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Kali Robinson covers the Middle East and North Africa. Before joining CFR, she was an intern at Al Jazeera’s Doha, Qatar, headquarters and at the Associated Press’s Washington, DC, bureau. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.
Most Recent
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Onetime allies, the United States and Iran have seen tensions escalate repeatedly in the four decades since the Islamic Revolution.
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Years after defeating the Islamic State on the battlefield, world governments are now grappling with what to do with the thousands of war-related detainees in Syria.
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Moscow’s exit from the deal generated alarm in a number of populous lower-income countries dependent on Ukrainian grain.
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Countries in Africa have some of the harshest and most discriminatory LGBTQ+ policies in the world. But some governments are taking hopeful steps toward inclusion.
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The Assad regime and Arab capitals will reap the greatest rewards, but ordinary citizens and certain foreign governments involved in Syria’s war have less to gain.
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Multiple countries have special police that enforce Islamic moral codes. Here’s how Iran’s morality police compare to other forces with the same goals.
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Despite limits to their political and social power, Iranian women are leading protests that could jeopardize the regime.
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Iran has built considerable political clout in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Its wide sphere of influence could be expanding, raising domestic tensions and alarming U.S. policymakers.
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Iran is seeing its biggest protests since 2019 over the death of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini. Pro-women, anti-morality police demonstrations evolving into broader anti-government protests. Drawing international support and a crackdown by the regime.
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As host of the UN climate talks, Egypt is trying to attract financial support for the continent’s climate actions. But its record of repression and reliance on fossil fuels threaten to undercut that effort.
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Hezbollah and its allies suffered serious losses in May’s parliamentary elections, and a divided Parliament will likely struggle to agree on a path out of Lebanon’s current crisis.
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Turkey’s geography and membership in NATO have long given the country an influential voice in foreign policy, but the assertive policies of President Erdogan have complicated its role.
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The war is threatening the region’s access to much-needed supplies, but certain countries are more vulnerable than others to food shortages and unrest.
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Israel reportedly used NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware as a diplomatic bargaining chip, and its misuse by many governments has intensified the bigger debate about surveillance technology.
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Arabs represent one-fifth of Israel’s population. Systemic discrimination, outbreaks of communal violence, and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict continue to strain their ties with Israel’s Jewish majority.
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Iran holds its presidential election on June 18, and turnout is expected to be low as the country deals with a battered economy and the ongoing pandemic. But does the Iranian president matter?
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Water scarcity threatens the health and development of communities around the globe. Climate change is intensifying the problem, pushing governments to find more innovative, collaborative ways to address water stress.
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Yemen was suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Then the pandemic struck. Now famine is looming, and signals of changing U.S. policy are being closely watched for how that could affect essential aid.
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Ten years on, the lives of people in Arab Spring countries have improved in certain aspects but worsened in others. CFR.org visualizes the changes in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.
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The kafala system regulates the lives of tens of millions of migrant laborers in the Middle East, but growing outrage over human rights abuses, racism, and gender discrimination has fueled calls for reform.
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The August explosions in Beirut were the latest in a series of man-made disasters that have led some experts to say Lebanon is becoming a failed state.
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New U.S. sanctions under the Caesar Act could compound the economic turmoil threatening to undo the Assad regime.
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The United States has long tried to negotiate a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but several factors, including deep divisions between and within the parties and declining U.S. interest in carrying out its traditional honest-broker role, have hurt the chances of a peace deal.
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The conflict in oil-rich Libya has become a proxy war, fueled by rival foreign powers such as Russia and Turkey.
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At the outset of 2020, the conflict in Idlib province was emerging as the worst humanitarian crisis of Syria’s nine-year war. Now, the coronavirus pandemic has made relief efforts even more difficult.
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Many of the world’s faithful have altered long-standing religious practices to avoid spreading the new coronavirus.
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Iran’s web of armed partners such as Hezbollah serves to strengthen its influence in the Middle East and could pose a significant threat to the United States and its allies in the region, especially Israel.
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Military experience gained from fighting in Syria’s civil war and decades of clashes with Israel has strengthened the Iran-backed group, but politically, its clout among Lebanon’s populace may be waning.
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The war between Libya’s rival governments is intensifying as more countries wade into the conflict, and analysts fear that a proxy war is brewing in the North African nation.
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Diplomacy to revive this arms control agreement has faced multiple stumbling blocks, including Iran’s nuclear advances and its links to conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine.
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Yemen’s internal divisions and a Saudi-led military intervention have spawned an intractable political, military, and humanitarian crisis.
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The Palestinian militant group has struggled to govern Gaza and remains committed to violently resisting Israel. Its surprise attack against Israel in 2023 threatens a wider conflagration in the Middle East.
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Sharia guides the personal religious practices of Muslims worldwide, but whether it should influence modern legal systems remains a subject of intense debate.