Middle East & North Africa

64 Items

A day after the elections, people walk past a billboard with the image of Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Istanbul, Monday, June 25, 2018.

AP Photo/Emrah Gurel

Analysis & Opinions - Economic Research Forum

Local winners and losers in Erdoğan’s Turkey

| June 19, 2018

Throughout the 2000s, Turkey was portrayed as a model of social and economic success for other countries in the MENA region. Ahead of the country’s early presidential and parliamentary polls, this column reports research evidence on how the ruling Justice and Development Party has managed public resources and fostered local economic development since it took power in 2002. The government has played a substantial role in influencing local economic performance on a discretionary basis.

Donald Trump recognizes Jerusalem as capital of Israel

CNBC

Analysis & Opinions - CNBC

This is a Deeply Unwise Decision: Former NATO Ambassador on Jerusalem Recognition

| Dec. 06, 2017

Nick Burns, Harvard Kennedy School professor & former under secretary of State for political affairs, and Sarah Stern, Endowment for Middle East Truth president, discuss President Trump's decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital. Nicholas Burns, who served as U.S. ambassador to NATO and was the State Department's third-ranking official during George W. Bush's presidency, called the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital "deeply unwise."

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters at their combat position in a military base in Batnaya outside of Mosul, Iraq, Friday, Dec. 9, 2016.

AP Photo/Hadi Mizban

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

What Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga Believe

| August 25, 2017

"Legally, the KRG continues to operate as a federal unit of the Iraqi national government, but a September 25 referendum for independence could set the Kurds on a trajectory toward sovereignty, something Iraqi Kurds overwhelmingly wanted in an unofficial referendum held in 2005. Both the upcoming referendum and issues of territorial control are already being hotly contested. Peshmerga views of the post-ISIS regional order—and the extent to which these views are unified—are therefore key to Iraq’s political future."

Smoke rises as Daesh's hand made bombs are being detonated in Jarabulus, Syria.

Getty Images/Anadolu Agency

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Statecraft lessons from Northern Syria

| August 31, 2016

"The unprecedented combination of political chaos, cross-cutting military confrontations, and strategic contradictions in northern Syria reached a record-setting point two days ago. That was when Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, and the Department of Defense (DoD) said, 'we call on all armed actors to stand down and take appropriate measures to deconflict and open channels of communication.'"

Damaged vehicles are seen on the debris of buildings after the airstrikes carried out by Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted Aleppo, Syria.

Getty Images/Anadolu Agency

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Syria becomes even more complicated

| July 23, 2016

"The failed military coup in Turkey and the country’s many links with key regional actors in Syria, Russia, Iran, and NATO clarify how difficult it has become to achieve political solutions to individual conflicts, because local, national, regional, and global interests of any single party do not line up nicely in a coherent and clear balance sheet of desirables and undesirables..."