Middle East Policy Council

10/06/2026

How did Israel fail to anticipate the October 7 attack despite multiple warning signs?

In a new Middle East Policy Journal article, Ruth Hanau Santini and Andrea Novellis examine how entrenched assumptions, institutional dynamics, and technological overconfidence may have shaped Israeli intelligence assessments of Hamas before October 7.

The article argues that a governing paradigm portraying Hamas as manageable and militarily coercible became embedded across intelligence and military institutions, affecting how warning signs were interpreted and threats were assessed.

🔗 Read the full article on Wiley Online Library or at the link in bio.

09/23/2026

🔎 [ ] A decade after Saudi Arabia launched its military intervention in Yemen, Riyadh now faces a very different balance of power.

In a new analysis, Safa Al-Saeedi and Christina Bouri identifie four strategic miscalculations that contributed to the Houthis’ rise: framing the conflict primarily through the lens of Iran, prioritizing loyal partners over effective ones, relying heavily on air power, and imposing a blockade that deepened Yemen’s humanitarian crisis.

The analysis examines how these choices helped transform the Houthis from a local insurgent movement into a regional actor capable of threatening Saudi shipping, energy infrastructure, and wider Red Sea security.

Read more at the link in bio.

09/14/2026

What does the Pentagon’s decision to rename U.S. Indo-Pacific Command back to PACOM actually mean for India?

In a new Principal’s Brief, Zara Farouk and Gopi Krishna Bhamidipati argue that the change in nomenclature does not alter a fundamental strategic reality: India’s security interests extend well beyond the Pacific to the Arabian Sea, the Gulf, and the wider Middle East.

Read it here: ⤵️

In May 2018, then-U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis announced the renaming of the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, “In recognition of the increasing connectivity between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.” The change reflected Washington’s recognition that the strat...

09/11/2026

Houthi gains along Yemen’s Red Sea coast could have implications well beyond Yemen.

Nicholas A. Heras Heras weighs in on the latest developments and their broader regional implications.

09/11/2026

25 years after 9/11, a special issue of Middle East Policy revisits the forces that shaped al-Qaeda; from the Afghan jihad and ideological networks to recruitment, financing, and the evolution of global jihad.

Read here: https://bit.ly/4AcpxLU

09/10/2026

📃 Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks reshaped U.S. foreign policy, their consequences are still unfolding.

A special issue of Middle East Policy revisits the origins of 9/11, the rise of the war on terror, the strategic choices that followed, and the long-term impact on the Middle East and U.S. global influence.

Drawing on analysis from leading scholars and practitioners, the collection examines Islamist militancy, U.S. military strategy, the Iraq War, regional instability, and the lessons that continue to resonate today.

Read the full special issue in Middle East Policy at the link in bio.

09/04/2026

Resident Senior Fellow Faysal Itani comments on Israel’s announcement that it had seized Ali Taher, a strategically positioned ridge in southern Lebanon, from Hezbollah fighters; and what the development reveals about the limits of Iran’s ability to protect Hezbollah.

08/28/2026

🗞️ [ ] In a new Middle East Policy article, Bülent Aras examines what he calls “diversionary rhetorical entrapment”: the process by which politically vulnerable leaders escalate foreign threats for domestic purposes, only to create pressures that can eventually push the state toward real military confrontation.

Using Israel as a case study, the article identifies a distinct “Netanyahu Effect” and finds that peaks in executive threat inflation may precede military escalation by roughly two years.

Read “Israel’s Netanyahu Trap” in Middle East Policy (Open access) here: https://ow.ly/m0Wm50ZGAvb

08/24/2026

🇸🇾 As of 2026, in Syria:

📌 $216 billion in reconstruction needs.
📌 15.6 million Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance.
📌 5.5 million still internally displaced (even as 2.9 million returned home last year).

Those numbers describe a problem no aid budget currently on the table can solve.

In a new Policy Blueprint for Middle East Policy Council, Antoine Brimbal and May Kadow argue that this makes the old model obsolete rather than merely underfunded: large-scale, aid-dependent engagement is not coming back, and US influence in Syria's transition now depends on doing something different.

Their case is that the US can still shape outcomes in a resource-constrained environment by shifting from financial assistance toward diplomatic engagement and technical support, building partnerships with historically underrepresented local actors, backing grassroots peacebuilding, and addressing the structural sources of exclusion that will otherwise define the transition: property rights, transitional justice, and inclusive governance.

Download the full report at the link in bio.

08/19/2026

✍ How will the upcoming Israeli elections affect the growing settler violence in the West Bank, and what does that say about international condemnation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

Associate analyst Henry Rogers provides analysis in his latest piece for New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy.

Read it here: https://bit.ly/3SMkjp3