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President Carter sits at his desk in the White House before addressing the nation on his energy proposals, on 18 April, 1977. (Photo credit: Bettmann / Contributor via Getty Images).

MundoAméricaReflexionesTestimonios,
A legacy beyond the White House

Jimmy Carter will be remembered for many things, but his post-presidency work to advance peace, democracy, human rights, and freedom from poverty and hunger is an extraordinary example for all leaders.

For many Americans, his term in office will be remembered for long petrol queues at home as well as high unemployment and inflation. His foreign policy legacy as president was complex, but for many in the US it is defined by the Iran hostage crisis which consumed the final 444 days of his presidency and was televised every night across the country.

President Carter’s handling of the crisis was widely criticized but his work to make human rights a priority as early as 1976 was visionary.…  Seguir leyendo »

Portraits of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (R) and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stand at the entrance of the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees, south of Damascus, on 26 March 2024. (Photo by Louai Beshara/AFP via Getty Images).

MundoOriente Próximo,

The ousting of Syria’s brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad by his own people is not just a momentous national event but one with consequences spilling across the Middle East, nowhere more so than Iran. Tehran’s abrupt withdrawal from Syria, having propped up Assad since the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, has exposed Iran’s strategic and military weakness.

Iran’s opportunistically constructed axis of resistance – composed of Hamas in Gaza, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Assad in Syria, militia groups in Iraq and the Yemen-based Houthis – was designed to provide Tehran with strategic depth and deter attacks. In the last year, the network has suffered significant blows at the hands of Israel.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pro-Palestinian activists demonstrate in front of the White House in protest of the war in Gaza on 8 June 2024 in Washington, DC. Photo by Mattie Neretin/Getty Images.

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When stability in the Middle East feels so distant, it is much to the dismay of America’s partners that conflict management in the region has fallen down the list of US priorities. As Israel’s war in Gaza has reached its tragic one-year milestone, a new front has opened in Lebanon and further direct escalation between Israel and Iran seems imminent, it is hoped that the next US president will take a bolder role.

Namely, leaders in the UK, Europe and the Middle East are looking to whoever is in the White House to do more to restrain Israel, deliver self-determination – if not a peace process – for Palestine, and contain Iran’s interventionist regional role and nuclear programme.…  Seguir leyendo »

Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Aras, Iran, October 2022. IRGC / West Asia News Agency / Reuters.

MundoOriente Próximo

The lot of Iranian presidents is not a happy one. They enter office as heroes, promising big changes to improve the lives of their fellow citizens. Almost without exception, they leave as broken men.

Iran’s problems frequently prove more intractable than its new leaders anticipate. But a bigger obstacle Iranian presidents face is that they have responsibility without authority. With large swaths of the government and economy under the control of Iran’s clerical elite and thus beyond politicians’ reach, presidents are able to affect the tone more than the substance of Iranian life. Iran’s is a hybrid system, divided between elected and unelected leaders, and the latter almost always have the upper hand.…  Seguir leyendo »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets attendees before his address at the US Capitol on July 24, 2024. (Photo by Bryan Dozier/Anadolu via Getty Images)

MundoOriente Próximo

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress comes after nine months of war in Gaza following the 7 October attacks.

Netanyahu arrived in Washington seeking to secure bipartisan support for Israel and to lay out his country’s blueprint for the future or so-called ‘day after’. The speech, his fourth to the legislature, failed to achieve either.

Instead of offering urgently needed security solutions that could appeal to both sides of the US aisle or win regional support from leaders across the Middle East, he played for time – and appealed for unity by playing on the easy and always-looming Iranian threat.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iranian pro-government supporters hold a giant Palestine flag at Palestine Square in Tehran, on April 14, 2024, in a celebration of the early morning Iran's IRGC attack on Israel. (Photo by HOSSEIN BERIS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

MundoOriente Próximo,

Iran’s direct drone and missile attack on Israel that lasted several hours on Saturday evening has changed the long-established terms of engagement between the two adversarial states. It has also taken the Middle East closer to a wider conflict that if uncontained will have serious and destabilizing ripple effects across the region.

Iranian-Israeli tensions have long simmered in the shadows of the broader Middle East. Iran has, since the 1979 revolution, taken an anti-Israeli posture and as part of its deterrence strategy has cultivated and financed support for the ‘axis of resistance’ network in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine, surrounding Israel’s borders.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Iranian woman shows a voting document as she waits in front of a polling station in Tehran on 1 March, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP via Getty images)

MundoOriente Próximo,

Iran’s parliamentary and Assembly of Experts election held on 1 March should not be seen as a democratic exercise where people express their will at the ballot box. As in many authoritarian countries, elections in Iran have long been used to legitimize the power and influence of the ruling elite.

These elections come one year after Mahsa Jina Amini’s tragic death for improper veiling at the hands of Iran’s morality police – an event that sparked month long protests across the country. They also follow a brutal government crackdown, declining economic conditions and an uptick in executions.

Rather than build back popular legitimacy through inclusive elections, the political establishment led by the aging 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has prioritized a further consolidation of conservative power across elected and unelected institutions to prepare for clerical succession.…  Seguir leyendo »

Only the Middle East Can Fix the Middle East

MundoOriente Próximo

In the early weeks of 2024, as the catastrophic war in the Gaza Strip began to inflame the broader region, the stability of the Middle East appeared to be once again at the center of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. In the initial days after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, the Biden administration moved two aircraft carrier strike groups and a nuclear-powered submarine to the Middle East, while a steady stream of senior U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, began making high-profile trips to the region. Then, as the conflict became more difficult to contain, the United States went further. In early November, in response to attacks on U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

Arab states must act now and plan for ‘the day after’ the war in Gaza

MundoOriente Próximo

Almost three months into the devastating war in Gaza that has seen over 21,000 Palestinian deaths, no Arab state individually or collectively has yet to articulate any plan or strategy to manage the fallout from the war or to lay out a pathway to support Palestinian statehood.

Under pressure from their public’s strong support for Palestine, careful not to endorse Israel’s military campaign, and wary of divisive diplomatic and regional challenges ahead – including the risk of a broader regional conflict that could involve Hezbollah and Iran – states across the region have instead prioritized calls for a ceasefire and elevated the humanitarian catastrophe as the concern of first order.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Medicis of the Middle East?

MundoOriente Próximo

For a long time, the United Arab Emirates was known mostly for a boom-and-bust real estate market, the consumerist glitz of Dubai, and vast oil resources. But over the last two decades, the UAE’s reputation has undergone a dramatic shift. Under President Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE has spent billions of dollars building up and modernizing its military, becoming what former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis has dubbed “Little Sparta.” The UAE has also made itself the Middle East’s financial center. And the country has forged working relations with almost all the region’s actors, including Israel, as well as with every worldwide power, particularly the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

People gathered at Imam Hossein Square in Tehran to watch Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah's speech regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict, on 3 November 2023. Photo by HOSSEIN BERIS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images.

MundoOriente Próximo

Since the 7 October attacks on Israel, Iran’s support for Hamas and its broader regional goals – most importantly, its long-standing hostility towards Israel – have come into sharp focus.

Questions over Tehran’s direct role in the attacks were quickly quashed by US and Israeli officials as well as Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

These denials are a stark reminder that Iran’s regional strategy and broader objectives are a key destabilizing force that requires a coordinated regional and international response.

Iran-backed groups across the Middle East – what Tehran calls the ‘axis of resistance’ – have threatened and attacked Israel, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and groups in Syria and Iraq, signalling their intent to join a transnational fight and raising the stakes of Israel’s war.…  Seguir leyendo »

A demonstrator brandishing a Palestinian national flag walks past Israeli troops in the village of Kfar Qaddum, near the Jewish settlement of Kedumim, on June 9, 2023. (Photo by JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images)

MundoOriente Próximo

The tremors from Hamas’ attack on Israel and Israel’s military response are being felt far beyond their borders, where the fighting is currently concentrated.

There are clear fears across the Middle East that the region will become mired in a broader war that could draw in Palestinians in the West Bank and Jordan, Egypt (which shares a border with Gaza), Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and their patron Iran. Gulf Arab countries also fear their domestic security will be affected by cascading violence.

But the war has erupted following a prolonged period of regional-led de-escalation and reconciliation efforts. Since 2019 countries including Israel have been increasingly willing to find pragmatic, workable compromises based on shared interests – a phenomenon sometimes referred to as building a ‘new Middle East’.…  Seguir leyendo »

Feeding pigeons on the street in Tehran, Iran. Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

MundoOriente Próximo

On 10 March 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced their intention to restore diplomatic relations over a two-month period, in a deal brokered by China. Riyadh’s reconciliation with Bashar al-Assad in Syria is also underway, and its behind-the-scenes engagement with Israel has increased.

This rapprochement with Iran and other regional efforts matter because they shed light on a significant region-wide trend of de-escalation that has been underway since the resumption of high-level UAE–Iran relations in 2019. In the wake of geopolitical tensions and distraction, it also marks a shift towards direct Middle East regional conflict management which – should it last – is a first for countries in the region.…  Seguir leyendo »

US president Joe Biden delivers the 2023 State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, his first address to a new Republican-controlled House. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

MundoAmérica
Trade and economics are key areas to watch

Daniel W. Drezner

Russia’s absence from the Munich Security Conference will allow US and European policymakers to brag about their flourishing partnership. The past year has seen repeated predictions of a fracturing transatlantic relationship – only to see repeated agreement on how to sanction Russia and which arms to ship to Ukraine.

Putin invaded because he thought the West was divided. Events have proven him wrong. When one takes a step back, however, and examines the Biden administration’s embrace of geoeconomics, Putin’s assumption becomes easier to comprehend.

The strongest throughline between the Trump and Biden administrations has been their shared mindset on weaponized interdependence.…  Seguir leyendo »

Demonstrators protest for Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic's 'morality police' in Tehran. Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images.

MundoOriente Próximo

Current protests present the Iranian regime with a far more immediate crisis than the selection of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s eventual successor. But the opaque succession process – and the underlying questions over its legitimacy and lack of accountability – will haunt Iran’s political system long after the unrest has been quelled.

Having succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, Khamenei is now the longest-ruling leader of a Middle Eastern state, and his death will herald a significant transition for both Iran and the wider region.

Competition to succeed him will be intense, and whatever the outcome, the way the transition unfolds will have far-reaching consequences for Iran’s relationship with its Arab neighbours and Western adversaries.…  Seguir leyendo »

At a pro-government rally in Tehran, September 2022. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo

Early this month, the Iranian rumor mill cranked into overdrive amid reports that Iran’s 83-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who survived prostate cancer surgery in 2014, was again gravely ill. On September 16, the New York Times reported that emergency bowel surgery had left Khamenei bedridden and too frail to sit upright, citing four anonymous sources said to be “familiar with his health situation”. In the wilder corners of Persian-language social media, claims that Khamenei was on his deathbed gave way to speculation that he had already died. As has happened for more than a decade, such rumors quickly morphed into feverish conjecture about how Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body of 88 Islamic jurists who choose the supreme leader, would select Khamenei’s successor and lively debate over the relative merits of the clerics jockeying for the role.…  Seguir leyendo »

Biden's Middle East trip shows the long game is his aim

MundoAméricaMundoOriente Próximo,

Under pressure at home for high energy prices and his willingness to sacrifice principles for national interests, President Joe Biden’s Middle East trip – with visits to Israel and Saudi Arabia which included participation in a meeting with nine Arab leaders in Riyadh – came at a critical time for the region.

This attempt by the US president at a reset of relations frames his efforts to manage tensions with Iran, support greater regional security cooperation, and manage geopolitical competition in the Middle East – all of which also benefit America’s British and European partners.

Regional concerns have long been mounting over Washington’s strategy to revive the Iran nuclear agreement – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – and over the distraction of American domestic politics and US geopolitical repositioning.…  Seguir leyendo »

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori on their journey to London, 17 March 2022. Photograph: Twitter/@SALQAQ/Reuters

EuropaMundoOriente Próximo,

The long-awaited release from detention in Iran of two UK-Iranian dual nationals, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, signals, on the face of it, a constructive turn in UK-Iranian relations. It was brought about by the tireless behind-the-scenes work of advocates and officials , from progress in the Vienna nuclear talks to support from the Omani government and an international public pressure campaign.

Yet, despite this step forward, more challenging issues between Tehran and Whitehall are looming. Not least is the fear that by paying its 40-year-old £400m debt to Iran, the British government risks vindicating Iran’s use of hostage-taking. It is for this reason that since Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention, the British government has been rightfully reluctant to link the prospect of her release to the debt.…  Seguir leyendo »

A man checks electrical wires in Baghdad, 13 September 2017. For years Iraqis have denounced the bad management and financial negligence that have stifled the country and let its infrastructure fall apart. Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images.

MundoÁfricaMundoOriente Próximo,

Tackling entrenched corruption will be a key focus of the political discourse in the Middle East and North Africa in 2022. International policymakers will look to anti-corruption as a framework that can be used to help stabilize conflict countries, support economic reform, or to pressure adversarial regimes. Pressure to deal with corruption also stems from popular anger in countries that suffer from poor governance as corruption can have very serious – even fatal – consequences, as the deadly hospital fires Iraq suffered last year illustrate.

Across the region, anti-corruption processes are meant to signal accountability. However, they can also be weaponized by elites to consolidate power and target opponents, particularly in countries where the political system itself is built on politically sanctioned corruption.…  Seguir leyendo »

The first day of Iran nuclear talks in Vienna, Austria, on 29 November 2021. Photo by EU Vienna Delegation/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

MundoOriente Próximo,

The Iran nuclear negotiations in Vienna, aimed at resurrecting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) after President Trump’s 2018 withdrawal, have entered their eighth round. After a number of delays and disagreements, the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China (known as the P5+1) and Iran, led by the new Raisi administration, finally appear to be making progress at the technical level. This is partly due to Russia and China helping to steer Iran back to what had already been agreed and partly because the so-called Plan B scenarios remain so unappealing to all parties.

The JCPOA is a hugely complex, 154-page technical agreement.…  Seguir leyendo »