—who not only deprived them of power but also killed Sadrists during the “Ashura Uprising” of 2022—fail electorally. They may contribute to this outcome by going to the polls, based on potential last-minute orders from al-Sadr or his aides to Sadrist constituencies to vote for the CF’s rivals. Those would mostly be from the liberal-minded al-Badeel and the prime minister’s lists, to ensure that the CF does not secure enough seats to have a credible say in post-election dealmaking.

—Akeel Abbas  

5. How are Sunni political blocs positioning themselves, and can they overcome infighting to articulate a unified national agenda?  

The main competition among Sunni leaders is shaping up among three key players: former Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi’s Taqaddum Party, Muthanna al-Samarraie’s Azm Coalition, and Khamis al-Khanjar’s Siyada Coalition. The contest for dominance in representing the Sunni Arab community—with the speakership of parliament as the ultimate prize—has been intense, often involving alliances with non-Sunni groups to gain leverage and outmaneuver Sunni rivals. This rivalry is driven largely by transactional politics and personal ambition rather than ideology or policy differences. As a result, the loyalty of winning members of parliament to their blocs is likely to be tenuous at best. Unlike their Shia counterparts, Iraq’s Sunni politicians lack a powerful external patron capable of moderating competition or curbing personal rivalries that undermine broader communal interests. Indeed, there is little evidence that the leading figures are even interested in developing a unified national agenda—perhaps because the inevitable next question would be this: Who gets to lead it?

—Omar Al-Nidawi is a Middle East analyst focusing on Iraqi political, security, and energy affairs. He is currently the director of programs at the Enabling Peace in Iraq Center.  

6. To what extent does Iran shape Iraq’s political landscape?  

Iran’s influence on Iraqi politics since 2003 has been a source of concern for many Iraqis, as well as for the United States and other countries in the Middle East.

Iran has been particularly able to shape Shia policies and decision-making. For example, Iran has had a major say in the selection of successive prime ministers and the formation of governments; it has influenced Iraq’s foreign policy—including relations with the United States and Arab countries, and has affected Iraq’s economic decisions, including in the energy sector.

However, this influence has been waning, especially over the past year. Several factors have contributed to the decline. Iran’s June war with Israel and the United States, its devastated economy, and the decimation of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have all weakened Tehran’s ability to wield tools of power. Inside Iraq, several of the Iran-aligned Shia factions now have political and economic interests in the Iraqi state and are therefore less susceptible to Iranian pressure.

While Iran may be less able to dictate operational decisions in Iraq, ideological and political ties remain strong in factions of Iraqi politics, and Iran will continue to exert influence on a broad strategic level.

—Rend Al-Rahim is a nonresident senior fellow with the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. A leading expert on Iraqi politics and civic development, she served as Iraq’s first ambassador to the United States from 2003 to 2005.

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Oct 23, 2025

Why Washington’s anti-PMF moves are testing the Iraq partnership

By Mohammed A. Salih

The US campaign against the PMF groups will likely have significant implications for Iraq’s political process moving forward.

Iraq Middle East

7. How did last year’s failure to form the Kurdistan Regional Government impact Kurdish interests and electoral strategies in this election?  

More than a year after the October 2024 election, the Kurdistan Region still has no new cabinet. The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) legitimacy, already under scrutiny from Baghdad and international partners, has eroded further. 

Several factors converged. Chief among them is the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK’s) refusal to join a government based on its vote or seat share. Instead, the PUK has argued that its territorial control and military weight should shape the cabinet, and the party has sought an empowered deputy prime minister with de facto veto authority. The PUK ran a sharply anti-Kurdish Democratic Party campaign and believes that message energized its base, earning the PUK twenty-three seats. The PUK is likely to have calculated that forming the KRG cabinet before Iraq’s federal elections could blunt that momentum, so it chose to delay, prioritizing partisan gains over institutional legitimacy in hopes of a payoff on November 11.

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Sep 30, 2025

Is the Baghdad-Erbil oil deal a blueprint for settlement—or a stopgap? 

By Victoria J. Taylor , Yerevan Saeed

Whether the oil deal will be a tactical stopgap or a step towards permanent settlement will become known after the Iraq’s elections and the year’s end.

Energy Markets & Governance Geopolitics & Energy Security

The costs are mounting for the Kurdistan Region. Kurdish leverage in Baghdad is weakening. If the Kurdish Democratic Party performs well and presses a claim to the Iraqi presidency, Erbil’s cabinet talks and federal government formation could become even more complicated. Intra-Kurdish fragmentation not only delays governments in Erbil and Baghdad, but it also undercuts Kurdish national interests. Disunity has already diminished Kurdish bargaining power in post-election coalition talks and eroded the Kurds’ traditional “kingmaker” status. Even when Kurdish parties sit in government, their growing inability to collaborate has hindered progress on core files—the 2019 election law, budget transfers, and implementation of Article 140. Baghdad has exploited these divisions to pare back the region’s autonomy and, with no new cabinet and a sidelined parliament, it’s not inconceivable that Kurdish interests will be further subverted due to the Kurds’ own predicament.

—Yerevan Saeed is a nonresident senior fellow with the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. Saeed is the Barzani scholar-in-residence in the Department of Politics, Governance & Economics at American University’s School of International Service, where he also serves as director of the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace. 

8. Who are the Tishreenis? Have youth protestors given up on the political system? 

There is no simple way to define all Iraqis who participated in the Tishreen protests of 2019 to 2020.

The movement was highly diverse—ranging from staunch secularists and communists to loyal followers of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and everything in between. What united them then and continues to drive them today (albeit at a much-reduced level due to the violent response by government forces and militias) is a shared rejection of the corruption, injustice, and national weakness produced by the muhasasa system of ethno-sectarian and partisan power-sharing over the past two decades.

But although Tishreenis broadly share the same goals, they remain divided over how best to achieve them. Some are competing in the upcoming elections through alliances such as al-Badeel, whose members expect their coalition to win up to twenty seats in the 329-member parliament. However, many others remain disillusioned with electoral politics as a viable pathway to reform so long as militias dominate Iraq’s political landscape. Instead, they channel their activism into civil society work, climate action, and entrepreneurship. For those determined to remain in the political arena, such as al-Badeel, the real test will be whether they can avoid the same pitfalls that hampered the Tishreeni lawmakers elected in 2021—namely, weak cohesion and the absence of a clear, coordinated strategy.  

—Omar Al-Nidawi

9. Will the independents repeat their impressive performance in the last election?  

Barring an electoral surprise, it is unlikely that Iraq’s “independents” will perform as well as they did in 2021. The level of boycott among potential voters who support the independents appears to be higher in this election cycle. However, it is also likely that there will still be a clear, albeit small, representation for the independents in the Council of Representatives this election. The emergence of an electoral list from al-Badeel—a liberal-minded group—seems to be attracting anti-boycott independent voters angry at the CF’s effort to exclude from the race the most independent and anti-militia parliamentary representative, Sajad Salim. The CF’s desire to exclude him has, in fact, given him and his Independence Party much-needed visibility.  

—Akeel Abbas  

10. How is political violence shaping Iraq’s political environment?   

The persistence of targeted assassinations underscores how political silencing in Iraq is reinforced by a pervasive culture of impunity. The recent assassination of Safaa al-Mashhadani, a Sunni electoral candidate and outspoken critic from the crucial Baghdad Belt, has sent shockwaves across Iraq.  

Al-Mashhadani’s murder sends a stark warning to disenchanted citizens: Confronting Iraq’s entrenched power structures can carry a fatal price. Beyond fueling political apathy and sectarianism, the assassination affects specific Sunni political parties perceived by CF parties as emerging contenders in Baghdad, particularly at a moment when large segments of Shia voters continue to abstain from the polls.  

—Tamer Badawi 

11. Will a new government change the direction of Iraqi foreign policy?  

A new Iraqi government is unlikely to fundamentally change the direction of Iraq’s foreign policy, but alterations in tone, emphasis, and alignment are probable. Iraq’s strategic posture—balancing between Washington and Tehran while seeking neutrality in regional conflicts—will remain largely intact, though the degree of independence and assertiveness could shift depending on who emerges as prime minister.  

—Sajad Jiyad 

12. Will the United States have a role in the post-election phase?  

There are many reasons for the United States to continue its engagement with Iraq in the post-election phase, given the strategic security, political, and economic interests of both countries in the region and globally.

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The real question will be how the new prime minister and his government will engage with US President Donald Trump’s administration—including the newly appointed US special envoy to Iraq—to advance the US-Iraq strategic relationship, attract US and foreign investment in Iraq’s development, and address ongoing differences between Baghdad and Erbil. Washington has long made clear its regional interests to Iraqi leaders, as well as US expectations of Iraq’s role on important issues, including support for counterterrorism, limiting Iranian influence in Iraq and the region, and continued Iraqi support for international sanctions on Iran and terrorists.

The Trump administration will expect the new Iraqi government to make progress on integrating Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) into existing state institutions and limiting PMF-aligned leaders to control of key ministries. Sustaining a constructive, strategic dialogue between Washington and Baghdad on security, political, and economic issues—no matter how uncomfortable and difficult—holds the best approach for advancing US security interests in Iraq and the region.   

—Alina L. Romanowski is a distinguished fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. She most recently served as the US ambassador to Iraq (2022-2024) and Kuwait (2020-2022). 

The post Twelve questions (and expert answers) on the Iraq elections appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The most recent elections held in October 2021 brought many surprises in the wake of the 2019 protests: a new electoral law that seemed more equitable and representative, a sweeping victory for the mercurial Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the emergence of independent Shia candidates. The coming elections on November 11 will be different: The election law has reverted to a previous model that favors larger parties, al-Sadr has declared a boycott, and the prospects of independent candidates are less bright. Some elements are constant: the elections will be run on ethno-sectarian lines, principally Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish, and of these the most significant will be the election of Shia candidates.  

For Iraq’s majority Shia faction, al-Sadr’s boycott is poised to monopolize their vote within the Coordination Framework (CF)—an alliance of Shia parties, formed originally in 2021 to counter al-Sadr’s rising political power. All of them have a lesser or greater degree of dependence on Iran.   

With Tehran’s help and support, the CF has held together as the single representative of the Shia despite internal differences, in stark contrast to the factionalism and disarray of Iraq’s Sunni parties. But political rivalries and incompatible interests have created significant fissures within the CF in the run-up to elections—ones that pose threats to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and his bid to maintain power. 

Shia politicians describe these elections as decisive and fateful—as indeed they do in every election season. While not necessarily fateful, these elections are important—given the surging waves of change spreading throughout the region and the need for Iraq to decide where to position itself in the new landscape taking shape. 

The Shia electoral environment 

Shia political parties are particularly concerned about turnout, since voter apathy is still pronounced among Shia voters. In the 2021 elections, the official turnout was 40 percent at the national level, but was lower in the central and southern provinces.  

Voter skepticism signals absence of trust in the integrity and value of the electoral process, in the politicians running for election, and in the political system as a whole. Amid proliferating reports of vote-buying, many grassroots voices are calling for a boycott of the elections to signal their disapproval of a political system that produces no change of faces or political practices. Al-Sadr describes voting as an endorsement of a corrupt system. Optimists, on the other hand, argue that boycotting elections will only ensure a continuation of the status quo and that change, however slow, can only come through voting for better candidates.  

Al-Sadr is the most prominent spokesman of the rejectionist camp: He has emphatically declared his decision to boycott the elections and denounced the political establishment as corrupt and unreformable. While he has forbidden his followers from running as candidates, it is less clear if al-Sadr has also prohibited voting. This is significant. It is estimated that al-Sadr can command hundreds of thousands of votes—and if Sadrists go to the polls, they can swing the elections in Baghdad and cities in the south. There have been unconfirmed reports that other Shia leaders have tried to woo al-Sadr, perhaps in an effort to gain the votes of his followers. However, there is no indication that these approaches have been fruitful. 

Fissures within the Coordination Framework 

Within the CF, there are many disagreements shaping the discourse this election cycle: over the government’s policy towards Syria, allegiance to Iran, an aborted law regarding the Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that was strongly opposed by the United States, and, not least, the competing economic interests of the Shia factions. Three of the groups within the CF are also members of the PMF: the US-designated Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) and Kataib Hizballah (KH), as well as the Badr Corps.

But the major rift is the political rivalry between former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and al-Sudani. Neither of them has made any secret of his ambition to lead a post-election government. While the campaigns have focused on the competition between the various Shia factions, al-Sudani and al-Maliki represent the two rival poles. Observers predict that al-Sudani will win a plurality of Shia seats in parliament. 

But al-Maliki and his “State of Law” coalition have harped on several themes to undermine al-Sudani’s tenure as prime minister, both implicitly and explicitly. They have raised alarm about a surreptitious return of Baathists to power through the elections, and hundreds of candidates bave been disqualified, rightly or wrongly, under the laws of de-Baathification. Opponents of al-Sudani have condemned the use of government resources in the campaign, indirectly accusing him of exploiting his office for electioneering. His detractors have also criticized the poor state of services after three years of the current government, al-Sudani’s relations with the new Sunni regime in Syria, and the warm relations between the prime minister and other Arab countries, which influential members of the CF view as hostile to Shia supremacy in Iraq. Al-Sudani’s conciliatory relationship with the Kurdish government has also come under criticism from his rivals in the CF.  

Al-Sudani, for his part, has maintained an appearance of being above the fray. As prime minister, he has cultivated the high profile of incumbency and turbo-charged his public activities. He has accelerated construction projects underway in Baghdad and the governorates, cut ribbons for completed hospitals and schools, signed contracts and memorandums of understanding with major Western oil companies like BP and Exxon, traveled to regional countries including Oman and the United Arab Emirates, and negotiated a deal to resume oil exports from Kurdistan. He traveled to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt to attend the Gaza Peace Summit, where he had a photo-op with US President Donald Trump.  

As a measure of al-Sudani’s rising fortunes, several prominent candidates who previously ran with al-Maliki’s coalition have switched to al-Sudani’s “Reconstruction and Development” list.  

Shia fears amid a Sunni landscape 

Regional developments have also shaped the campaign of Shia parties. The waning of Iran’s military and financial capabilities, the Israeli military campaign’s decimation of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, and the rise of a Sunni regime in Syria have rattled Iraq’s Shia parties. They fear that they have lost a protective environment and that Shia rule in Iraq is threatened. Increasing US pressure through targeted sanctions on the PMF’s factions has raised the level of anxiety.  

Therefore, in addition to the internal rivalries within the CF, the Shia political parties are especially sensitive about their continued dominance over the state. Low voting numbers among their constituency in Iraq’s center and south, set against high Sunni turnout, can, they fear, result in “unnaturally” high Sunni seats in parliament and increased influence. They believe this to be especially dangerous in Baghdad, a religiously diverse city that commands sixty-nine seats in parliament, where the Shia will be competing for votes not just against fellow Shia parties, but also against energized Sunni candidates. Shia spokesmen have warned of this danger, adopting a sectarian, alarmist rhetoric to exhort Shia voters to go to the polls. In a public speech that has gone viral, Sayed Ammar al-Hakim, the leader of the Hikma Movement, used the slogan “don’t lose it” to urge them to vote.  

Although sympathetic commentators explained this as a call to preserve democracy and balance in state affairs, others in the media interpret the slogan as a call for the Shia to turn out in large numbers in order to preserve their majority in parliament. In a more provocative statement that has raised an uproar of condemnation by Sunnis and others, Jalal Eddin al-Saghir, an extremist Shia cleric, warned that if the Shia don’t vote, then “Abdel Zahra will be the servant of Omar,” the first being a typical Shia name and the second typically Sunni.  

The elusive prize 

The ultimate prize following elections is the leadership of the government. This is where matters become complicated. The selection of prime minister and the formation of the government has always been a fraught and prolonged process. After the elections of October 2021, for example, parliament took a year to confirm al-Sudani as prime minister. 

Nothing in Iraq’s constitution says that the prime minister must be a Shia—nor that the president be Kurdish and the speaker of parliament Sunni. Nevertheless, since 2003, this has been the de facto practice. Since 2022, the CF, as the umbrella coalition of the Shia, has assumed the right of nomination and indeed nominated one of its own, al-Sudani, and secured a vote of confidence in parliament.  

Al-Sudani wants a second term, but others in the CF want to unseat him, most notably al-Maliki and some factions of the PMF.  For months, parties within the CF have been maneuvering and prepositioning to nominate their candidate. Al-Sudani’s electoral list is widely expected to do well in the elections—a candidate on his list even projected as many as seventy seats, which, if it materializes, will likely present a plurality of the Shia vote. 

But even such a big win does not guarantee al-Sudani a second term. In 2022, he secured the nomination and the post with only two seats in parliament. To be successful, a candidate must have the support of a majority within the CF and be prepared to make concessions and promises to safeguard the interests of its members.  

In turn, the CF also needs to choose a candidate who will not call down the wrath of the US sanctions regime or military threats, so palpably felt during the first Trump administration, while still securing Iranian approval. In a volatile and rapidly evolving regional environment, the CF will face a formidable challenge after the elections. Whatever the result of the elections, a surprise candidate may emerge. 

The November election will not necessarily determine who the next prime minister will be, but it will provide an opportunity to shift power dynamics within the fractious Shia bloc. It will be an excellent indicator of the relative strength of the individual Shia parties that make up the CF and the clout each can wield in future decision-making. Since the Shia will continue to formulate policy and dominate decision-making, how this election shifts power dynamics within the CF will be a good signpost to political trends in Iraq for the new government’s four year term. 

Rend Al-Rahim is a nonresident senior fellow with the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. A leading expert on Iraqi politics and civic development, she served as Iraq’s first ambassador to the United States from 2003 to 2005, following the fall of Saddam Hussein. 

The post Inside the divides of Iraq’s Coordination Framework—and why they matter ahead of landmark elections  appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The timing of this sudden activity is no coincidence. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has discovered what the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) learned long ago: Oil and gas deals buy political influence in Washington. He is also hoping that the new deals will buy him US backing for a second term. Thus, at least in part, the latest activity reflects a calculated political dance between Baghdad and Washington.

But it is unclear whether this strategy will bear lasting fruit for either al-Sudani or the oil companies—largely because everything will depend on the outcome of Iraq’s upcoming elections and the messy government formation that will follow. As such, the surge in US company interest represents both opportunity and risk in a country where political calculations can override commercial logic overnight.

Why US firms are suddenly interested

The commercial logic for the companies themselves is straightforward. Iraq offers some of the world’s cheapest-to-produce oil, on a scale that matters to the biggest international oil companies. Few places can match Iraq’s combination of low extraction costs and massive reserves. For companies facing depletion elsewhere and needing to build long-term supply, Iraq represents one of the last great opportunities.

ExxonMobil and Chevron have an additional motivation, as they seek insurance against potential problems in Kazakhstan—where their operations represent sizeable assets for both firms. The current government there is seeking to modify contracts to secure more revenues for the state, and if ExxonMobil’s or Chevron’s ventures in Kazakhstan do face difficulties, Iraqi production could provide crucial backup.

But what has really changed the game in Iraq for US firms is the new contracts on offer. The old technical service agreements first introduced by Iraq’s oil ministry in 2009—with their per-barrel fees and limited upside—drove away many US investors, including Chevron, which many in the oil industry had regarded as the partner of choice in postwar Iraq. The recent deals signed by the US firms are different. Companies negotiated directly with Iraq’s oil ministry based on a contractual formula that offers the firms a larger share of overall profits and grants them access to physical barrels of crude that they can trade to their advantage. These are not just better terms; they are fundamentally different agreements that will improve the oil companies’ bottom line.

Baghdad’s political calculus

Commercial considerations only tell half the story. Al-Sudani’s rush to sign deals with US firms over the past few months is fundamentally about political survival, both his own and Iraq’s.

Energy deals, beginning with earlier agreements inked with TotalEnergies in 2023 and BP* in 2024, have been an important element of the prime minister’s ambitious capital investment agenda, which he has used to project the image of an effective administrator among Iraqis as he pushes for a second term in office. With elections fast approaching, he needs more wins to maintain his political momentum, which he hopes to turn into votes.

Al-Sudani’s emphasis on building partnerships with US firms also reveals deeper anxieties. Rising tensions with Washington since the summer over Iraq’s long-standing economic, political, and security ties to Iran—including allegations that Iraqi groups were smuggling Iranian crude—have sparked genuine fear in Baghdad about potential sanctions on Iraq’s oil industry (the country’s economic lifeline and a major supplier to global oil markets). The Iraqi government also fears that Israeli military strikes against Iran-supported Islamist Shia militias in Iraq remain a possibility and that only the United States can keep Israel at bay. Consequently, the prime minister has sought to appeal to US President Donald Trump’s transactional instincts by delivering what his administration often values most: commercial opportunities for US companies.

The strategy is borrowed directly from the KRG’s playbook. For years, the KRG has parlayed relatively minor energy deals to bolster its already outsized political influence in Washington. Al-Sudani is attempting the same maneuver on a grander scale, using major oil contracts as both shield and sword—protection against US economic punishment and leverage for political support. His calculation appears to be that US companies with billions at stake will become important de facto lobbyists for Baghdad in Washington, arguing against policies that might destabilize their investments.

So far, the results of this strategy have been mixed. While the Trump administration has not imposed the harshest measures al-Sudani feared, such as sanctions on senior political figures or on officials in the State Oil Marketing Organization, Iraq has not escaped unscathed as Washington pushes Baghdad to disarm Iran-linked militias. In its latest sanctions move, the US Treasury earlier this month targeted an Iraqi state firm for the first time (al-Muhandis General Company), which Washington alleges is associated with the US-designated group Kataib Hezbollah. The move was a stinging rebuke to al-Sudani, and it embarrassed him domestically in light of his efforts to court the Trump administration. The complicated political and security relationship between the Iran-linked militias and the Iraqi government makes disbanding the armed groups unlikely in the short term, which in turn could lead to more punitive measures if Iraq and Iran hawks in Washington get their way. The oil card, it seems, only buys so much protection.

The election wild card

The upcoming elections in November, and the government-formation circus that is expected to follow, could further complicate things for US investors. Indeed, Iraq’s attractiveness could quickly diminish depending on the outcome.

Al-Sudani’s alliance is favored to win a simple majority, and he is campaigning hard on promises to accelerate his national investment program. Behind closed doors, my sources in Iraq also argue that only he can manage the relationship with Washington. Given his track record so far, a second al-Sudani term would likely mean continued momentum for US investment and perhaps even better terms for US investors.

But Iraqi politics rarely follow simple scripts. Government formation traditionally takes months of horse-trading, as all of Iraq’s major parties seek to reach consensus on powersharing and appointments, paralyzing decision-making in the interim. More importantly, the main Shia Islamist factions—who ultimately choose the prime minister—mostly want al-Sudani gone. It is quietly understood that al-Sudani’s rivals see him as too independent, too powerful, and therefore as a potential threat to their parochial interests and patronage networks. Al-Sudani’s success in centralizing decision-making, and his domestic popularity, have made him dangerous in their eyes. Washington also seems lukewarm about him, despite his commercial overtures, viewing him as too willing to accommodate Iranian interests when necessary.

The electoral math is crucial. Iraqi politics is not about simple majorities but intra-sectarian dynamics. Al-Sudani needs to win not just an incontrovertible majority of “Shia” seats but the right Shia political configuration as well. If al-Sudani fails to win the majority he needs, and his rivals among the established Islamist Shia parties unite against him, a simple majority will not matter. He will be pushed aside in favor of a more pliable and less dangerous alternative.

Al-Sudani’s departure will not necessarily end efforts to attract US investment, but it will remove the most administratively effective post-2003 Iraqi premier. Through personal oversight and a strengthened prime minister’s office, al-Sudani has fast-tracked negotiations with US firms and pushed deals to completion and implementation in ways his predecessors—including previous US favorites—never managed.

This effectiveness is precisely what his rivals fear and want to eliminate. The risk for US companies is getting a new prime minister who embodies the administrative ineffectiveness of past Iraqi leaders, resurrecting the bureaucratic problems that drove many of these same firms away before. Without Sudani’s administrative experience, centralized authority, and political will to push things through, Iraq’s energy bureaucracy risks reverting to its natural state: gridlock punctuated by occasional decision-making.

The bigger picture

Even with increased US investment, Baghdad may find itself at odds with the Trump administration. US strategic interest in Iraq continues to diminish. If oil deals no longer provide political protection, Baghdad’s incentive to prioritize US companies diminishes. Worse, if Washington perceives that the new government in Baghdad is tilting more towards Iran—or even that it simply has the wrong factional balance—the United States could trigger some of the very sanctions al-Sudani has worked to avoid.

If relations do sour, US firms could pay a price. Investment opportunities are not just carrots for Baghdad to offer Washington; they can also become sticks to signal displeasure. While the United States holds most of the leverage, Iraq has shown it is willing to play this game when pushed.

The fundamental reality is that above-ground factors—politics, personalities, and US-Iraq relations—will continue to matter more than geology or commercial terms for US firms in Iraq. Al-Sudani has created a window of opportunity, but windows in Iraq have a habit of slamming shut unexpectedly.

US energy companies returning to Iraq are betting that political winds will remain favorable. They may even be banking on al-Sudani’s survival, continued accommodation between Baghdad and Washington, and their ability to navigate Iraq’s fractious politics. It is a gamble because the next phase of Iraqi politics is uncertain, and elections throw up surprises. The question is not whether Iraq offers attractive opportunities (it does), but rather how the political risks unfold to shape the investment environment.

So, for now, US firms are back in Iraq. Whether their outlook is as propitious a year from now depends entirely on how Iraq’s political drama develops.

Raad Alkadiri is managing partner at 3TEN32 Associates, an international advisory group that assists corporations and governments in navigating the complex political, economic, and social trends that shape the energy sector. Its clients include BP.

The post US energy firms are returning to Iraq—but politics could undo their fortunes appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Consequently, Iran’s partnership with Russia, which views the reimposition of these UN sanctions as illegitimate, is likely to deepen. This development is expected to accelerate Tehran’s strategic pivot eastward, a shift that gained momentum after US President Donald Trump’s first administration withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018.

Despite persistent mistrust, Iran and Russia are highly pragmatic actors. As long as the West continues to pursue policies of isolation, deeper economic cooperation between Tehran and Moscow is a logical consequence. United by a desire to counter US influence, Iran and Russia are poised to deepen their bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

Russia’s evolving stance on the “snapback”

Ironically, Russia originally proposed the “snapback” mechanism enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 2231 during the negotiations that led to the JCPOA’s 2015 passage. At the time, Moscow viewed the clause as a practical solution to potential diplomatic deadlock, offering a veto-proof, automatic process to reimpose sanctions should Iran violate the agreement. This design, in Russia’s view, ensured the JCPOA’s enforceability while maintaining consensus among the major powers.

Today, however, Russia opposes the mechanism’s activation. After the E3 initiated the “snapback” process on August 28, Moscow denounced the legally “flawed” move, arguing that the European states themselves had breached the JCPOA and therefore lacked the standing to trigger such a measure. Russia also contended that the reimposition of pre-2015 UN sanctions on Iran would carry no binding international legal force, despite the E3’s assertion of an “unambiguous” right to do so.

Back in 2020, when the first Trump administration sought to unilaterally trigger the “snapback” mechanism, Russia and China joined together in formally opposing this move on the grounds that Washington’s withdrawal from the JCPOA deprived the United States of any legal justification for invoking “snapback.” To back up their case using international law, Moscow and Beijing cited a June 1971 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concerning the South African presence in Namibia and applied it to the arms embargo on Iran as well as the “snapback” procedure. According to this advisory opinion, a party that disowns its obligations under an agreement cannot simultaneously claim the rights arising from that agreement.

Having been clear it would not recognize, nor comply with, restored pre-2015 sanctions on Tehran, Moscow attempted to delay, undermine, and obstruct the E3’s efforts to bring back these UN sanctions. But a UN Security Council resolution—drafted by Russia and China to preserve sanctions relief for Iran—failed to pass on September 26, with nine members, including the United States, United Kingdom, and France, voting against it. Only four countries—Russia, China, Algeria, and Pakistan—supported it, and two abstained.

“We had hoped that European colleagues and the US would think twice, and they would opt for the path of diplomacy and dialogue instead of their clumsy blackmail, which merely results in escalation of the situation in the region,” said Dmitry Polyanskiy, the deputy Russian ambassador to the UN, at the Security Council meeting.

With no alternative resolution adopted by the deadline in late September, the “snapback” process formally entered into effect. This episode underscores a broader diplomatic paradox: legal mechanisms, once championed by a particular state, can endure well beyond the political consensus that gave rise to them—sometimes to that state’s own strategic disadvantage.

Although Moscow was unable to block the UN Security Council’s reimposition of pre-2015 sanctions on Iran, it retains significant capacity to obstruct their enforcement. One key example is its ability to prevent the reactivation of the 1737 Sanctions Committee (originally established in December 2006 to oversee and enforce the implementation of UN sanctions on Tehran) or stall the appointment of experts to the committee’s panel. As the committee’s mandate requires consensus within the UN Security Council, Russia can leverage its position to hold up its revival. Moscow’s rejection of “snapback” is more than symbolic—it reflects a strategy to blunt the impact of renewed UN sanctions on Iran. Nonetheless, even with Russia and China undermining enforcement, it seems difficult to avoid concluding that “snapback” by the E3 will have a destabilizing impact on Iran’s economy while exacerbating tensions between elite figures in the state and ordinary citizens.

Iran and Russia deepen ties amid sanctions

Russia’s current refusal to comply with the recently reimposed UN sanctions on Tehran will help Iran weather this increased economic pressure, at least to some degree. Bilateral trade and cooperation across various sectors, including nuclear energy, will likely deepen as the two countries move ahead with implementing their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, which Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed in Moscow nine months ago. Meanwhile, Russia can be counted on to advocate on behalf of Iran’s interests at the UN Security Council, while becoming increasingly critical of the West’s policies toward Tehran.

Russia, China, Pakistan, and Iran’s alignment against the reactivation of the “snapback” mechanism and resultant UN sanctions will reinforce a conviction among Iranian officials that the country’s entry into non-Western institutions such as BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has been most prudent. In line with the “Look East” pillar of Iran’s foreign policy, the leadership in Tehran believes the country’s geopolitical destiny is with Russia, China, and other non-Western powers such as Pakistan, Central Asian republics, and North Korea.  

From Tehran’s perspective, the E3’s move further confirms its long-held view that Western powers are untrustworthy, making nuclear concessions seem futile. Moreover, European, particularly German, support for Israel during the recent Twelve Day War—to say nothing about US military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities—only deepened this perception, severely undermining the voices in Tehran who sought to find a “new understanding” with Western capitals.

Having said this, Iran will keep the door open to talks with the West, albeit while prioritizing deterrence over diplomatic compromises. And despite growing alignment, major stumbling blocks remain in transforming the Tehran-Moscow partnership into a full-fledged alliance. Chief among them is Russia’s resilient and pragmatic relationship with Israel, which has strengthened under the leadership of Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Kremlin’s desire to maintain strong ties with Gulf monarchies is also a source of tension. Many Gulf countries remain suspicious of Iranian intentions—particularly in relation to the Islamic Republic’s sponsorship of certain non-state actors in the Arab world, as well as its missile and drone activities—despite an overall state of détente in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s relationships with Tehran.

Additionally, Russia’s response to the Twelve Day War highlighted Moscow’s desire to maintain a balance between Israel, Arab states, and Iran. To Tehran’s disappointment, Moscow condemned Israeli attacks on Iran and called for de-escalation, but did not make any concrete moves that tangibly supported Iran. Iranian perceptions of Russia assisting Israel amid that conflict have contributed to further erosion of trust in the bilateral relationship. Mohammad Sadr, a member of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council, for example, claimed that “Russia provided Israel with information about Iran’s air defense sites” during the June war.

But Tehran will still seek to move closer to Russia in pursuit of its economic and military needs, as it faces growing international pressure and the fear of a potential collapse of the June 2025 cease-fire with Israel. With Moscow refusing to implement the pre-2015 UN sanctions, Iran will turn to Putin’s government for greater cooperation in intelligence sharing, technical support, and advanced military technology, while counting on Russia to further facilitate defense cooperation between Iran and various former Soviet republics from Tajikistan to Belarus.

Looking ahead, growing Iranian-Russian alignment will further undermine Western efforts to isolate Tehran. As both states deepen their coordination, economically, militarily, and diplomatically, they are working not only to blunt the effectiveness of Western sanctions, but also to challenge the broader architecture of a US-led global order. Although the prospects for reviving the JCPOA or reaching a new nuclear deal altogether remain extremely dim, the West’s failure to meaningfully engage Iran on its its nuclear and missile program, as well as more controversial aspects of its regional foreign policy, will likely accelerate Tehran’s drift further into Moscow’s orbit.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy. He is also an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University.

The post ‘Snapback’ sanctions are deepening the Iran-Russia alignment appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In an October phone call, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani the “urgency of disarming Iran-backed militias that undermine Iraq’s sovereignty.” The use of the terms “militias” and “disarming” was notable and revealing, as Rubio appeared to be referring to groups within the PMF. It was the first time a senior US official explicitly used the word “disarm” to describe Washington’s stance on the fate of these groups. Indicative that the request was not well received on the Iraqi side, the readout of the call released by al-Sudani’s office made no mention of the armed factions. It also appeared to contain a veiled criticism of “unilateral” US measures affecting Iraq, calling instead for prior “communication and consultation”—likely alluding to recent US actions targeting PMF groups.

Washington has now clearly communicated its demand that PMF groups disarm. Yet key questions remain: what does “disarming” actually mean, how and when would it be implemented, which groups within the PMF would it target, and by whom? The US government appears intent on leveraging the post–October 7 regional environment to intensify pressure on the Iran-led axis, including in Iraq. The real test of this strategy will come during post-election government formation, when it becomes clear how serious Washington is, whom it classifies as “Iran-backed militias,” and what role it is willing to allow them to have in Iraq’s next civilian and military structures.

Increasing US action, and a sharpened PMF commission law

Recent US actions against the PMF include the State Department in September designating four Shia armed factions—Harakat al-Nujaba, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya, and Kata’ib al-Imam Ali—as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. In its announcement, the department cited the groups’ links to Iran and their attacks across Iraq—including against the US embassy in Baghdad and bases hosting US and coalition forces—as grounds for the designations. It also framed the move as implementing Trump’s recent national security presidential memorandum, issued in February, to impose “maximum pressure” on Tehran and its aligned groups.

Additionally, on October 9, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the Muhandis General Company—a conglomerate operating under the PMF—and on financial networks affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for “divert[ing] funds from Iraqi government contracts” to the PMF and facilitating “money laundering for Iran.” The Iraqi government reacted by calling the US move “extremely unfortunate and incompatible” with the “spirit of friendship and mutual respect” that characterized the two countries’ bilateral ties.

An intense diplomatic campaign by Washington to dissuade the Iraqi government and Shia leaders from passing a new PMF commission law preceded these US designations, including a warning from Rubio that passing the legislation “would institutionalize Iranian influence and armed terrorist groups undermining Iraq’s sovereignty.” Critics of the detailed amendment bill are concerned that the legislation goes further than a previous, more brief 2016 PMF commission law. Critics also say the bill cements Iran’s influence in Iraq, gives the force a new and permanent institutionalized status, increases the PMF’s independence, implicitly allows it to intervene in politics on the grounds of “protect[ing] Iraq’s constitutional and democratic system,” and expands PMF activity to the economy and culture. This would replicate the model of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known for its broad tentacles across Iranian life, including government.

The bill was initially proposed by Iraq’s cabinet and sent to the parliament in March. This combined two earlier bills that were drafted partly due to internal power struggles over the PMF’s leadership and partly as an attempt to use the final months of the current parliament, in which Shia groups hold a majority, to push the law through. However, amid intense US pressure, the Iraqi Parliament and major Shia groups did not move forward with a vote on the law after repeated attempts in July and August failed to reach a legal quorum. Kurdish and Sunni groups opposed the passing of the law.

Both moves point to Washington’s strong interest—largely an extension of its Iran policy—to contain the reach and influence of pro-Iran armed factions. Although not all PMF groups are aligned with Iranian policy, it is dominated by pro-Iran factions and figures such as the Badr Organization, Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH), and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH). Given the PMF’s incorporation into the state as a key pillar of Iraq’s security-military apparatus and, increasingly, into politics via its party offshoots, a confrontational US posture could further complicate Washington’s relations with Iraq.

Amid Washington’s growing opposition, expanding the depth and breadth of PMF’s role in Iraq’s military-security complex—as the PMF bill would facilitate—could further strain US-Iraq security cooperation. This could prompt tighter curbs on intelligence sharing, complications for US training and advisory engagements, limits on operational support to counterterrorism missions involving mixed formations that include PMF units, and stricter end-use monitoring of US-provided weaponry and equipment. In 2017, PMF units were found to possess US Abrams tanks and used them in operations against the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, prompting controversy in Congress. It could also reduce Washington’s willingness to intervene to shield Iraq from potential strikes on PMF forces by outside actors such as Israel. The United States has been credited with helping keep Iraq out of the region’s post–October 7 turmoil despite PMF groups’ attacks on Israel, primarily to keep its troops out of the line of fire from pro-Iran factions.

Impacts on Iraq and the US partnership

The US campaign against the PMF groups will likely have significant implications for Iraq’s political process moving forward. PMF-aligned parties have played a prominent role since 2022, becoming key partners in the coalition that formed the government after the Sadrist Movement withdrew from parliament. The movement, led by Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, had won the most seats in the 2021 elections but boycotted the political process after failing to form a government. Key PMF groups such as Badr, AAH, and KH hold important roles in the federal government and provincial administrations. The continued Sadrist boycott paves the way for PMF groups to retain a prominent hand in forming the next government and to potentially push through the new PMF law in the next parliament.

This could further complicate Iraq’s political process and post-November government formation, as Washington will likely seek to use the current momentum against the Iran-led regional front to oppose a prominent role for, or even possibly the inclusion of, pro-Iran PMF groups in the future government as part of its broader effort to counter Iranian influence. Given the deep fragmentation of Iraqi politics, US opposition to these actors could make the process even more protracted. One possible outcome might be for Washington to support a prime minister not tied to the PMF groups, while not opposing some role for those groups in other capacities within the government. Iraq’s ethnic-sectarian system of governance and partisan bargaining notoriously draw out the government formation process after elections. For instance, after the 2021 elections, it took parties a year to form a cabinet. In the Kurdistan Region, there is still no new government despite parliamentary elections held last October.

Given the PMF’s expanding footprint in Iraq’s economy, US measures against PMF and Iran-linked actors could also weigh on Iraq’s economic sector. Washington has sanctioned entities and individuals tied to PMF networks for activities Washington deems illicit—from entities involved with banking to oil smuggling, and airlines—creating compliance risks for Iraqi ministries, state firms, and private contractors. The Muhandis General Company conglomerate of PMF-affiliated companies has assumed a growing role across construction, logistics, and public-works concessions, further blurring lines between state and parastatal actors. As sanctions widen and Washington’s aggressive posture toward the PMF intensifies, banks and vendors might over-comply, slowing payments, disrupting supply chains, and complicating dollar access, prompting more intrusive end-use and vendor due-diligence requirements.

All this raises what the next government and dominant actors after the November elections can—and will—do to address US concerns.

Will the US push for integrating the PMF into Iraq’s military-security apparatus under the firm control of Iraq’s commander in chief? Or will it attempt to dissolve the PMF (not dissimilar to what is happening to the Lebanese Hezbollah at the moment), fold its rank-and-file into other security forces, and steer its higher echelons into formal civilian politics? All such scenarios seem unlikely absent a major shift in the regional balance of power—such as a collapse or further weakening of the regime in Iran.

As far as the Iraqi government is concerned, PMF Commission Chief Falih al-Fayyad said in August that “dissolving the PMF would be tantamount to suicide, and I do not expect it to come from the religious authority or the state.” Either Washington shows flexibility on the PMF question or the issue will continue to strain and undermine the US-Iraq relationship. Judging by current rhetoric on both sides, the next year or two could prove particularly tumultuous for bilateral ties.

Mohammed A. Salih is a non-resident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s National Security Program. He has two decades of experience writing on Middle Eastern regional affairs, including Iraqi and Kurdish affairs and ethnic and sectarian relations, in various capacities as a journalist, analyst, and scholar. He is available on X @MohammedASalih

The post Why Washington’s anti-PMF moves are testing the Iraq partnership appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The reports of the visit came amid cautious optimism in the Middle East—following the Israel-Hamas cease-fire and the release of twenty-hostages—that diplomacy might prevail where war has failed. However, within hours of the first such reports, Jakarta firmly denied the claim and reaffirmed its longstanding support for the Palestinians.

The episode underscored how swiftly the Middle East’s diplomatic map is being redrawn since the cease-fire began this month. It revealed both the pressures and opportunities facing countries such as Indonesia, as they navigate domestic opinion, Islamic solidarity, and a shifting global order increasingly shaped by Washington under US President Donald Trump.

If managed carefully, engagement between Israel and Indonesia could reshape both economies and their strategic outlooks. Yet these opportunities are tempered by profound political and social risks. Both sides must therefore navigate a narrow path between opportunity and overreach.

From distance to discreet engagement

Since its independence, Indonesia has not maintained any diplomatic ties with Israel, reflecting Jakarta’s alignment with the Palestinian cause and its constitution’s anti-colonial ethos. Indonesia’s founding president, Sukarno, viewed Israel through the prism of colonialism; he refused to host Israel’s team at the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta, and even withdrew Indonesia from the 1958 World Cup qualifiers rather than face the Israeli national team.

Successive leaders reaffirmed that diplomatic relations would follow only after Palestinian independence. Public sympathy in Indonesia for the Palestinians remains strong, shaped by the country’s Islamic identity and decades of solidarity campaigns.

Yet beneath this rhetoric, quiet engagement persisted. Under the country’s second and longest-serving president, Suharto, Indonesia maintained covert military and intelligence ties with Israel in the 1970s and 1980s, procuring weapons and training via intermediaries. Indonesia occasionally tested limited engagement; former President Abdurrahman Wahid even proposed trade relations in 1999, but every overture faced domestic backlash. In 2005, there were reports of a discreet meeting between Israeli and Indonesian officials on the sidelines of the United Nations, but then President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promptly ruled out formal ties “until the Palestinian people gain independence.” Similarly, former President Joko Widodo rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2016 normalization proposal, insisting on Palestinian statehood first.

Public sentiment, rooted in moral and religious grounds, has long constrained Indonesian leaders from opening up to overt engagement with the Israelis. For example, in March 2023, Indonesia was stripped of hosting the Under-20 World Cup by FIFA after domestic outcry over the Israeli youth team’s participation. Later that year, as the war in Gaza escalated, Indonesian officials loudly condemned Israeli military activity around the Indonesian-funded hospital in the Palestinian enclave, with Jakarta’s foreign minister issuing the “harshest of condemnations.”

Despite political frost, limited business and tourism ties have persisted. Indonesian and Israeli firms trade indirectly, with bilateral trade reaching several hundred million dollars annually. Tourism has also quietly flourished—despite a decline since the war in Gaza began, according to Israel Travel News. In 2018, for example, over 37,000 Indonesians, mostly pilgrims, visited Jerusalem’s holy sites despite the lack of formal relations. Such exchanges reflect mutual curiosity beneath official hostility, though they kept deliberately low profile to avoid domestic backlash.

Why now: Cease-fire, Trump and Prabowo’s pragmatism

Three developments have converged to create a diplomatic opening between Indonesia and Israel.

1. The Gaza cease-fire opened diplomatic space. This month’s truce between Israel and Hamas, mediated by Washington, halted years of war and enables humanitarian aid to flow. Indonesia praised it as a crucial step toward peace and offered to help rebuild Gaza. As regional powers compete for influence in the conflict’s aftermath, Jakarta may have realized that engagement, rather than isolation, could better support Palestinian recovery and allow Indonesia to play a constructive role in the peace process. Now, Prabowo’s government has offered to take a bigger role and assist in Gaza’s reconstruction, emphasizing that a just solution requires both Israel’s security and Palestinian sovereignty.

2. Trump’s return revived US normalization diplomacy. The new Trump administration immediately revived the Abraham Accords framework, viewing Saudi Arabia and Indonesia as next-tier normalization targets. Washington has reportedly offered incentives, including backing Indonesia’s accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which requires approval from all member states, Israel among them. Reports from 2024 already linked Jakarta’s quiet outreach to Israel to these incentives. Now, with Trump back in power and determined to deliver another “deal of the century” (and notably to win the Nobel Peace Prize), Indonesia dovetails with Washington’s strategic goals.

3. Prabowo’s pragmatism. Since taking office in 2024, Prabowo has pursued a more assertive and pragmatic foreign policy than his predecessors. At the UN General Assembly in September, he stunned observers by declaring that “we must guarantee the safety and security of Israel. Only then can we have real peace.” His unprecedented “shalom” closing signaled a philosophical pivot: recognizing Israel’s security as a prerequisite for Palestinian statehood. Though he previously vowed not to normalize before independence, Prabowo may view engagement with Israel as a means to achieve, not betray, that goal. Reporting from regional media indicated that Prabowo had cautiously agreed to an Israel visit, which would have been a bold political gamble—one likely made possible by careful coalition-building at home. With his Advanced Indonesia Coalition dominating the Indonesian parliament, he enjoys the latitude for political adventurism. The prospect of a sustained cease-fire and US support for the normalization process could further provide cover for his political risk-taking.

Opportunities and risks on the path to normalization

As a G20 power of 280 million people, Indonesia represents a vast, untapped market for Israeli innovation in agriculture, health, and technology, while exporting its own commodities in return. Tourism would likely flourish, enabling more Indonesians to visit Jerusalem’s holy sites and Israelis to vacation in Bali. Such people-to-people contact could gradually reshape public attitudes and foster cultural familiarity.

Despite the absence of formal ties, Indonesia and Israel share decades of covert cooperation. Open collaboration could benefit both sides: Israel brings expertise in cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and defense technology, while Indonesia offers a strategic foothold in the Indo-Pacific. Joint training or intelligence sharing could help address mutual threats from extremism and regional instability.

Diplomatically, dialogue with Israel could elevate Indonesia’s global standing as a pragmatic Muslim democracy capable of mediating between the Islamic world and the West, particularly strengthening ties with Washington. For Israel, engagement with Jakarta lends legitimacy and moderates criticism in multilateral forums such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, while potentially opening doors to future dialogue with Malaysia and Brunei.

Indonesian public opinion remains deeply tied to the Palestinian cause, and a June 2025 poll found that 80 percent of Indonesians hold unfavorable views of Israel. Any overt rapprochement could trigger mass protests and clerical backlash, undermining Prabowo’s domestic legitimacy.

Externally, moving too quickly risks straining Jakarta’s leadership role in the Islamic world and inviting criticism from regional powers opposed to normalization, such as Qatar, Turkey, and Iran, which continue to champion the Palestinian cause. For Israel, premature exposure or triumphalism, through leaks or overt political claims, could derail years of quiet outreach and reignite hostility across Southeast Asia, jeopardizing a regional opening that took decades to build.

Charting a path forward: Policy recommendations

1. Pursue gradual normalization

Normalization should proceed quietly and in stages, avoiding premature announcements. Past leaks, such as the 2023 Israel-Libya meeting and the recent Israeli reports of an official Indonesian visit, show how publicity can derail diplomacy. By limiting engagement to trusted channels, both governments can build confidence and manage domestic sensitivities. The United States can discreetly facilitate this process through trilateral coordination and political cover until public disclosure becomes viable.

2. Sustain long-term peace and stability

For Indonesia to consider normalization, calm in Gaza must endure. The cease-fire provides a fragile foundation that Israel and the United States must work to preserve, through continued de-escalation and reconstruction. Washington should keep long-term stability as a core diplomatic priority, while Israel must avoid provocations, such as a proposed annexation of the West Bank, and coordinate with regional partners to maintain trust. Lasting stability is not only a domestic imperative but also a strategic prerequisite for bringing Muslim-majority nations such as Indonesia into a new era of cooperation.

3. Leverage relations with Israel as a soft power tool

Jakarta can frame engagement with Israel as advancing Palestinian welfare rather than abandoning it. The United Arab Emirates offers precedent, conditioning normalization on halting West Bank annexation in 2020 and later dominating Gaza aid airdrops through its “Birds of Goodness” operation. By linking future engagement to measurable relief outcomes, Indonesia can demonstrate that dialogue, not distance, produces tangible benefits for Palestinians.

4. Enhance economic benefits

Targeting high-impact sectors such as fintech, renewable energy, and healthcare can showcase the payoff of normalization. Israeli innovation and Indonesian markets, supported by US venture financing or insurance guarantees, offer mutual advantage. Washington should reinforce this momentum with strategic incentives: supporting Indonesia’s OECD bid, expanding trade exemptions on the 19-percent tariff imposed on Jakarta, or offering defense and infrastructure cooperation, to reward Jakarta’s political boldness with tangible economic gain.

5. Expand people-to-people diplomacy

Breaking decades of mistrust depends not only on formal diplomacy but on human connection. Nongovernmental organizations such as Sharaka, which brings together Middle Eastern and Asian activists, and itrek, which hosted a landmark 2024 delegation of Nahdlatul Ulama youth to Israel, highlight the power of civil engagement. Expanding such initiatives can humanize relations, foster cultural understanding, and lay the social foundations for future diplomacy.

Indonesia’s eventual engagement with Israel will not come overnight. But if carefully managed, it could transform the world’s largest Muslim nation from a distant observer into a bridge-builder in the Middle East. The cease-fire has opened a narrow diplomatic window; whether it becomes the foundation for lasting normalization will depend on both Israel and Indonesia exercising pragmatism, and above all, courage.

Amit Yarom is a graduate student at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He is a foreign policy researcher, specializing in the Arabian Gulf.

The post The Indonesia-Israel visit that didn’t happen—and why it still matters appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The Gaza cease-fire showcases how, when US President Donald Trump gets personally involved and deploys the full weight of US leverage and creative negotiating tactics, the seemingly impossible can become possible. Israelis, Palestinians, the United States, and the region still have much work ahead to ensure the conflict does not reignite. Trump and his team could try to build on momentum from the Gaza cease-fire to focus on a broader regional deal—that includes addressing Iran, as Trump mentioned in his Knesset speech this month.

There are two broad paths. One, a negotiated deal that could bring long-term resolution. Or two, a fragile cease-fire that is periodically interrupted by conflict. There are risks and opportunities in each scenario.

Scenario one: A ‘big, beautiful’ deal

A “big, beautiful deal” would likely require the United States to offer Iran a pathway to both sanctions relief and integration into regional economic development opportunities, as well as protection from another Israeli attack. While there are ample roadblocks to this scenario, it would yield significant benefits to all parties, not to mention a likely Nobel Peace Prize for Trump. As former US National Security Advisor (and Atlantic Council International Advisory Board Member) Stephen Hadley and Iran expert Vali Nasr discussed at this year’s Aspen Security Forum, such a deal could potentially influence the debate within Iran about how to proceed, given its newly exposed vulnerabilities, and the supreme leader might agree to these terms.

In exchange, Iran would almost certainly need to commit to a much lower level of enrichment (3.6 percent for civilian use, rather than the 60 percent it was enriching prior to the June strikes) and submit to an extremely intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency inspections regime. Iran is unlikely to suspend its domestic enrichment, but one possible face-saving approach could be a joint venture outside the country with investment from Gulf Arab countries. Enriched material could be brought back from the enrichment site—one could be established in Oman, for example—for nuclear power. Iran floated a version of this idea prior to the June war but wanted this joint venture located inside the country.

As part of the deal, Iran might be required to limit its ballistic missile program and support for its regional proxies such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and Iraqi militias. Both of these issues are major sticking points, and neither was addressed in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Trump cited these issues as part of his reasoning for withdrawing from the deal during his first term in 2018.

For this scenario to come to fruition, Tehran would have to see the deal on offer as distinctly better than the alternatives. After all, the regime has poured billions into its nuclear program and sees it as both a major deterrent for external attacks and a source of national pride. The June war ignited a new wave of nationalism in Iran, which the regime is seeking to use to its benefit. With Hezbollah and Hamas degraded, its partner in Syria gone, and its military weakened, the nuclear program remains Iran’s key negotiating card. The regime is unlikely to end it without terms it can claim as a win, and any Iranian negotiator will face severe pressure from hardliners and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to maintain key military capabilities seen as existential to the regime.

The United States would need to regain trust with Tehran, provide a painstaking focus on these negotiations, and deliver on two other key elements: one, assurances that it will not leave the agreement—unless certain triggers occur—and two, a formulation to prevent further Israeli attacks on Iran, perhaps in exchange for Iranian commitments to not build a covert nuclear weapons program and to stop arming regional proxies. To get Israel on board, the United States would likely have to apply measured pressure and incentives such as sweetened defense deals and a US-brokered cease-fire with the Houthis to end all attacks on Israel and Israel-linked ships.

This scenario will be tough to achieve because of the complex issues that need to be addressed and the persistence of stubborn sticking points from all parties. Israel would be skeptical of the negotiations and could take military action again at any time, which could upend the talks. If the cease-fire in Gaza holds, Israel may also rebalance security priorities to address its remaining regional security concerns, including Iran.

Scenario two: The intermission—a toxic homeostasis

In a second scenario, an intermission with a toxic homeostasis, US national security concerns relating to Iran’s nuclear program remain unresolved, and the threat of renewed military conflict between Israel and Iran persists. Negotiations may or may not occur, but either way, no real progress is made to address the potential threat of a nuclear Iran or Iran’s other destabilizing activities in the region, such as arming the Houthis.

Currently, the situation seems to be headed in this scenario. This month, Iran’s foreign minister said the United States and Iran are exchanging messages through mediators and that Iran “will certainly consider” a proposal that is “reasonable, balanced, and fair.” He also stated that Iran will not give up its “right to enrich uranium,” a position the United States will likely reject for now, instead insisting that Iran give up its right to enrich as part of any deal.

There are several risks in this scenario worth our attention.

The risks of homeostasis

Israel is likely to take direct military action again inside Iran in the coming months or years if certain red lines are crossed. Those red lines could include Tehran not allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors adequate access, restarting nuclear enrichment, rearming militia groups in the region, or seeking to weaponize its remaining highly-enriched uranium. The United States could join such efforts. If Iran retaliates, Israel would likely burn through many expensive antimissile weapons that the United States has struggled to produce in the quantities needed in recent years. Israel could face a shortage of Arrow interceptors needed to counter long-range ballistic missiles—this was a concern in the recent war, signaling the potential for a bloodier exchange.

Renewed conflict could stretch the US arsenal of antimissile weapons too thin. This is of particular risk if Washington must defend its own assets, or another security crisis erupts elsewhere in the world. During the brief Israel-Iran war in June, the United States used 25 percent of its THAAD missile interceptors, according to reports in US media.

Sustained or intermittent military operations in Iran could take a toll on Israel’s military, economy, and politics. Israel’s strategy in the past was to fight quick, intense wars to preserve its limited manpower and avoid entanglements that endanger its population and strain resources. Many reservists have served multiple tours in Gaza, which impacts their ability to work in their civilian jobs. According to an April 2025 report, over one hundred thousand Israeli reservists have stopped showing up for duty, and the overall reservist training attendance rate at that time was at 60 percent, down steeply from immediately after the October 7 Hamas attacks that launched the war in Gaza. In sum, Israel is likely to face real economic and social costs if it regularly engages in war with Iran.

A renewed conflict would also bring the possibility of regime change in Iran, and the prolonged uncertainty, chaos, and likely more hardline government that would accompany it. Israel nevertheless might believe regime change in Iran will yield a government more open to negotiations, and it might target key members of the government.

Iran might learn lessons from the Twelve Day War in June and respond more intensely with a wider set of military tools. Leaders in Tehran have already threatened to do this. The Iranian leaders who survived the June war witnessed how effectively their military defenses were neutralized. Iran may prepare to respond more effectively to a similar scenario. Retaliatory war plans could be preapproved to commence after an attack, without the direct command of their service commanders or with a wider set of authorizations. Already, Iran in August established a National Defense Council composed primarily of military and intelligence officials meant to streamline wartime decision making, indicating the country’s leadership does not think the conflict is over. The last time Iran had a National Defense Council in place was during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Furthermore, Iran’s senior military advisor to the supreme leader stated that “we are not in a cease-fire; we are in a stage of war,” signaling Iran’s preparations for conflict at any moment.

Iran can’t win a conventional war against Israel or the United States, so it will seek to impose costs any way it can to reestablish deterrence. Iran could modify or expand its missile salvos to attempt to avoid defenses, choose less defended targets such as commercial shipping, or attempt asymmetric operations, assassinations, and cyberattacks. In the past, Iran often exercised strategic patience even after an immediate conventional response to a US attack. In retaliation for the US assassination of the IRGC Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani in 2020, Iran launched an immediate retaliatory missile attack against US bases at al-Asad and Irbil and facilitated multiple attacks by militias on the US Embassy in Iraq with rockets. Iran also advanced terrorist plots from 2020 through at least 2024 to target Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and other US officials. If conflict resumes, Tehran may hold Washington partly responsible for its military support to Israel, and Iran or its affiliated militia groups could pursue operations against soft targets, including US companies, facilities, and personnel in the region.

Iran or Israel could miscalculate. There’s also the risk that either party could carry out an attack, intentionally or by accident, that inflames the other side and leads to a new conflict. In April 2024, Israel struck an Iranian consulate in Syria, killing seven Iranian officers, including two generals. Iran saw this as a red line, and it responded by launching its first direct attack on Israel. During Hezbollah and Israel’s direct conflict in 2024, Hezbollah projectiles sometimes hit the wrong target, such as in July 2024, when a soccer field in Israel was hit, killing twelve children. During the June Twelve Day War, an Israeli attack on the notorious Evin Prison was widely condemned by Iranian citizens and international humanitarian organizations for causing eighty fatalities, including staff, inmates, and visitors. Accidents and miscalculations such as these risk a much larger reaction from the other side.

The lack of resolution and the start-stop nature of the conflict could harm US and international business interests in the region. Frequent wars—or worries that another one could occur at any time—could impact US business deals and tech cooperation with Gulf states, freedom of navigation, and possibly energy prices. The Arab states will be concerned that any new conflict would threaten their own security and interests. As seen in the June conflict when Iran launched missiles at Qatar, Gulf states may become targets if Iran seeks to pressure the United States to lean on Israel to stop the conflict. The Gulf states would also worry about their ability to ship oil if the Strait of Hormuz is threatened, or if their shipping is targeted by Iranian-backed threats, including from Yemen.

Conclusion

A comprehensive deal is the most beneficial outcome for all parties, but it will be difficult to achieve and sustain due to the painstaking focus required, the severe lack of trust, and the maximalist positions from Iran, Israel, and the United States.

If current trends continue, the situation may drift toward a toxic homeostasis, interrupted by periodic eruptions of conflict as each side seeks to enforce its red lines, increasing the potential of intensifying conflict with far-reaching implications.

There is hope though that, instead, Trump and his trusted advisors, especially Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, can draw on their business experience and deal-making skills—showcased to the world as they achieved a breakthrough between Israel and Hamas after two years of war—to incentivize compromise and reach a creative, win-win resolution that changes the course of confrontation to a more secure and prosperous future for the region.

Stefanie Hausheer Ali is an Atlantic Council nonresident fellow and a senior director at international affairs consulting firm Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC. The information in this article represents the views and opinions of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC.

Cranston Kline is a Middle East analyst and former US Air Force Officer. He has served in the Department of Defense and Department of State in the Middle East, Europe, and Washington. His analysis does not reflect the official policy or position of the US government.

The post Will the US achieve a ‘big, beautiful’ Iran deal or stall in homeostasis? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The Houthis were continuing to attack Israel right until the parties agreed to the Gaza cease-fire—and have since paused attacks. But the militant group seems to present this as a victory, and promise to militarily enforce Hamas’ mission if the Palestinian militant group disarms, as stipulated by the cease-fire plan. The Houthis use this commitment as proof of their dedication to the Palestinian cause, something that is deeply entrenched in their ideology and messaging as a leading force in Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance.” This is despite the fact of a significant military imbalance between the Houthis and Israel—felt at the expense of Yemen’s people and hopes for stability, due to colossal Israeli retaliation.

The Houthis have viewed their involvement in regional conflicts as a means to entrench their power and expand their regional influence beyond Yemen. Their attacks on Israel and hostilities in the Red Sea post-October 7 have allowed them to garner support among the Arab and Islamic worlds, build alliances with non-state actors in the Horn of Africa, and acquire support and applause from across the world. Their regional actions have also been one of their strategies to make up for their inability to deliver services and their violent behavior against Yemenis.

Even if they may claim victory over the war against Israel and cease hostilities for now, it is questionable whether they will abandon the regional gains they’ve made. They will likely continue to seek ways to secure their political and military foothold in the area.

The current “pause” may be temporary—as the Houthis remain prone to resume hostilities should they find a plausible excuse—pending their ability to find an alternative outlet to maintain their presence and influence.

Potential Houthi responses to the cease-fire

There are a few strategic pathways the Houthis could consider in their bid to maintain their post-October 7 strategic gains. Returning to domestic war is one of their options, as that serves their interests in acquiring more power internally or pressuring Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States back to the Saudi-brokered peace process.

The Houthis have been moving troops on multiple frontlines across Yemen—some of it in defense of potential government assaults. That said, a return to localized conflict could help the Houthis craft a political and humanitarian narrative towards the anger of Yemeni people and their suffering—especially as the Gaza war winds down. That gambit carries significant risks, however. The aftermath of Israeli strikes, together with the US designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), has depleted their funding and resources and driven businesses and aid organizations out of Houthi-controlled areas amid continued harassment. As a result, this strategy could reverse their regional gains, and further worsen an already fragile economic situation.

The Houthis’ resources have been severely strained, and they are seeking ways to fill these gaps—with the Gulf being their top option. Prior to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks that launched the Gaza war, there was an almost-concluded cease-fire brokered by Saudi Arabia between Yemen’s internationally recognized government and the Houthis. A key component of that deal was an economic bonus where Saudi Arabia promised to fund the salaries of public and military workers in Houthi-controlled areas for one year, among other contributions. That would have injected badly needed cash into their provinces and helped soothe the mounting economic squeezes they still face.

With that agreement frozen by the Houthis during the Gaza war, they are now able to attempt to recover that lost economic advantage through coercion. By threatening neighbors’ economic infrastructure security, the group can blackmail Gulf states into reopening talks. They have previously proven that they can — namely through targeting oil installations and airports — measures that were successful in coercing Saudi Arabia into negotiations. Yet, the recent FTO designation of the Houthis makes the revival of such an agreement ever less likely.

Both options have limited strategic usefulness for the group’s primary backers in Iran, since the Houthis’ utility is in their usefulness as a regional pressure point, not necessarily as a local political force. This would also strain Iran’s delicate regional relationships, making it a less desirable course of action for Tehran at this moment.

A third option is regional re-escalation. The Houthis have always viewed regional tensions as an opportunity to expand their influence. With the December fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and the significant strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis have become the strongest member of the Axis of Resistance and Iran’s key ally. Tehran has for years employed indirect methods to push back against its enemies, creating chaos without overtly resorting to direct warfare. With pressure building, Iran will likely continue to do just this—utilizing the Houthis as a provocateur to lessen the pressure, and advance its own goals in the region. Their involvement underpins Iran’s broader regional interests, leveraging instability as a strategic tool of geopolitical pressure. How this will evolve remains uncertain.

The question then becomes how and why the Houthis re-engage. There are clear points of entry for the Houthis to resume hostilities in the Red Sea, or against Israel. They can easily find a pretext—or wait for a justified casus belli—to escalate. The end of the Gaza war may refocus Israel and US attention on Tehran, alongside US, United Kingdom, and European Union sanctions—which could lead Iran to counter this pressure by pushing the Houthis to resume fighting their enemies .

For Israel, the Houthi threat is distinct from the war in Gaza, and Israel believes the Houthis must pay for what they have done over the past two years. Furthermore, as Iran’s pawn, they will continue to pose a threat similar to Hezbollah and need to be eliminated, which suggests Israel does not seem to let the threat persist. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has long used war to pursue political interests—may find the Houthis to be a handy target for further military action. In this regard, both the Houthis and Netanyahu share one strategy in common: using war to justify their grip on power and territorial expansion. So, the resumption of wider regional conflict, at this moment, appears to be most likely.

The Houthis and Iran can define any escalation as a “response to aggression” or an effort to “lift the siege,” without getting involved in an all-out confrontation. The Red Sea will most likely be the focal point of such a contained, limited escalation—due to ease of access for the Houthis, and their demonstrated gains there post-October 7. For Iran, nudging the Houthis to resume fighting would ease outside pressure, particularly with international sanctions tightening and the possibility of Israeli attacks growing. Turning up the temperature with the Houthis would allow Iran to sustain its indirect war strategy against its foes.

To conclude, the Gaza cease-fire does not necessarily denote a complete de-escalation in the region; rather, it may be a transitional phase as various actors reposition themselves. For the Houthis, the brief hiatus on attacks against Israel and Red Sea shipping is temporary. Their standdown is not a concession—it is an unpreferable reality imposed on them. They are likely awaiting the outcome of cumulative pressures upon Iran, and moves from Israel, before they determine their next move.

While the precise direction is unclear, current readings are that the Red Sea will remain a point of contention as the Houthis and Iran seek to counter pressure from Israel, the United States, and Europe, while keeping regional tensions below the level of open conflict.

Osamah Al Rawhani is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He is an expert in Yemeni politics, peacebuilding, and political economy.

The post After the Gaza cease-fire, what’s next for the Houthis? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun welcomed the Gaza ceasefire agreement, while urging the international community to pressure Israel to halt its attacks on Lebanon, withdraw its troops from Lebanese territory, and abide by a November 2024 ceasefire deal that was supposed to end thirteen months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Lebanese government currently finds itself caught between the rock of the United States pressuring for Hezbollah’s disarmament and the hard place of Hezbollah refusing to do so. The dilemma facing the Lebanese government is how to achieve the disarmament of an unwilling Hezbollah without dragging the country into civil strife, while doing so at a pace that satisfies an impatient US President Donald Trump and dissuades a bullish Israel from escalating its attacks into Lebanon.

Challenges for the Lebanese Armed Forces

On October 6, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) produced the first monthly report on the process of disarming Hezbollah. While the contents of the report—conveyed during a Lebanese cabinet session by the LAF commander, General Rudolph Haykel—have not been publicly revealed, Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh called the update “excellent.”

In the first month of operations, the LAF has been working to remove arms and dismantle military infrastructure in the South Litani Sector (SLS), the area of the southern border district where the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, is deployed. In that same time, the LAF also received weaponry held by the Fatah faction from several Palestinian refugee camps. Other Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and several Salafi jihadist factions, have refused to hand their weapons over.

No final deadline was given in the LAF plan for the completion of Hezbollah’s disarmament. The LAF warned that it could only operate within its limited resources and that Israel’s continued occupation of parts of the SLS prevents a full army deployment in the area. The LAF has been badly affected by Lebanon’s economic collapse, now entering its seventh year, with the devaluation of the national currency having decimated monthly salaries. Not only is the LAF charged with the complex process of removing Hezbollah’s weapons and those of Lebanon-based Palestinian factions, it has to plan ahead for a major deployment into the SLS when UNIFIL’s mandate ends at the end of 2026 and the peacekeepers withdraw from Lebanon over the following twelve months.

The LAF is also responsible for security along Lebanon’s lengthy and often rugged border with Syria, further stretching its manpower shortage.

Hezbollah’s position

Hezbollah maintains that it is willing to discuss its arms in the context of a debate on a national defense strategy, but it refuses to unilaterally hand over its weapons while Israel remains on Lebanese soil.

In a July speech, Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, explicitly stated that there would be no negotiations over the party’s arms unless Israel “withdraws from the occupied [Lebanese] territories, stops its aggression, releases the prisoners, and reconstruction [of war-damaged areas] begins.”

“Only then,” he said, “will we be ready for the second stage, which is to discuss national security and defense strategy.”

Despite the pressure Hezbollah faces, it is hard to imagine that Hezbollah would voluntarily and unilaterally decide to disarm. The Islamic Resistance is the beating heart of Hezbollah, and the cornerstone of its entire raison d’être. While the party has other components such as its parliamentary presence, seats in government, and extensive social-welfare apparatus, these elements exist primarily to sustain and protect what Hezbollah calls its “resistance priority.” After all, Hezbollah did not emerge in the wake of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to provide hospitals, schools, and clinics for the betterment of its Lebanese constituency. It was established as a military-religious organization, supported and guided by Iran, with the immediate goal of driving Israel out of Lebanon.

In the years after Israel withdrew from its “security zone” in south Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah gradually grew in strength and capacity to become a key component of Iran’s regional deterrence architecture. While Hezbollah took a battering in the recent conflict with Israel, Iran has not abandoned its protégé. Iran continues to support Hezbollah as the group seeks to reorganize and rebuild its capabilities. However, if Hezbollah gave up its weapons, regardless of the reason, it would no longer be able to threaten Israel and continue serving as a factor of deterrence for Iran. (One could argue that Hezbollah’s deterrence role was irretrievably weakened by the 2023-2024 conflict; yet Iran continues to back the organization and, therefore, still sees utility in its armed existence).

If a disarmed Hezbollah no longer serves a useful purpose for Iran, then there is no reason for Tehran to continue supporting the party with funding, weaponry, and logistics. But if Iran were to cease its financial support, how would Hezbollah continue to fund its vast social-welfare apparatus?

While Hezbollah has its own revenue streams, they may be insufficient to cover the enormous costs of running its networks of schools, hospitals, and clinics, and providing financial support to the families of “martyrs” and to wounded and disabled veterans. That could lead to the dismantlement of at least part of its social-welfare system with potentially thousands of civilian employees—doctors, nurses, and teachers—looking for new sources of employment alongside the tens of thousands of newly redundant Hezbollah fighters.

What would then be left of Hezbollah is a hollowed-out shell. Hezbollah would retain a few seats in parliament and a token presence in government, but with greatly diminished stature and influence, unable to protect or provide services to its Shia constituency, offering no reason why other political parties would want to continue being in alliance, and leaving it vulnerable to its rivals at the next general election. This is not only an unpalatable fate for Hezbollah’s leadership to consider; it would be tantamount to following a path to political irrelevance.

Lebanon’s Shia community

Furthermore, the Shia community is, for now, generally supportive of Hezbollah retaining its arms. There are perhaps a few main reasons for this. The first is due to Israel’s ongoing attacks and prevention of residents from returning to their war-battered villages in the south, which is breeding deep anger, most of which is directed squarely at Israel.

My conversations with Shias across the country show that even secular Shias who usually have no particular liking for Hezbollah are voicing frustration with the status quo and expressing a reflexive desire to see the party strike back at the Israelis—even at the risk of renewing the war. The Hezbollah support base can be fickle, and this mood may change, but at present, the general sentiment reflects a desire for Hezbollah to take action against its Israeli tormentors rather than have the party surrender its arms.

In Shia-populated areas of the northern Bekaa, far from the border with Israel, the rationale for supporting Hezbollah’s weapons is different. My conversations with Shia tribal figures, including those historically opposed to Hezbollah, reveal that they are setting aside their political differences due to the perceived shared threat from across the border in Syria in the form of a new regime in Damascus that generally has a less-than-favorable view of Shias and is particularly antagonistic toward Hezbollah.

Further, many Lebanese Shias instinctively balk at the notion of Hezbollah’s disarmament, viewing it through a domestic sectarian lens. Hezbollah’s military strength has helped empower the Shia community over the past three decades. Travels around Lebanon suggest that there is an instinctive feeling within the community, whether warranted or not, that disarming Hezbollah is tantamount to weakening Shias as a whole, not only in terms of the conflict with Israel but also making them more vulnerable to domestic opponents. This sentiment is spontaneous and has emerged organically from grassroots Shia society and has not required any fear-mongering speeches from Hezbollah officials to stoke such concerns.

A more hawkish Israel

Meanwhile, greatly complicating the Lebanese government’s attempts to disarm Hezbollah and other groups is Israel’s hawkish behavior.

The Israeli military carries out near-daily airstrikes in Lebanon, in breach of the November ceasefire. While most of the targets are Hezbollah personnel and facilities, the United Nations Human Rights Office reported last week that 103 Lebanese civilians have been killed in the Israeli attacks since the onset of the ceasefire agreement. The Israeli army also occupies five hilltop positions inside Lebanon close to the Blue Line, the UN term for Lebanon’s southern border.

Israel has claimed that the hills have “strategic value” and that the military will occupy them indefinitely. In reality, the hills have no intrinsic strategic value —I have stood on the summit of each of them at one point or another. They are simply hills with limited views over their immediate environments. Given that Israel enjoys unimpeded air coverage not only in the skies of southern Lebanon but also across the entire country’s airspace, the retention of the hills suggests a political, rather than military, imperative.

Nevertheless, the five Israeli positions are taking on a permanent appearance. One opposite the village of Houla has earth ramparts at least four meters tall, reinforced with concrete T-walls and bomb shelters. The ramparts are surmounted by a cement-lined parapet with firing positions and observation bunkers on the four corners. The Israelis also operate a free-fire zone running about one kilometer from the Blue Line and have repeatedly used drones to attack Lebanese people attempting to clear rubble and rebuild homes in villages adjacent to the Blue Line.

The belligerent actions of Israel, ironically, are undermining the process of achieving Hezbollah’s disarmament. The Lebanese government has repeatedly maintained that it is fulfilling its obligations to the November 2024 cease-fire while Israel is breaching the agreement daily with air strikes and continued occupation of Lebanese territory. Washington continues to press Lebanon for results in the Hezbollah disarmament process, but has done little to compel Israel to abide by the ceasefire agreement. If Israel were to withdraw from Lebanese territory and significantly reduce its kinetic actions, it would place Hezbollah under far greater pressure to relinquish its arms.

The result of all this is a potential stalemate. Even if Hezbollah remains obstinate and refuses to hand over its weapons, the Lebanese government cannot, will not, and should not deploy the LAF against the party, as that would almost certainly lead to the collapse of the army and potentially spark a civil war, which serves no one’s interests.

If the United States continues to turn a blind eye to Israel’s martial actions in Lebanon, the Lebanese state will look powerless and enfeebled, providing grist to Hezbollah’s claim that the government is doing nothing to end the Israeli occupation and, therefore, the party will not surrender its arms under such circumstances. Yet if little or no progress is made to disarm Hezbollah, then at some point the Israelis may choose to escalate their air strikes against the party.

So far, Hezbollah has exercised what it calls “strategic patience” in not responding to the Israeli daily attacks. But if Israel increases the daily tempo of attacks into a full-fledged aerial and possibly ground assault, Hezbollah would be hard-pressed to continue turning the other cheek. That could see the war in Gaza being replaced by a fresh conflict breaking out between Hezbollah and Israel, with all the bitter and bloody consequences that will have for both countries.

Nicholas Blanford is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. Blanford covers the politics and security affairs of Lebanon and Syria.

The post Why Lebanon is stuck in the middle on Hezbollah disarmament appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The moment is coming as—despite Amman’s defense of the treaty through many public statements—the government grapples with its concerns about Israel’s conduct during the Gaza war, and its plans for the future of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Now, with the announcement of a phase one cease-fire deal agreement for Gaza, significant questions remain about post-war governance and strategy in Gaza, and what that means for Israel’s neighbors.

Absent a strategic pivot from Jerusalem—which may be coming imminently if the parties can implement US President Donald Trump’s twenty-point proposal to end the war—there is a chance that Israel may be approaching a point at which it can do real damage to its pre-Gaza war relationships, particularly with Jordan.

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Israel and Hamas just struck a ‘phase one’ deal to return hostages. Is the end of the war near?

By Atlantic Council

In this initial phase, Hamas will return living hostages, while Israel will begin to pull back its forces in the Gaza Strip.

Israel Middle East

A spike in public anger

A consistent majority of Jordanians oppose the treaty and any relations with Israel or business with Israeli companies.

Apart from over 400,000 Palestinians who reside in refugee camps within Jordan, a majority of people in Jordan are of Palestinian origin—tracing their lineage to Palestinians who escaped the 1948 to 1949 Nakba (catastrophe), or Israel’s independence war. Others were expelled by Israel during the same conflict. Yet more Palestinians fled to Jordan when Israel captured the West Bank in 1967. Daily violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is an obvious reminder of what many Palestinian-Jordanians endured in conflicts with Israel.

A 2023 public opinion survey in Jordan indicated that a plurality of Jordanians perceive Israel to be “the entity that poses the greatest threat to the security of the Arab world.” And there have been significant anti-Israel demonstrations in Jordan in response to the ongoing Gaza conflict that demonstrate such sentiments.

Moreover, there has been a significant increase in pro-Hamas sentiment in the country—from 44 percent in 2020 to 85 percent in 2023, shortly after the Gaza war had started—which has triggered concern in Amman about possible security incidents.

In April of this year, Jordanians gathered after Friday prayers in Amman in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Participants, including some covering their faces as Hamas leaders usually do, expressed strong opposition to Israeli military action. In May 2024, pro-Palestine demonstrators descended on downtown Amman multiple times to protest Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war. The May 24 demonstration was one of the largest in Jordan, according to research published by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, showcasing the depth and intensity of public rage. Previously, in March 2024, authorities had to break up a demonstration near the Israeli Embassy in Amman using batons.

There are no reliable estimates on the exact sizes of demonstrations—Jordanian authorities have no incentives to publish any numbers. On the other hand, demonstration organizers may tend to exaggerate the numbers to exert pressure on the government. My review of English and Arabic language media articles suggests that demonstration turnout could span anywhere from two thousand to ten thousand people.

Amman’s response through the war

The war’s displacement of most Gazans within the strip, its near-total destruction of the strip’s infrastructure, and Israeli leaders’ advocacy of transferring Palestinians to other countries have put Amman in a difficult situation. Jordan’s leaders are characterizing forced displacement of Palestinians as destabilizing and a war crime. Shortly after the start of the war, then Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh indicated Amman’s belief that displacement of Palestinians would “threaten Jordan’s national security.” Moreover, in September 2025, the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the displacement of Palestinians to other countries as a “flagrant violation” of international law and principles.

But Jordanian leaders’ public statements frame the treaty as not only a legal obligation, but also as an agreement and an overall relationship that provides Amman with certain benefits. Those benefits are substantial, including custody of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, sovereignty over previously disputed land, water sharing rights in the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers, a formal role in discussions on Palestinian refugees, and Israeli provision of natural gas. These would be at risk if the treaty were abandoned.

Jordanian officials are concerned that Israeli government rhetoric and policies—settlement expansion, annexation plans, displacement of 90 percent of Gaza’s Palestinians, and persistent settler violence in the West Bank—might boost popular Jordanian opposition and threaten the treaty’s viability.

As early as November 2023, Khasawneh called the expulsion of Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories a “red line” that constitutes a fundamental violation of the treaty. He highlighted the treaty’s provision prohibiting forced population movements, arguing that such displacement would threaten Jordan’s national security. All of Jordan’s top leaders, including King Abdullah II and senior government ministers, have spoken publicly against forced displacement.

It is likely that the Jordanian government is concerned about the public reaction if Israel expelled Palestinians out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories into Jordan; such a step could endanger the monarchy or force Amman to take more direct anti-Israel steps, such as suspending the treaty. Separately, Jordan lacks the resources, particularly water, to host even more refugees, and the resultant stress Palestinian refugees would place on the country’s economy could be dangerous for Amman, aside from the obvious political considerations.

That said, the Jordanian government has restricted protests in support of Gaza, including the flying of the Palestinian flag, according to Amnesty International. Foiling a plot to commit armed attacks in the country, Jordanian security forces arrested sixteen suspects, some of whom confessed to being members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the transnational organization from which Hamas is descended. Officials did not publicly name specific buildings or locations the suspects planned to hit. They said the cell was preparing rockets and drones for attacks “inside the kingdom.”

Amnesty International has also documented Jordanian authorities arresting and jailing protestors simply for demonstrating against the Gaza war, and for peacefully opposing Amman’s policies vis-à-vis Israel. Since October 7, 2023—when Hamas rampaged through southern Israel, killing over 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis—Jordanian authorities have arrested at least 1,500 people, with about five hundred detained since the March 2024 protests outside the Israeli Embassy in Amman.

Relationships on the world stage

Citing the king’s longstanding support for a two-state resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Khasawneh backed-up Cairo’s recent rejection of displacing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip into Egypt, fearing a precedent for a similar expulsion from the West Bank into Jordan. There have been a few Israeli proposals discussed through the war that concerned the Jordanians: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s “humanitarian city,” which opponents characterize as an internment camp, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “voluntary migration,” and the forced migration proposed by other Israeli officials.

It is noteworthy that Jordan is the only Arab state with a peace agreement with Israel that has recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv and expelled Israel’s ambassador since the Gaza war began. Moreover, Jordan indicated that it would not accept any Israeli attempt to return an ambassador to Amman.

Well-publicized Israeli admissions of potential impropriety, such as former chief of staff Herzi Halevi’s assertion that Israeli military units “took the gloves off” and ignored legal advice in conducting their Gaza operations, are likely to further stoke popular anger in Jordan and across the wider Arab world.

Although it is unlikely to yield any decisive action, Jordan participated in a recent Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation discussion in Doha that was called after Israel’s September strike on Qatar’s capital. The gathering explored the idea of applying diplomatic consequences on Israel, and Article 15 of the final communiqué calls on all Arab and Muslim states to sanction Israel and review “diplomatic and economic relations” with it—something that would have been unimaginable prior to the Gaza war.

Halevi’s estimate that casualties in Gaza—killed and wounded—amount to more than 10 percent of the strip’s population (over 200,000) tracks closely with the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s ongoing count of casualties, which Israel had previously dismissed as Hamas propaganda. This should further anger opponents of the Gaza war in Jordan.

Israeli activities elsewhere in the region also serve to amplify Jordanian anger. Israel justifiably retaliated when attacked by the Houthis from Yemen and Hezbollah from Lebanon. But the Israeli military continues to hold positions and conduct attacks in Lebanon even after a cease-fire was negotiated and implemented.

Jordanians, although divided about Hezbollah, opposed Israeli actions in Lebanon.

The Israelis also conducted attacks against Syrian military targets as soon as Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell last year. Over the summer, they also carried out attacks against forces and installations of Syria’s new government, on claims of defending of the Druze minority. The skirmishes prompted the Jordanian foreign ministry to issue condemnatory statements.

In the aftermath of Jerusalem’s failed attempt to assassinate Hamas senior political leaders in Doha last month, Amman’s Foreign Ministry joined in popular condemnation, affirming the kingdom’s “absolute” rejection of the attack, adding that the strike constituted a violation of the sovereignty of an Arab state and a “dangerous and unacceptable provocative escalation.”

What’s next

In short, expulsion of Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied territories has emerged for Amman as an inflection point, potentially altering Amman’s relationship with Israel. As questions still loom about post-war Gaza strategy, it is highly unlikely Jordan’s leaders would be able to contain domestic anger should Palestinians be forced onto Jordanian or Egyptian territory.

Much like the United Arab Emirates’ warning that Israel’s annexation of the West Bank would prompt a reversal of Jerusalem’s integration into the region, Amman likely would be forced to reverse at least some elements of its own relationship with Israel, if it perceived Jerusalem had violated the treaty clause related to forced displacement.

Given the extreme destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, including religious, educational, and medical facilities, it is highly unlikely Jordanian leaders—or their public—would see any sizable number of “voluntary” departures as, in fact, voluntary. Aid groups have argued that Israel’s continued war has made the strip dangerous and uninhabitable. It would not be a leap to argue the war is intended to incentivize many Palestinians to leave and to convince Arab states to accept them. Even US leaders—including chief among them, Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio—have questioned why anyone would want to remain in Gaza.

The decisions made in coming days will help determine the extent to which Israel’s conduct during the Gaza war and its other military operations in the region have pushed important alliances to the brink.

Amir Asmar is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. He is also an adjunct instructor of Middle East strategic issues at the National Intelligence University.

The post Can the Jordan-Israel peace treaty survive damage done from the Gaza War? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

He also condemned the attack on Doha as “reckless” and “in grave violation of international law” and warned the Israeli people that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was “endangering the peace agreement with Egypt” and “making further normalization with countries in the region impossible.”

But apart from the fiery rhetoric, the summit of Arab and Muslim leaders stopped short of threatening Israel with retaliatory measures. That said, Israel’s Doha strike has nonetheless shifted the dynamics in relations between Jerusalem and Cairo—likely stemming from concerns that Egypt may be next for Israeli crosshairs.

Despite the harsh exchange of accusations and increased hostility toward Israel, the peace treaty cited by el-Sisi—reached in 1979—remains intact.

Some analysts like Emad Gad, deputy director of al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, argue that the Egyptian leadership is neither ready nor willing to jeopardize the peace treaty or widen the rift with Israel.

“Security cooperation between Egypt and Israel remains strong and Egypt is one of the parties involved in negotiations to reach a diplomatic solution to the Gaza crisis,” he told me. 

The Gaza war has generally strained Israel-Egypt relations—especially since Israel’s seizure of the Philadelphi Corridor in May 2024, with the declared intent of destroying underground tunnels, Jerusalem claims, which were used by Hamas to smuggle weapons into Gaza.  

Yet, Gad remains hopeful that the Gaza crisis will be resolved through diplomatic channels—a step that he said “would subsequently defuse tensions between Egypt and Israel and restore relations to where they were before the Gaza war.”

And there are further signs of a breakthrough, including the announcement this week that phase one of a Gaza cease-fire deal had been achieved after negotiations in Egypt.

“This means there will be no more talk of relocating the Palestinians—the issue causing the tensions with Egypt,” Major General Samir Farag, senior strategist at the Security and Defense Advisory Board of Egypt, told me.

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Israel and Hamas just struck a ‘phase one’ deal to return hostages. Is the end of the war near?

By Atlantic Council

In this initial phase, Hamas will return living hostages, while Israel will begin to pull back its forces in the Gaza Strip.

Israel Middle East

The Egypt-Israeli peace treaty

The 1979 peace treaty originally allowed only 450 security personnel with light weapons to be stationed in Area C (the closest area to the Israeli border) of northern Sinai, but was modified after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 to allow for an additional 350 soldiers to be deployed. In 2018, Israel gave Egypt the green light to double the number of troops in North Sinai to support the Egyptian army and security forces in their counter-insurgency against Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)-affiliated Jihadists. Israel’s goodwill gesture prompted a warming of ties and enhanced security cooperation between Egypt and Israel.  

But concerns are now mounting in Cairo after Netanyahu defiantly vowed to”hunt Hamas everywhere.” Addressing a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Marc Rubio in Jerusalem in mid-September, Netanyahu warned Hamas that its leaders and members “have no immunity anywhere,” insisting that “Israel has a right to defend itself beyond its borders.” The chilling warning heightened fears in Cairo of a similar Israeli attack targeting Hamas inside Egypt; as mediator in peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas alongside Qatar and the United States, Cairo often hosts senior leaders of the Palestinian Islamist group.

Cairo has met Netanyahu’s threat with equal defiance; the Egyptian leadership reportedly warned Washington of “devastating consequences” if Hamas leaders were targeted inside Egypt. A senior Egyptian security official speaking on background vowed to the London-based Middle East Eye that any such attack would be considered a declaration of war and would be “met with force.”

Gad did not altogether rule out the possibility of war breaking out and urged Israel not to push Egypt to the brink.

“Egypt would likely retaliate to any attack by Israeli forces on its territory,” he cautioned, adding that any attempt by Israel to forcibly displace the Palestinians into North Sinai “could spell the demise of the peace treaty.” 

Concerns of military buildup

Another bone of contention between Cairo and Jerusalem is Israel’s claim of an Egyptian military build-up in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula near its shared border with Israel and the Egypt-Gaza border. In a meeting with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces on October 5 to discuss border security, el-Sisi urged the arm to remain on high alert—Cairo is likely worried about a potential mass exodus of Palestinians into Egypt.

The alleged Egyptian military build-up has caused concern in Israel, according to media reports in outlets like WION Pulse and Middle East Eye. Meanwhile, Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, has accused Egypt of  “a very serious violation” of its peace treaty with Israel, citing the building of bases which “can only be used for offensive operations.” Netanyahu has also asked the Trump administration to press Egypt to scale down its military presence in the Sinai Peninsula, according to a recent Axios report quoting anonymous Israeli officials.

Hossam Hamalawy, an Egyptian researcher and journalist who publishes a weekly online newsletter focusing on Egyptian security and politics, meanwhile dismissed the allegations of Egyptian military build-up as “fake news.”

“There can be no troop deployment in the Sinai without prior coordination with Israel,” he told me. 

Hamalawy also insists, “it is business as usual between Egypt and Israel,” citing an unprecedented $35 billion agreement signed by Israel’s Leviathan natural gas field in August to supply natural gas to Egypt.

“If Egypt and Israel are cementing their energy ties, relations between them can’t be as tense as some media would have us believe,” Hamalawy argues. 

A security source who spoke to me on condition of anonymity said that the continued presence of  Israeli forces in the formerly demilitarized buffer zone stretching fourteen kilometers along the Gaza-Egypt border—despite Cairo’s repeated demands that Israel withdraw from the strategic corridor—has also put a heavy strain on relations between Egypt and Israel and suggested it was another reason for the beefing up of Egyptian troops in north Sinai.

The legacy of the war in Gaza

Following its Doha strike last month, Israel intensified its attacks on Gaza City in mid-September, forcing thousands of displaced Palestinian families to move south close to the Egyptian border. The escalation has fueled fears in Egypt that Israel was seeking to “clean out Gaza (as suggested by US President Donald Trump in January) by forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and relocating them in the Sinai Peninsula—a plan categorically rejected by Cairo. El-Sisi has, on several occasions, voiced his opposition to the plan, arguing that the displacement of Palestinians “would liquidate the Palestinian cause.” Egyptian officials and state-controlled media have slammed the idea of relocating Palestinians in the Sinai as “an existential threat.” 

Despite Cairo’s strong condemnation of Israel’s Doha strike, the Egyptian leadership has so far avoided escalation into military confrontation or a complete rupture in diplomatic ties. This reflects Egypt’s strategic interests: border security, preventing a spill-over of the war into Egypt, and economic interests. Meanwhile, Egypt continues to engage in mediation between Israel and Hamas and is using the outcome of the Doha summit to boost its regional influence. Cairo is also using Israel’s Doha strikes to prop up its image at home, where public sentiment and opinion are largely pro-Palestinian. 

On the other hand, the Doha strike was a strategic miscalculation for Israel as it has weakened trust with new Arab allies that have normalized relations with Israel, such as the United Arab Emirates. Other states that have yet to normalize, like Saudi Arabia, will likely re-evaluate the costs of such a move.  Criticism of Netanyahu’s policies—both at home and abroad—has grown louder; pro-Palestinian rallies have gained strength and are winning new converts. International media and public opinion are increasingly challenging Israel’s narrative of acting in self-defense. By acting unilaterally, Jerusalem has already reversed some of the political and diplomatic gains it has made over the years.

If it does not change course, it risks moving into even deeper regional isolation.

Shahira Amin is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, focusing on Egypt, economics, energy, water access, and women’s issues.

The post Amid Gaza cease-fire hope, where does the Egypt-Israel relationship stand? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The younger “Gen Z” generation is leading the latest protest movement, demanding greater government accountability and structural reforms in the fields of employment, health, and education. The movement represents the largest mass protest the country has seen since the February 20, 2011, Arab Spring uprisings. These demonstrations place Morocco at a crossroads between spectacle and substance, as its youth are no longer content with “bread and circuses” alone. The most anticipated reaction, however, is due this week—with a consequential address from King Mohamed VI to the parliament set for October 10.

A healthy sign in a two-speed country

On September 11, Morocco celebrated the inauguration of its state-of-the-art Prince Moulay Abdellah soccer stadium in Rabat, which has a capacity of 68,500 and a construction cost of over $75 million. This architectural jewel was completed in under two years, just months before hosting the 2025 African Cup of Nations. Three days later, protests erupted in the coastal city of Agadir over medical negligence, leading to the alleged death of several female patients. The incident, along with the stark contrast between the country’s sports ambitions and public health policies, fueled public outrage among Morocco’s youth online, leading to the launch of the #GenZ212 hashtag and calls for protests.

The kingdom lives in a disjointed reality, where the government prioritizes large-scale infrastructure and entertainment projects over the country’s external branding and tourism industry at the expense of investing in servicing its citizens. This reality was best described with the words of the kingdom’s own monarch: “a two-speed country.”

Morocco, for example, is eleventh in the world on the FIFA soccer ranking, yet ranks 120th out of 193 countries in the United Nations’ 2025 Human Development Index (HDI). It is building the largest stadium in the world in anticipation of hosting the 2030 World Cup, yet it still sits in the bottom half globally of the Healthcare Index score. It rose to second place as the fastest bullet train in the world and dropped to ninety-eighth place in the Global Knowledge Index.

Protests in a stable and dynamic country like Morocco, with a historical empire muscle and a proven survival record over the past twelve centuries, should be seen as a positive form of political participation. That’s especially true given the outsized participation of a younger, statistically more apathetic generation—and serves as a sign of a healthy society holding accountable its elected officials amid the apparent failure of performative, spectacle politics. Nonetheless, danger persists if the demonstrations spiral further. The protests have already seen moments of confrontation and vandalism, resulting in casualties, signaling how volatile the situation could become.

A generation searching for the ‘One Piece’

To understand the ongoing demonstrations, it’s essential to understand the generation that drives them. There are nearly eleven million Moroccans between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four, a quarter of whom are NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), according to a recent study by the Moroccan Economic, Social, and Environmental Council (CESE). The rates are far worse among women and in rural populations. Morocco’s unemployment rate soared to 13.3 percent in 2024, as the economy continues to recover from the COVID-19 crisis, despite achieving significant strides in niche industrial sectors like automotive, aeronautics, and pharmaceuticals. The current Akhannouch government coalition, led by a mishmash of oligarchs and technocrats, vowed to reduce unemployment to under 9 percent and create 350,000 new jobs by 2026, but failed to convince Moroccan youth who grew disenchanted with most political elites.

The numbers place Gen Z as the lowest age group in terms of political participation, with only 33.5 percent of the eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds registered to vote, and 55 percent of the eighteen to twenty-nine age group wanting to emigrate. Still, the massive numbers of youths who took to the streets, paired with their active online engagement, offer a different point of insight on youth political investment. Mobilization content produced on social media platforms like Discord and Instagram demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of political dynamics and a high sense of social justice.

The symbolism used in some social content borrows metaphors from popular culture, such as the Korean series Squid Game or the Spanish drama The Platform—both startling allegories about social injustice and proletarian struggle—confirms the values and aspirations guiding the protests. Similar to Gen Z movements in Nepal, Indonesia, and Europe, there is one Japanese anime that became the main symbol of these protests: One Piece. Moroccan youth seem to identify most with the manga, which tells the story of a brave subaltern youth seeking to defeat the establishment and find a mysterious treasure called the One Piece.

The ‘Zlayji’ versus the ‘Hargaoui’

Gen Z in Morocco, however, is not a homogeneous group, as it comprises several distinct archetypes within the same generation. The Z word, for example, can also apply to the “Zlayji” group of youth. The pejorative term entered the Urban Dictionary in recent years amid the raging cultural war between Morocco and Algeria over heritage symbols, such as the Kaftan, couscous, and Zellij tiles—hence the appellation of Zlayji (tile artisan). A typical Zlayji Gen Z is a fervent defender of Moroccan exceptionalism. He or she unquestioningly supports a supremacist narrative calling for the revival of the glory of the Moorish Empire in North Africa under Moroccan leadership.

The trend, which began as a spontaneous reaction to the ongoing Moroccan-Algerian rivalry, quickly evolved into an ideological tool to further expand the government’s “bread and circuses” posture and disseminate a form of banal nationalism. During the recent events, this group went completely silent, especially the army of online influencers who benefited financially from promoting Morocco’s World Cup ambitions. Others tried to recalibrate and join the new wave, siding with the more peaceful form of demonstrations.

In opposition to this class of neo-chauvinists, another archetype appeared in the kingdom’s public sphere: the “Hargaoui.” The term historically refers to a class of “uncivilized” people who behave against the social norms of politeness and respect for public property and order. The appellation Hargaoui, however, is not exclusive to a particular socio-economic class in Moroccan society, but rather a behavioral profile inherited from the era of “Blad Siba”, which was widespread in non-state-governed areas prior to the colonial encounter with the French and Spanish in 1912. 

The Hargaoui Gen Z never felt ownership of the infrastructure erected in preparation for the African and World Cups, and even actively engaged in vandalizing stadiums, signaling that they do not adhere to the government’s entertainment-focused development model. This group soon took center stage in what started as peaceful demonstrations, dragging the movement into violent confrontations, leading to the destruction and looting of private and public property.

Where we go from here

Initial government reactions show positive signs of containment and readiness to engage in constructive dialogue and reforms. Some even publicly confessed their failure in governing and responding to the aspirations of the new generations. After the demonstrations turned sour, many opposition leaders, such as Abdelilah Benkirane (the former prime minister from 2011 to 2017), who had initially fueled the discord, started calling for restraint and condemning violence. One year before the next electoral cycle, which is due in September 2026, partisan elites have come to understand the significance of youth in their political future and are attempting to appeal to them. Nevertheless, Gen Z has lost hope in the political class and is demanding accountability and the resignation of the current government.  

King Mohamed VI’s address this week will send an important signal on the steps forward. The monarch is largely considered the guarantor of the social contract between elected officials and the citizens and the symbolic “Commander of the Faithful”, according to the Moroccan Constitution. Back in 2011, in the height of the February 20 movement, the king stepped in with bold constitutional reforms and offered a pathway out of the crisis for the country’s Millennial generation. The movement has recently published its petition calling for the King to impeach the government, dissolve certain political parties, and hold public courts to punish fraudulent politicians. These demands pose a real existential conundrum for the very nature of a constitutional monarchy. Such ends will constitute a regression from the gains of the 2011 constitution, limiting the powers of the King in favor of stronger legislative and executive branches, which other generations sacrificed to attain.

An equally crucial response is expected from Crown Prince Moulay El-Hassan, who is actively being groomed for throne succession and is a Gen Z himself. Moulay El-Hassan has been increasingly active in representing his father at important development initiatives, greeting world leaders, and slowly forging a separate, more youthful, and firm public persona for himself. Several protesters have addressed him directly in some of their social media posts and solicited his mediation. 

Beneath the spectacle of gleaming stadiums and bullet trains lies a deeper hunger for dignity, accountability, and equity. Just like the pirates of “One Piece”, Gen Z Moroccans are charting their own course toward justice and belonging. Their quest is not against the crown or the system, but against the illusion that performance equals progress. Whether the Makhzen (the establishment) chooses to listen—or continues dazzling itself with its own reflection—will define the trajectory of an entire nation.

Sarah Zaaimi is a resident senior fellow for North Africa at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs, where she also serves as the center’s deputy director for communications.

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In August 2025, SpaceBelt KSA signed a $640 million, five-year contract with iRocket to support up to thirty orbital launches, aimed at deploying a low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite network to provide secure internet and data transmission across the Kingdom and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The agreement is more than just a commercial launch deal. It underscores Saudi Arabia’s resolve to build sovereign space infrastructure in line with its Vision 2030 goals of strategic autonomy, technological competency, and economic diversification.

As noted on SpaceBelt KSA’s website, “this isn’t science fiction; it’s strategic necessity for a resilient future economy.”

The SpaceBelt KSA–iRocket project embodies this vision, aiming to provide Saudi Arabia with an independent, encrypted satellite communications network—a capability that could transform its defense posture, economic security, and technological self-reliance.

What SpaceBelt KSA-iRocket deal brings to the table

Saudi Arabia has already hit several milestones in international space cooperation, including human spaceflight, satellite development, and space policy. However, this deal stands out as a commercially driven, near-term initiative to build sovereign, secure satellite infrastructure with tangible capabilities. 

At its core, the SpaceBelt KSA–iRocket partnership aims to establish a secure LEO satellite communications constellation—a space-based network for encrypted internet access, data transfer, and cloud services across Saudi Arabia and its neighbors. Unlike large consumer broadband constellations (for example, SpaceX’s Starlink, which has thousands of satellites), the planned SpaceBelt KSA network will be modest in scale (on the order of several dozen satellites), optimized for confidentiality and resilience rather than mass-market broadband.

Key capabilities the partnership is intended to bring (in addition to SpaceBelt KSA’s existing offerings) include:

• Encrypted communications and data storage: The SpaceBelt network is “being developed” as a sovereign, digitally autonomous infrastructure intended to ensure that data transmitted through it remains under Saudi control and is protected by end-to-end encryption. This is particularly important for government and defense users who need secure communications that cannot be intercepted. According to company statements, SpaceBelt KSA is working with partners such as SpaceChain to integrate blockchain technology for added data integrity, using small satellites (CubeSats) as secure relays to validate and encrypt transactions in orbit. If realized, this would create a tamper-resistant “space cloud” for applications ranging from military communications to financial transactions.
• Dual-use network for defense and enterprise: The planned constellation is designed as a dual-use network, serving both defense and commercial customers. On the one hand, it could support national security needs such as secure military communications, intelligence data links, and emergency backup systems. On the other hand, it is positioned to provide businesses—such as banks, energy firms, and tech companies—with an ultra-secure channel for critical data and applications, including financial transfers or connectivity for remote oil facilities. This flexibility broadens the customer base and underscores the project’s commercial viability alongside its strategic value.
• Launch and technology integration via iRocket: Under the agreement, iRocket will provide launch vehicle integration, mission planning, and propulsion support for up to thirty SpaceBelt KSA launches over five years. iRocket’s forthcoming “Shockwave” reusable rockets are designed to re-launch within 24 hours, powered by methane-fueled engines and reusable stages. While these capabilities remain in development, the deal aims to give SpaceBelt KSA a dedicated, responsive launch pipeline for its constellation. The agreement also references joint testing and possible future launch operations in the GCC, which—if pursued—could lay the groundwork for regional launch infrastructure or even a local spaceport.
• Foundation for tech transfer and local industry: The collaboration also aspires to build a foundation for technology transfer and local industrial growth. Both companies have announced plans to explore regional manufacturing of space hardware and to expand related capabilities in Saudi Arabia. This could involve training Saudi engineers in rocket technologies, assembling satellite components domestically, and developing ground facilities, initiatives that would contribute to the Kingdom’s emerging space industry and align with Vision 2030 goals.

Closing the gap

Prior to this agreement, Saudi space capabilities were still consequential but constrained in certain respects. The Kingdom has launched geostationary communication satellites supporting television, broadband, telephone, and secure communications services—often in collaboration with firms such as Lockheed Martin, Arianespace, and TAQNIA—alongside Earth observation satellites. It also participated in international scientific missions and invested in space science, data infrastructure, and workforce development. However, Saudi Arabia entered this deal with some notable gaps in its space capabilities. Riyadh lacked an indigenous low-Earth orbit communications satellite constellation dedicated to sovereign, secure communications. The Kingdom also did not possess a domestic launch capability that would enable it to reliably schedule missions on demand, remaining dependent on foreign launch providers. In addition, its workforce and institutional capacity for managing large, routine satellite constellations and rapid launch logistics were still in relatively early stages of development.

Meanwhile, regional peers are pushing ahead. The United Arab Emirates, for example, achieved Mars orbit in the 2021 Hope Mission, built Earth observation capabilities, and is investing in ambitious projects. Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain are also involved in satellite/space tech initiatives.

The SpaceBelt KSA–iRocket deal is intended to close these gaps in Saudi Arabia’s space capabilities. It provides the Kingdom with a pathway to a sovereign low-Earth orbit satellite network, focused on encrypted and secure communications, which differentiates it from many other regional space projects. If realized, this constellation would complement existing capabilities, such as geostationary communications satellites and foreign-provided internet services, by adding a layer of locally controlled, high-security infrastructure.

Another expected gain is improved launch access. Until now, Saudi satellites, whether CubeSats or large telecom platforms, have depended on foreign rockets, often booked years in advance. With iRocket’s planned reusable launchers, Saudi planners could eventually schedule launches on shorter notice and at higher frequency, a capability typically associated with established space powers.

Notably, the collaboration is structured to bolster operational know-how. Saudi engineers and institutions are expected to work with iRocket’s team on mission planning and integration, offering hands-on transfer of expertise over multiple years. This kind of human capital development addresses the current shortage of domestically experienced space operators and builds on Saudi Arabia’s existing efforts, such as student CubeSat projects and participation in international astronaut missions.

Looking ahead

The SpaceBelt KSA–iRocket partnership, if successful, could attract additional international collaboration. For instance, European or Asian firms may be more inclined to explore projects with Saudi partners, given the Kingdom’s demonstrated willingness to invest heavily in strategic technology. The model may also inspire similar approaches in other sectors, such as artificial intelligence or renewable energy, where the combination of local startups and Vision 2030 backing has the potential to drive breakthroughs.

From a geopolitical standpoint, developing a Saudi-owned secure satellite network would enhance the country’s strategic autonomy. Over the longer term, Saudi Arabia may seek to expand its role in global space initiatives, potentially contributing satellite services for disaster response, participating in federated constellations, or even advancing toward science or exploration missions beyond Earth orbit. These possibilities build on the technical confidence and institutional experience expected to emerge from the deal, as well as the Kingdom’s existing commitments under the Artemis Accords.

Ultimately, the SpaceBelt KSA case offers insights for other foreign aerospace and tech firms considering partnerships in the Gulf. The iRocket–SpaceBelt KSA agreement shows that regional governments are open to bold, non-traditional proposals, and that even smaller firms can secure major contracts if they align with Gulf priorities. For companies eyeing the region, pairing innovative technology with capacity-building and strategic value remains the clearest formula for success in the Gulf’s emerging space market.

Manal Fatima is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. She coordinates and facilitates the program’s activities while providing administrative support, particularly in overseeing the Iran Strategy Project, the Counterterrorism Project, and the broader initiative.

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In light of this policy, Israel exerted significant pressure on the “E3” grouping of Britan, France, and Germany to activate the snapback mechanism, pressure US President Donald Trump’s administration to refuse any diplomatic initiative with Iran, and, most importantly, continued to threaten that in the next war, it would not hesitate to harm Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, if it sought to resume developing its nuclear program. In other words, the same policy that Israel pursued before the war is also relevant after it, as Israel seeks to maintain maximum pressure on Iran.

The Israeli position is contrary to the position of the US administration and also of the E3 countries, which seek to renew diplomatic negotiations but impose conditions that the Iranian leadership cannot accept at this time, such as waiving Iran’s right to enrich on its soil or limiting the range of its missiles.

Therefore, without a nuclear agreement, there is a risk of a renewal of the war, which could even deteriorate into a war of attrition that will deepen the economic burden on the Israeli economy and risk any potential improvement in Israel’s strategic position. Moreover, the current situation increases the chance that Iran will ultimately choose to move towards nuclear weapons—there are more and more voices within the regime claiming that it has no other option—to secure its future.

Threats to solidifying the Twelve-Day War’s achievements

First and foremost, because according to senior International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials, Iran still had a substantial amount of 60 percent enriched material (408 kg) after the war, as well as enrichment capacity based on centrifuges that were not installed at the enrichment sites in Iran. To this day, the extent of the damage caused to them is unclear. Therefore, theoretically, Iran can still enrich to 90 percent enrichment even without reactivating the sites at Natanz and Fordow, based on the enriched material currently present in Iran.

The only way to ensure that Iran does not use the same enriched material is to restore meaningful supervision of the nuclear sites through IAEA inspectors who left Iran at the beginning of the war with Israel, leaving those sites unsupervised. Without an agreement and the inspectors’ presence on the ground, Israel and the rest of the world rely only on intelligence information gathered from Iran that will describe what Iran is doing at those sites. Still, it is unclear whether such intelligence will exist; even if it does arrive, it may be subject to different interpretations. Hence, the presence of inspectors on the ground allows for a better understanding of what is happening in Iran’s nuclear program. The problem is that without a nuclear agreement, which is currently nowhere in sight, Iran will not agree to the return of those inspectors, and reliance on intelligence material will be exclusive, with all the complexities that come with relying solely on it.

But the enriched material in Iran is not the only issue that threatens Israel’s achievements in the war. Iran recently began an extensive reconstruction of its surface-to-surface missile capabilities, including a series of tests that are apparently aimed at improving Iranian launch capabilities in the face of the possibility of renewed war with Israel. At the same time, Tehran is working vigorously to restore its air defense system, which was severely damaged in the war, out of concern that the war between Israel and Iran will resume soon.

These moves are eroding Israeli achievements, and, above all, they indicate the inability to prevent Iran from rebuilding its conventional capabilities.

Above all, current Israeli policy misses the opportunity to exploit the internal struggle within Iran between the more conservative and moderate members of the Iranian leadership. In this context, it is essential to note that with the end of the war, domestic struggles inside Iran intensified over what policy the regime should adopt in its dialogue with the West. Although the Iranian leadership is united in its demand to continue enrichment on Iranian soil and still refuses to limit its missile program, the more moderate elements in the regime, such as President Masoud Pazeshkhian, seem to understand that after the war, the only way to restore Iran’s economy is through the lifting of sanctions through an agreement.

Therefore, it is possible that after the war, the conditions were created that led to an agreement that would allow Israel and the international community to impose conditions that would prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb in the future and ensure that Iran will not be able to construct industrialized enrichment capacity in the future. As mentioned, Iran is still willing, in principle, to significantly limit its enrichment capacity on its soil.

Israel, of course, opposes any agreement that would allow the lifting of sanctions. Still, we must remember that without an agreement and against the backdrop of Israel’s threats on the one hand to renew the war and the deep fear in Iran that Israel intends to attack them again, the chances of escalation are incredibly high, whether in an Iranian “preemptive strike” as a result of a miscalculation or an Israeli attack initiated if Iran seeks to restore its nuclear program.

Ostensibly, Israel, riding the waves of success from the previous campaign, would not hesitate to renew the war, which would supposedly allow it to “complete the job” against Iran. But a renewal of the war also poses significant dangers for Israel. First, we need to remember that despite senior Israeli officials’ claims, Israel did not win the battle with Iran. It did achieve substantial achievements, but as mentioned, not only did Iran retain nuclear capability, but during the war, Iran also managed to hit many areas in Israel and caused significant damage, even though Israel’s starting point in the war was optimal.

The shortcomings of assumptions about a renewed war

Moreover, if the campaign against Iran is renewed, it seems that its opening conditions will be less suitable for Israel. Even if Israel initiates a campaign, it is clear that Iran’s preparedness for such a campaign will be better in light of the lessons Iran learned from the last war and its attempts (certainly with its missile system) to learn from these lessons in a way that will improve its ability to deal with the Israeli threat to this system.

Furthermore, it is uncertain whether Israel can also expect the same level of assistance it received from the US administration in the previous campaign, with an emphasis on the generous assistance provided by the United States to Israel in the field of missile defense. In US domestic politics, the enormous expenditure of some $800 million in THAAD missile support to Israel during the conflict generated significant criticism.

Additionally, in light of the multiple challenges facing the US administration at home and abroad, it is possible that the Iranian issue may not be at the top of Trump’s priority list. Moreover, in light of Israel’s difficult situation in the international arena, as the campaign in Gaza continues, it is not at all clear that Israel will receive any international support. That includes the Gulf states, which see Israel, certainly after the attack on Hamas headquarters in Qatar, as a more significant threat to their security than Iran. Therefore, further Israeli attacks on Iran are unlikely to help either Israel’s international standing or its relations with the moderate Arab states, including the Gulf states. But it is certainly possible that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assumes that if an agreement is reached with Hamas, he will receive the government’s support for another attack on Iran.

But above all, it seems that the Israeli leadership has an assumption that it can overthrow the regime in Iran with the renewal of the war, completely ignoring that, despite Tehran’s serious internal problems, the regime took advantage of the Israeli attack to strengthen its position within Iran and to strengthen the sense of Iranian nationalism. It is likely that future attacks will only reinforce this trend.

In light of all this, Israel must support a nuclear agreement—one that ensures that Iran’s every path to a bomb is blocked, and prevents Iran from reestablishing a large-scale enrichment capability, capitalizing on Israeli achievements in the war, even at the cost of symbolic enrichment in Iran. The lifting of sanctions may strengthen the regime. But it is still essential to remember that continuing them does not guarantee the overthrow of the regime, and mainly weakens those in Iranian leadership who are interested in strengthening ties with the West. The regime in Tehran has proven in the past that it can, in coordination with countries like China, continue to survive despite these sanctions. Therefore, despite the Israeli desire to solve Israel’s problems “by force of the sword,” an agreement, not a renewed war, serves Israel’s interests better. A future war, in light of the preparations being made in Iran for it, could be more difficult than the previous one and entangle Israel in a war of attrition with no end in sight. If Israel’s goal is to ensure that Iran cannot develop a bomb, an agreement is probably the only way to ensure this, even at the cost of strengthening the regime.

Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He is also a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies.

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This dispute has a long history that stems from opposing sovereignty claims and competing geopolitical and economic interests, drawing in regional actors like the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and international observers concerned about the precedent such disputes could set. The controversy reflects a wider struggle inside Iraq itself—between those who view the agreement as a betrayal of sovereignty, and those who want to preserve it.

The dispute also affects regional development, particularly Iraq’s Grand Faw Port and Development Road Project, which aims to position Iraq as a logistics hub connecting the Gulf to Europe. Kuwait’s Mubarak Al Kabeer Port, part of its 2035 Vision and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, is seen by Iraqis as restricting maritime access and threatening the viability of its projects, while Kuwaiti officials maintain it complements rather than undermines regional trade connectivity.

The Khor Abdullah waterway dispute underscores the complexities of post-conflict border demarcation and treaties and how technical legal disputes may multiply into geopolitical issues.

Given the complexities at hand and the highly charged and politicized nature of the dispute from a domestic perspective, especially for Iraq, it may be difficult to resolve this dispute on a bilateral basis. This is where international legal bodies may serve as impartial arbiters.