Publications

In late August, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani stirred the pot of existing tensions when he ordered the evacuation of the Iraqi military’s Joint…

As Houthi negotiators leave Saudi Arabia after five days of talks with Saudi officials regarding the contours of a compromise solution to Yemen’s ongoing confl…

Seventy-one years after its July 23, 1952 Revolution, organized by the Free Officers Movement, Egypt’s difficult economic conditions threaten to unravel the ve…

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced his new cabinet following his victory in the May 2023 presidential election, a positive mood ensued. Turk…

Even for a state as heavily militarized and intractable as the Islamic Republic of Iran, the breadth and depth of the economic maladies it is facing are crushi…

Throughout the Arab world, there have been numerous protests, uprisings, and challenges to the painful policies that come with an International Monetary Fund (…

Protests have once again rocked the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, with truckers, bus and taxi drivers, and others in the transportation sector having staged var…

Egypt reached a new agreement with the IMF to borrow $3 billion over a 46-month period. The Egyptian economy has been struggling over the past couple of years …

American presidents have long relied on Saudi Arabia and its leadership of OPEC to ease price pressure on oil markets, particularly in the lead-up to US electi…

In a move that will certainly have serious political and economic repercussions in the United States and around the world, OPEC+, a group of oil-producing nati…

On August 12, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that his country has now completed the third filling of the reservoir behind its controversial Gran…

Lebanon and Israel have frequently been at odds during their nearly two years of negotiations over the two countries’ Mediterranean maritime border, with diffi…

A recent World Bank report on the Palestinian economy once again demonstrates that most research produced by international financial institutions on this topic…

The potential impact of a drop in the supply of grain to global markets due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has increased fears about food insecurity around …

On April 4, 2022, Gulf Arab countries pledged $22 billion to help Egypt avert a currency crisis resulting from the Russian war on Ukraine. The Egyptian pound l…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), European Union (EU), France, and the United States are all trying to help Lebanon out of the economic a…

The recent resumption of discussions about economic ties between the US government and the Palestinian Authority (PA) after a five-year hiatus must be understo…

Over the past few decades, public debt, sectarian nepotism, and fixed exchange rates have been three significant challenges to the Lebanese economy; albeit the…

In the midst of an economic collapse and an energy crisis, Lebanon has found itself in a tug of war between the United States and Iran. On August 19, Hezbollah…

On July 19, Ethiopia announced that it had completed the second filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). This unilateral step had been rejected b…

The end of the twentieth century was a tumultuous period for much of the world. Many countries were experiencing economic turmoil, and many hard-won gains in h…

On March 23, the world's attention turned to Egypt as traffic in the strategic Suez Canal was disrupted after the 400-meter container ship, the Ever Given, ran…

After years of civil war and outside intervention, Yemen continues to be widely recognized as having the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. A significant contr…

In the mid-2010s, several years into Syria’s brutal civil war, a theory emerged that perhaps the conflict was even more complicated than originally conceived. …

For the third time in the span of a year, Lebanese politicians are trying to go back to the proverbial drawing board. On October 22nd, President Michel Aoun ap…

Joe Macaron argues that in Syria, implementing the Caesar Act sanctions and opening the east-west M4 Highway reflect intensified US-Russian competition while t…

Gulf Arab states have little choice but to rely for their security needs on the Trump Administration despite its feckless policy in the Middle East and poor ca…

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) will most likely weather the political, economic, and health storms generated by COVID-19. Prompted by th…

Bessma Momani analyzes the global oil price collapse and the COVID-19 public health crisis as a dual blow to the social and economic well-being of both oil-ric…

Because the health of the US economy is critical for Donald Trump's reelection hopes, Marcus Montgomery asks if the recent Saudi-led OPEC+ cuts will contribute…

Marcus Montgomery details splits in official Washington about how to deal with Iran at this delicate time of the coronavirus outbreak: some want to offer sanct…

Nabeel Khoury discusses Morocco's political and economic conditions and cautions its elite to use the opportunity of the current social calm engendered by the …

Evaluating the economic portion of Trump’s plan for Palestinian-Israeli peace, Colin Powers argues that for its economics as much as for its politics and immor…

Syria’s most difficult battle now is how to support its national currency and fix its collapsing economy with an impoverished central bank and the absence of r…

Kenneth Katzman writes that a range of observations and data support the assertion that to date, the Trump Administration’s maximum pressure campaign against I…

The latest attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil installations are a game changer in Saudi domestic politics and in regional and international affairs.

Opening up the political and economic systems in Egypt would allow for sustained private sector growth and a free flow of ideas—and criticism—that would keep t…

Daniel Brumberg argues that Tunisia’s Essebsi leaves behind a political crisis that is partly rooted in a convoluted constitutional language that does not clea…

“Peace to Prosperity” brings little that is new to the table, follows an ill-suited fundamentalist market ideology, and ignores the Israeli occupation as the m…

The Israeli occupation and lack of freedom for Palestinians are the most salient factors that hamper the Palestinian economy, and this should be blindingly obv…

This paper is part of ACW's fourth book, titled The Arab World Beyond Conflict.IntroductionThe global economy is undergoing considerable structural shifts that…

This paper is part of ACW's fourth book, titled The Arab World Beyond Conflict.The far-reaching turmoil that plagues most Arab countries today reflects problem…

Trump's Middle East Strategic Alliance is doomed because not all states there agree that Iran poses the biggest threat. A larger obstacle is the president's re…

The private sector in the United States and around the world has a responsibility to confront authoritarian regimes and help protect human rights and the rule …

The recently announced Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum is not likely to aid cooperation or economic integration because the policies of its member states mirro…

It strains credulity to believe that Qatar’s decision to withdraw from OPEC was taken in total isolation from the regional conflict and tensions with neighbors.

The imminent opening of the Nasib crossing on the Syrian-Jordanian border could revitalize commercial activities in the Levant; but challenges lie ahead, inclu…

In light of Libya’s institutional fragmentation between east and west, control of the Oil Crescent and its revenues has become a determining factor in the coun…

While the Ethiopian dam on the Nile could be a source of conflict in east Africa, and while relations among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan will remain unsettled fo…

Another spectacle of a confused American foreign policy was on display on May 21, 2018 at the Heritage Foundation, where Secretary of State Mike Pompeo deliver…

Nearly 100 days after his mysterious “captivity” in the Saudi capital, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri visited Riyadh again on February 28. The timing c…

Turkey’s policies and many activities around the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa have added complications to the already complex strategic picture of the Middle…

Economic necessities and opposition to the so-called Islamic State have brought Jordan and Iraq closer together, but Amman remains concerned about Baghdad’s li…

Turkey is interested in being on good terms with all Libyan factions but is caught up in the complex relations between Libya’s political forces and their regio…

The GCC should be preserved despite the failure of its 38th summit meeting in Kuwait and the establishment of a Saudi Arabian-Emirati new political and militar…

Mohammed bin Salman’s challenge to established norms of governance in Saudi Arabia and the abrupt changes in its economic and social conditions may help pull t…

With Egypt heavily reliant on Saudi Arabia and the UAE for its economic stability and survival, Cairo may not find much room for independent foreign policy dec…

Algeria is challenged by a lethargic political system headed by an ailing president, a poorly performing rentier economy, and a rising Salafi Islam that is com…