The Middle East and North Africa rarely leave the headlines. Yet headlines rarely tell the whole story. Behind every breaking news alert on missiles, markets, or ceasefires lie deeper shifts in power, capital, technology, and society that will outlast the news cycle and that policymakers, investors, and concerned citizens should not miss.
That is why AMENA Strategies is launching AMENA Insights: Beyond the Headlines.
Our objective is simple: to offer rigorous, accessible analysis that connects what is happening today with what it means for tomorrow. We bring together seasoned analysts, emerging voices, and leaders from across the MENA region and the United States to examine strategic questions and point you toward what to watch next and why.
Our first pieces capture the range we intend to cover. In the first of our leadership conversations, Bahrain’s Ambassador to the United States H.E. Shaikh Abdulla bin Rashid Al Khalifa reflects on diplomacy in a time of war. Trust, relevance, and presence, he argues, are the diplomat’s essential tools, and calm is a strategic asset when a country is under fire. He describes the Bahrain-U.S. relationship as institutional and multidimensional, pointing to the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement (C-SIPA), which was activated in March amid the regional conflict, as proof that partnerships built in stable times can deliver when they are needed most.
In How the 2026 Iran War Could Rewire Global Energy, AMENA’s Yusuf Can argues that while oil prices revert, infrastructure does not. Drawing on the precedents of Suez in 1967 and the 1973 embargo, he shows how the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is driving durable change: new bypass pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, buyers diversifying toward Brazil and the United States, record strategic stock releases, and the UAE’s exit from OPEC. Most consequentially, Gulf capitals now treat the American security guarantee as one instrument among several rather than the foundation of their security.
Seda Gunes turns our attention to AI Power in MENA and maps how Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar are converting oil wealth into compute power through national champions, such as HUMAIN, G42, and Qai, while Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait pursue more modest paths. She warns of a widening divide: middle-income states from Morocco to Egypt have ambitious AI strategies but lack the capital, energy, and talent to match. Today’s gaps in the AI stack, she cautions, could harden into tomorrow’s hierarchy of economic and geopolitical power, which makes the region a strategic opening for Washington in its competition with Beijing.
On entrepreneurship and women’s empowerment in the UAE, Faria Nasruddin explores a striking paradox. The UAE is a regional outlier, with women’s labor force participation at 53%, yet women make up only 18% of entrepreneurs, and female founders received just 1.2% of Middle East venture capital funding in 2024. Drawing on interviews with founders, she finds that the barriers are less about regulation than about capital and culture and argues that more women in financial decision-making roles and genuinely flexible work policies are now essential. The piece is drawn from a forthcoming chapter in What Happens When Women Work (Georgetown University Press).
Together, these first pieces reflect the threads that will run through AMENA Insights: geopolitics and security, energy and economics, technology and the future of work, and the leadership of women, diplomats, and young people across the region. We will pair analysis with data, context with human stories, and regional perspectives with an eye on U.S. national security interests. We invite you to subscribe, share, and join the conversation. The story of this region is far bigger than its headlines. We look forward to exploring it with you.