MER Article Morocco Dispatch Moroccans have been consuming regular coverage of Donald Trump since the US presidential campaign heated up. I was here in Fez in December 2015 when candidate Trump called for the United States to bar entry to Muslims—his notorious “Muslim ban.” News of it spread quickly. Moroccan students asked me Brian Edwards • 5 min read
MER Article Turkey Dispatch Turkey’s Islamist hegemons in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been losing their grip on reality for some time. Anti-Western conspiracy theories have multiplied in the country since the attempted coup by Turkish military officers on July 15, 2016. Members of the religious-politica Kerem Öktem • 5 min read
MER Article Saudi Arabia Dispatch President Donald J. Trump is known for breaking norms of domestic and foreign policy in his first year in office. In terms of US-Saudi relations, however, his policy has been relatively standard. Although he chose Saudi Arabia as his first international destination as president—breaking the pattern Sultan Alamer • 5 min read
MER Article Iran Dispatch Trumpism has discombobulated Iran. Revulsion against President Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric and policies has achieved the rare feat of unifying the disgruntled Iranian public and the fractious ruling elite. This nationalist backlash barely conceals the internal crises facing Iran at every level—social, political, environmental and economic. In January Kaveh Ehsani • 6 min read
MER Article Iraq Dispatch I have been conducting research in Iraq—in Basra and the outskirts of Tikrit—for roughly the last six months. Since Donald Trump’s election as US president in November 2016, when someone discovers that I live and work in the US, I am usually asked, “That friend of yours [Trump], what’s wrong with hi Hayder al-Mohammad • 4 min read
MER Article Syria Dispatch The Trump administration has thus inherited a basket of policies that were largely focused on narrowly targeted US military intervention against ISIS, and the acceptance of continued violence and instability in Syria even amidst Russian military intervention into the conflict. In the first year of t Samer Abboud • 5 min read
MER Article Egypt Dispatch Last April, an Egyptian court acquitted Aya Hijazi and seven others of charges related to their work with a charitable foundation for Cairo’s street children. After nearly three years in prison, Hijazi, a dual US-Egyptian citizen, was released and allowed to return to the United States where Preside Abdullah Al-Arian • 5 min read
MER Article Lebanon Dispatch Trumpism as experienced from Lebanon is inextricably linked to the effects of the Trump administration’s positions and policies in the broader Middle East. The complexities of Lebanese politics and intrigue, and the social and economic challenges faced by the Lebanese as well as the country’s huge r Karim Makdisi • 7 min read
MER Article Dispatches on Trumpland Knowledge production about the Middle East, Edward Said argued, has been a geopolitical project of empire. This is why the following dispatches to Trumpland provide a crucial intervention. Collectively, the dispatches ask the following: What does Trumpism mean from the peripheries of US empire? How is it felt and experienced? Alex Lubin • 1 min read
MER Article Being Muslim in the Trump Era Moustafa Bayoumi is author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America (2009) and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches From the War on Terror (2015). He is professor of English at Brooklyn College. In this interview with MERIP editorial committee me Moustafa Bayoumi • 6 min read
MER Article The Afterlives of Torture Donald J. Trump ran for president on a platform that included a pledge to bring back the torture technique of waterboarding and “a hell of a lot more.” On the campaign trail, Trump told his supporters: “We have to fight so viciously and violently because we’re dealing with violent people…We have to Lisa Hajjar • 20 min read
MER Article The Old "New Anti-Semitism" and Resurgent White Supremacy Torch-bearing white supremacists and neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, VA in August 2017 shocked many with their chants of “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” Days later, white nationalist Richard Spencer was interviewed on Israeli TV about the role of the so-called “alt-right” in Amy Kaplan • 15 min read
