The MERIP Podcast

The MERIP Podcast Episode Eight: Helen Lackner

This episode of the MERIP podcast features an interview with longtime MERIP contributor and noted journalist Helen Lackner on the state of Yemen's Houthi movement. The conversation with MERIP Executive Director James Ryan follows up on her essay, "Yemen's Ansar Allah" that was published

James Ryan • 1 min read

The MERIP Podcast

The MERIP Podcast Episode 6: The MERIP Roundtable, "On Recognition"

The MERIP Roundtable is a new format for the MERIP podcast featuring conversation on urgent issues in the Middle East with members of MERIP's Editorial Committee. The theme of this episode's conversation is "Recognition" -- both the widening circle of Israeli, diaspora, and Jewish

James Ryan • 1 min read

The MERIP Podcast

The MERIP Podcast Episode Four: Syria at the Crossroads I

This week on the feed is the audio recording of our zoom event "Syria at the Crossroads: Popular Revolt, Counterrevolution, and Regional Transformation" featuring Leila Al-Shami, Wafa Mustafa, and Djene Bajalan. Syria at the Crossroads is a special event series co-produced by MERIP and SPECTRE: A Marxist Journal.

James Ryan • 1 min read

The MERIP Podcast

The MERIP Podcast Episode Three: Habib Battah

This week on the MERIP Podcast we're featuring an interview with the Lebanese journalist Habib Battah, author of "Beirut and the Birth of the Fortress Embassy" which was published in Middle East Report Online in April 2024. Battah has recently returned to Lebanon for the first

James Ryan • 1 min read

MER Article

Liminal Lineages of the "Kurdish Question"

Kurdistan is a liminal space. It has been at the geopolitical interface of both old empires and modern states. The historical dynamics of this geopolitical liminality have been and remain the primary determinant of Kurdish politics and history. Prior to the modern era, the central vector of these dynamics was

Kamran Matin • 17 min read

MER Article

The Globalized Unmaking of the Libyan State

The current disorder in Libya is not merely the result of a failed humanitarian intervention, which allegedly collapsed the state. Global currents and processes have also combined with local forces to unmake the Libyan state. Like the other cases of globalized state unmaking in the region, a new pha

Jacob Mundy • 14 min read

MER Article

Was the Libya Intervention Necessary?

The death of Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi has become one of the most contested moments of Libya’s eight-month war. The exact circumstances of the colonel’s demise on October 20 are unclear, but evidence is mounting that Libya’s former ruler was killed -- extra-judicially executed -- by the band of young

Claudia Gazzini • 20 min read

Current Analysis

The Middle Powers Amid the Arab Revolts

The UN Security Council has been a key arbiter of international action regarding the upheavals in the Arab world in 2011. In late February, the Council issued Resolution 1970 calling for an “immediate end to the violence” in Libya, imposing sanctions and an arms embargo, and asking the International

Imad Mansour • 13 min read