Arab Center Washington DC

The July 22, 2026, US-Saudi Arabia Nuclear Cooperation Agreement caused some observers to scratch their heads. Why would a country bother with nuclear energy when it holds a fifth of the world’s oil, in a region with 40 percent of global natural gas, and enough sunshine to generate the world’s cheapest solar power?

Turkey-Iraq relations have undergone a significant transformation over the past two years. For much of the post-2003 period, relations between Ankara and Baghdad were dominated by disputes over security, sovereignty, and Turkey’s relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Turkey conducted military operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq largely unilaterally, while Baghdad protested violations of Iraqi sovereignty but had little ability to prevent them.

Project Director, Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, International Crisis Group Non-resident Senior Fellow Arab Center Washington DC Assistant Research Professor of International Affairs; Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs Executive Vice President, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft Incoming Executive Director & Senior Fellow Arab Center Washington DC Since February 28, the US-Israel war on Iran has reshaped the Middle East’s...

Since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran in February 2026, dozens of citizens of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan have been by debris falling from intercepted Iranian missiles that were headed to Israel or were targeting sites in Jordan. When the war began, the United States correctly assumed that its troops in the Gulf would become targets and some of them to Jordan from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Earlier this month, Lebanon and Israel wrapped up another negotiating session in Rome—the seventh since their signing of the June 26, 2026, US-brokered Framework Agreement in Washington. The imbalance of power between the two countries is both clear and consequential: Israel is dictating how the agreement applies to its withdrawal from South Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

On August 7, 2026, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, allowing Turkey to join the September 2025 Saudi-Pakistan collective defense deal. The agreement commits signatories to treating an armed attack on any one of the three as an attack on all, and to deepening their defense cooperation more generally.

On August 11, 2026, the Fourth Syrian Criminal Court sentenced to death former President Bashar al-Assad and seven other regime insiders—including his brother Maher al-Assad, the former head of the Fourth Armored Division—after a trial in absentia. Atef Najib, one-time head of the Political Security Directorate branch in Daraa and a cousin of the Assads, was sentenced in person.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and most Israeli political and security leaders have repeatedly said that they will continue to use military means to deal with what they believe to be threats to the country’s security, and to prevent any possible rebuilding of the military capabilities of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.

Although originally established to facilitate a negotiated political settlement to the Yemen conflict, for over a decade the focus of the United Nations (UN) Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen (OSESGY) has shifted toward reactive crisis management. Successive UN special envoys—including the current incumbent, Hans Grundberg—have been forced to pivot from governance reform to taking short-term steps to support fragile ceasefires.

Researcher, Gulf Studies Center, Qatar University Principal, Global Public Policy Practice, Squire Patton Boggs; Former United States Special Envoy for Yemen Chairperson and Co-founder, Sana’a Center Senior Researcher, Sana’a Center Executive Director Arab Center Washington DC Yemen today stands at its most critical juncture since the 2022 truce, as internal and regional shifts threaten to pull the country back into full-scale war.