American troops and their allies have been conducting counter-terror operations and working to uphold the security of Afghanistan from Taliban extremists since shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. A deal negotiated between the Taliban and the Trump administration in February 2020 called on Western nations to withdraw all their forces by May 1 of this year. This week, President Biden announced that U.S. troops will complete their exit from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021. We reached out to several Belfer Center experts for their thoughts.  

Following the release of a report from the U.S. intelligence community on the killing in 2018 of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, we asked several of our Saudi and international relations scholars to comment.  

In the wake of the Khashoggi report, how should the Biden administration recalibrate the U.S.-Saudi relationship?

Presidential candidates President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden faced few questions on foreign policy during this year’s debates. Not surprising given that Americans remain consumed by the domestic catastrophe brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, a reeling economy, reckoning over race and inequity, and climate-related disasters like wildfires in the West. But the two men’s very divergent views will undoubtedly guide the trajectory of U.S. authority and standing in the world over the next four years.  Harvard scholars and analysts on U.S. intelligence, Russia, China, Europe, the Middle East, and nuclear threats posed by North Korea and Iran look at where we are now and consider how the election results could alter current U.S. priorities, relationships, and power dynamics.

BEIRUT — Since President Donald Trump revealed his plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace last Tuesday, Arab states individually and collectively, in their actions and statements, have offered a dizzying array of reactions. These range from approval and mild acquiescence to soft support and absolute rejection. 

The combinations of contradictory actions and statements have been more striking than usual, due to the convoluted political positions most Arab leaders found themselves in. Three Arab ambassadors attended the Washington, D.C. unveiling event that seemed like a post-victory locker room celebration by right-wing Israelis and their fanatic American supporters. A few Arab states issued statements appreciating Trump’s efforts and urging a peace agreement to be forged through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (rather than through this plan’s narrow extremist American-Israeli lineage). And on Saturday night the Arab League summit of foreign ministers issued a collective and “complete” rejection of the plan, noting it would not lead to a just peace because “it does not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people.”

Rami Khouri's on Euronews TV discussing the Trump-Netanyahu Middle East initiative.

The fourth consecutive month of Lebanon's unprecedented political and economic crisis kicked off this week with three dramatic developments that will interplay in the coming months to define the country's direction for years to come: Escalating protests on the streets, heightened security measures by an increasingly militarising state, and now, a new cabinet of controversial so-called "independent technocrats" led by Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab.

Seeking to increase pressure on the political elite to act responsibly amid inaction vis-a-vis the slow collapse of the economy, the protesters had launched the fourth month of their protest movement, which had begun on 17 October last year, with a 'Week of Anger', stepping up their tactics and targeting banks and government institutions.

Rami Khouri's interview on Aljazeera TV discussing the appointment of the new Lebanese government amidst continuing protests and clashes with police.

Rami Khouri's interview on Aljazeera TV on the clashes in Beirut, Lebanon: their causes and their possible implications at a turning point.

Rami Khouri's interview on Aljazeera TV discussing the clashes in Beirut, Lebanon, and how they reflect wider trends around the Arab region, where millions protest against their governments for similar reasons.

The events surrounding the US assassination of Iranian Quds Force leader Major General Qassem Soleimani brought to the surface the two main ideological forces that now battle each other across the Middle East - the anti-imperial "resistance" of Iran and its Arab allies, and the freedom "revolution" of domestic protesters in the same lands.