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Domestic politics has taken center stage in the United States as Congress struggles to pass President Donald Trump’s proposed budget plan. But July is also shaping up as a pivotal month for Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia share many foreign policy and regional security objectives and have a long and complicated relationship. Recent events in the Middle East have strengthened that relationship, even as they continue to negotiate difficult bilateral issues, like the long-running dispute over control of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir.

Six months since the collapse of the Assad regime, the Russian military presence in Syria has remained entrenched in strategic locations such as the Hmeimim airbase and Tartous port on the coast, as well as at Qamishli airport in the northeast. This persistence has reignited an increasingly pressing debate about Moscow’s role in the new Syria.

Together, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and the broader Gulf region, are positioning themselves as potential backends of AI for emerging markets across Asia and Africa, laying the groundwork for a U.S.-aligned model of AI partn

With Bashar al-Assad ousted and Syria entering a new political chapter, what comes next for a country ravaged by war, repression, and sectarian divisions?

On June 19, false reports of an Israeli strike on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant sparked alarm across the Gulf. Though denied by Israeli officials, the claim traces back to a warning from Qatar’s prime minister of a potential catastrophe in the event of nuclear contamination — no water, no food, no life — due to the Gulf’s reliance on desalinated seawater. Gulf governments moved quickly to reassure the public that no radiation had been detected, but the episode underscored the region’s growing sense of vulnerability. A regional approach to water security could help to mitigate such risks.

Stephanie Williams, former US diplomat and deputy head of the UN mission in Libya, sits down with Brian Katulis for a wide-ranging conversation about what’s happening in the Middle East today.

The May 6 cease-fire between the United States and the Houthi militia in Yemen has had a consolidating effect on the balance of power inside the war-torn state and hardened the status quo of the country’s civil war. In turn, the outcome of Israel and Iran’s subsequent 12-day war has the potential to temporarily shake up this status quo once again; but Yemen’s fracturing anti-Houthi coalition is unlikely to be able to exploit that opportunity.