26 March 2020

Add Coronavirus to Other Crises, and the Middle East Faces a Catastrophe


The “Arab Spring” is remembered as the most disruptive political event to shake the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. Purported presidents-for-life were pushed from office, three countries descended into civil war, and the accepted balance between the governed and their governments was turned on its head, if only for a time.

The Middle East is now on the verge of an even greater set of disruptions — ones that are likely to shake the region to its core. Irrespective of a debate in the United States of how much attention it should devote to the Middle East, these changes will rock a wide range of U.S. security interests in the region itself and around the globe.

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