Middle East Notes and Comment: Add Coronavirus to Other Crises, and the Middle East Faces a Catastophe

New Analysis

The “Arab Spring” is remembered as the most disruptive political event to shake the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. Purported presidents-for-life were pushed from office, three countries descended into civil war, and the accepted balance between the governed and their governments was turned on its head, if only for a time.

The Middle East is now on the verge of an even greater set of disruptions — ones that are likely to shake the region to its core. Irrespective of a debate in the United States of how much attention it should devote to the Middle East, these changes will rock a wide range of U.S. security interests in the region itself and around the globe.

Read Jon Alterman's full piece on the Hill.

Babel: Translating the Middle East

Babel launched its second season with an interview with the Washington Institute's Hanin Ghaddar about sectarianism in Lebanon. Then, Jon Alterman, Will Todman, and McKinley Knoop explored sectarianism's role in the Middle East.

We also released a mezze on Sana's solar revolution. On Tuesday, our second episode of Babel will feature an interview with the University of Oxford's Dr. Elisabeth Kendall, who studies jihadi poetry.

Events

A summary and transcripts from our Febuary 24th event on "After Soleimani: Crisis, Opportunity, and the Gulf" are available here. It includes Gen. Joseph L. Votel's keynote remarks and two panel discussions, one with the Hon. John McLaughlin and the Hon. Christine Wormuth, and a second with Amb. Anne Patterson, Amb. Douglas Silliman, and Dr. Ali Vaez.

On March 2nd, the Middle East Program and the Humanitarian Agenda co-hosted the Rt. Hon. David Miliband of the International Rescue Committee for a conversation on "Syria's Tragedies, Our Lessons." His remarks are available here.

In the News

"There’s a series of cascading crises which ultimately feed into one another, an interconnected web of catastrophes," said Jon Alterman about the toll of COVID-19 on the MENA region in an article in the Washington Post. (03/17/20).

“We know that governments will shake as citizens judge them to have fumbled in their response,” to COVID-19, Jon Alterman is quoted in Yahoo! Finance (03/13/20).

Jon Alterman is quoted from a press call in the Los Angeles Times, saying "what the coronavirus crisis reinforces is that governments really do matter." (03/12/20).

A Washington Post article by Josh Rogin on the catastrophe in Syria cited our event on "Syria's Tragedies, Our Lessons." On the current crisis in Syria, Jon is quoted, saying "This has been happening outside the public glare, not because it's unknowable but because the public is uninterested." (03/05/20).