In the News, 2020: MIDDLE EAST

Tensions between Iran and Western countries have risen since the U.S. pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018. The pact was intended to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for relief from economic sanctions, but President Trump said it wasn’t tough enough. In May 2019, the U.S. imposed additional sanctions on Iran to try to force its government to restart negotiations. One result has been Iran’s seizure of oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point through which much of the world’s oil supply travels every day.

Five years of civil war have produced what United Nations officials now call the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in what was already the poorest country in the Middle East. The deadly conflict became even worse when Saudi Arabia intervened in 2015. According to the U.N., more than 17,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed in the fighting. And with the country’s economy in collapse, millions of Yemenis are facing starvation.

Many Middle East observers now believe that the peace process that has been pursuing a “two state solution” for Israelis and Palestinians since 1993 is nearly dead. The Trump administration has long said that helping both sides agree to a peace deal was a priority, but the plan it released in June 2019 focused more on Palestinian economic development than on a political solution that would resolve the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.