Middle East & North Africa

Belfer Center experts on the U.S.-China relationship and Middle East issues shared thoughts on the significance of the unexpected Iran-Saudi Arabia agreement brokered by China. 

Stephen Walt, having just returned from the Munich Security Conference, writes that what government officials are saying about the Ukraine War in public, and private, is fascinating—and full of contradictions.

Abolghasem Bayyenat argues that without the JCPOA restrictions in place, Iran's nuclear program will expand and continue to acquire irreversible technical knowledge and competencies.

Stephen Walt critiques Biden's foreign policy record and argues for creative solutions to the problems of a new era.

Kelly Greenhill argues that by exploiting political divisions that exist within targeted states, the threatened or actual deployment of engineered flows of migrants has long been a distressingly effective policy instrument, and it is unlikely to go away anytime soon. Unless policymakers begin to confront the forces that enable weaponized migration, the favored policy responses seem destined to increase, rather than curtail, its use.

The surprising strength of economic sanctions deployed multilaterally against Russia this month has been exceeded only by the surprising strength of the heroic Ukrainian resistance to the invasion of their territory.  True, it is hard to imagine sanctions bringing the Russian economy to its knees faster than Russian troops are able to complete the hundred-mile advance to Kyiv from the border.  But sanctions have gone macroeconomic.  Ultimately, the Russian economy will suffer severely and lastingly.

Hamidreza Azizi and Nicole Grajewski analyze Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's recent demands  for written guarantees that Western sanctions over Ukraine "will by no means affect our right to free and full-fledged trading, economic, investment, military and technical cooperation with Iran."

Nicole Grajewski analyzes why Russia's international isolation and acrimonious relations with the West offer Tehran and Moscow further incentives to strengthen relations as both face strategic loneliness in the international arena. Short of full recognition of Russia's territorial claims in Ukraine, Iran will likely remain one of the few states willing to outwardly support Moscow's narrative and political justifications for invading its neighbor.

Russian military action in Ukraine could trigger an energy crisis even more serious than the one already hitting Europe. As has been pointed out, should the West hit Russia with severe new sanctions, President Vladimir Putin could cut off natural gas exports, leaving the continent shivering through midwinter. Yet there is another potential weapon of Russia’s that’s been less discussed and might be very effective: An ability to disrupt global oil markets, which would directly hit U.S. consumers.

Abolghasem Bayyenat argues that rather than insisting that the JCPOA be restored strictly in its original form and implemented per its letter, the parties should seek to redress the agreement's imbalance in regard to its enforcement mechanisms and delivery of its economic benefits.