Can Biden Bring Anything New at All to the Middle East?

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In The Media

Can Biden Bring Anything New at All to the Middle East?

A Biden administration is going to be expressing a lot of public dissatisfaction with different elements of the powers struggling for influence in the Middle East–and that will be a significant difference from the Trump era.

By H. A. Hellyer

Published on Nov 20, 2020

Source: Newsweek

I've been researching different parts of the wider MENA region as an "outsider-insider" for some two decades. A few days after the Biden administration takes office, it will be the 10th anniversary of the Egyptian revolutionary uprising of 2011 – an uprising I experienced, during which Joe Biden was Vice-President. A decade on from that, the region's politics are now deeply impacted by a new geopolitical 'cold war' – the MENA's own sluggish struggle between two axes struggling for dominance in the region, alongside older rivalries. Against the backdrop of those enmities, one may ask: what's the likely meaning of a Biden-Harris administration for the region itself? What can American allies inside, and outside, the region expect? A decade on from the uprising, can activists on the ground expect anything new?

Read Full Text

This article was originally published in Newsweek.

About the Author

H. A. Hellyer

Former Nonresident Scholar, Middle East Program

Dr. H.A. Hellyer was a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He serves as a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London, and as a Cambridge University fellow.

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Carnegie India does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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