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Covid19 in Tunisia: A Country Adrift

Within a year of the Covid-19 epidemic starting in Tunisia, the North African country has turned from a widely praised example of efficient crisis management to the “bad boy” of the Arab region and of the African continent. While the lightning spread of the virus in the country is putting a strain on an already […]

Understanding Syria’s Enduring Crisis

As part of its efforts to provide a nuanced understanding of the conflict’s dynamics and trends, the ‘Wartime and Post-Conflict in Syria’ (WPCS) team of the Middle East Directions Programme has collectively reflected on the mass of research on Syria produced in the past decade. For the purposes of this blog, we defined ‘research’ in […]

Confidence Building to Avoid Military Clashes in the Persian Gulf

On 2 February 2021, the Middle East Directions Programme hosted Giovanni Romani, Sanam Vakil, Tytti Erästö, and Mahsa Rouhi as part of its Regional Security Initiative. Moderated by Luigi Narbone and Abdolrasool Divsallar, the event (see more details here) explored the possibility of military de-escalation measures in reducing tension between the US and Iran. This […]

Hirak is not “back”: Algeria’s process of revolution never stopped

Place de le République, Paris, 21 February 2021. As they have done every Sunday in the last year, Algerians and French-Algerians gathered in solidarity of the Hirak Movement in the French capital. Last Sunday, however, was different from the others. Among the many Algerian and Amazigh flags there were several banners recalling  with renewed emphasis […]

Will Iran benefit from the assassination of Fakhrizadeh?

The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the long-time head of Iran’s nuclear and missile development programs, has set off a major debate on how country should respond. Top Islamic Republic officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have called for definitive punishment of those responsible. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force Commander, General Qaani, vowed to […]