Welcome back to the MBN Agenda, our look at the events driving the news in the Middle East in the week to come.
Kurdish power in Syria is collapsing. ISIS prisoners are on the move. Iraq edges closer to a new government that won’t go down well in America. Our team in Washington and the region is tracking these and other stories.
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– Joe, Rami, Dalshad, and Ghassan
Washington Signals
Syrian Kurds Get Downgraded
What appears to be a collapse of Kurdish power in Syria might be better understood as the end of a long U.S. downgrade.
This came about gradually, not suddenly, a Kurdish representative in Washington told Joe. “This wasn’t abandonment,” he said. “It was a slow withdrawal of guarantees. We are still partners, but no longer protected.”
For months, he said, Washington had been signaling that countering ISIS was no longer the priority. Managing Turkey, containing Iran, and avoiding great-power escalation took precedence. “Once the mission changed,” he said, “we became a complication.”
In mid-January, Syrian forces moved against the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led U.S. partner against ISIS. A U.S. congressional staffer told MBN: “Protect U.S. troops, keep ISIS prisons secure, avoid escalation. If those held, we weren’t intervening.”
They did, and the U.S. stood aside.
“This is burden management,” the staffer said. “It’s not cost-free. But the alternatives are worse.”
When asked to explain the change, a State Department official said: “This aligns with our broader National Security Strategy: reducing open-ended military commitments, managing escalation among regional and great powers, and pushing local actors to assume security burdens once U.S. core interests are secured.”
For more, read Joe’s full story here
Joe Kawly brings you raw conversations with ambassadors, envoys and negotiators behind the hardest foreign policy decisions.
From the Field
Kobani under Siege
Reporting from Erbil, MBN correspondent Delshad Hussein documents a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis as shelling continues around the Syrian city despite a declared truce between local Kurdish troops and factions affiliated with the Syrian government. “We receive dozens of civilian casualties daily,” Avin Khali, a medical doctor at Mishtanur Health Center in central Kobani said. Attacking Syrian troops continue to bomb villages surrounding Kobani while Turkish forces tighten the northern cordon.
Inside the city, hospitals are overwhelmed and clinics shut down by shelling and shortages. “There is no room left for the wounded,” Khalil said. Markets are empty, water and electricity have been cut for over a week, and medicines for chronic illnesses have run out, according to lawyer Mustafa Sheikh Muslim, who warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
Despite the truce, indiscriminate shelling and drone strikes continue across the area, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
For more, read Dalshad’s full story here
Regional Signals
ISIS Prisoner Move
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s government has decided to shift ISIS detainees from prisons in northern Syria to Iraq. Officials in Washington, who were increasingly worried about the lack of security in the prisons, are applauding the move. Former U.S. Envoy James Jeffrey described the transfer as a “precautionary measure” to close “gaps” that “clever and brutal” ISIS elements might exploit during the power transition. Jeffrey called the al-Sharaa government a “realistic and wise alternative” to the previous Assad regime, believing that its emergence as an acceptable regional authority effectively ended the need for autonomous pockets or for continued U.S. protection of Kurdish forces.
Other analysts are more skeptical. Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a Dutch expert on the Kurdish region, said the move signals an “American lack of trust” in the new regime. Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights fears that if left in Syria, these fighters would be “gradually integrated into the Syrian security services.” Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani cast his country’s taking custody of these prisoners as a “proactive step” to protect Iraq’s national security from a “perpetual threat.” Ultimately, the transfer serves as a “disengaging from prior commitments” for the U.S. as it contemplates a complete potential military withdrawal from Syria.
For more, read Rami’s full story here
In focus
Trump’s Board of Peace
President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace was unveiled in Davos last week to push forward the rebuilding of Gaza.
It quickly exposed a transatlantic split. Washington sees the Board as a workaround for stalled multilateralism, a State Department official told MBN. “The UN framework wasn’t delivering outcomes,” the official said. “This is about speed, leverage, and accountability.”
Europe pushed back. “The plan treats Gaza as a blank real estate project,” said a French diplomat in Beirut, asking for anonymity to speak candidly. “It speaks of towers and new cities, but never addresses Palestinian land ownership, even though much of Gaza is privately registered property.” The absence of any land-acquisition mechanism, he warned, risks turning reconstruction into expropriation.
France, Germany, Italy, and several Nordic states declined to join, saying their constitutions bar them from joining international bodies in which one leader holds permanent veto power and influence is effectively bought rather than democratically elected or shared equally among states.
Arab states made a different calculation. An Arab League official told MBN that participation was pragmatic. “If this body is going to decide how Gaza is rebuilt, we can’t afford to be outside it,” he said. “Presence is leverage.”
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey joined, securing roles in the Gaza executive committee overseeing reconstruction. “This is about shaping outcomes,” the official said, “not endorsing every part of the framework.”
Israel was uneasy. Israel Hayom reported that Jerusalem initially objected, particularly to the roles of Turkey and Qatar, before reversing course under U.S. pressure.
Read the full story here
What to Watch For
Rebuilding without Land
The Trump administration’s “New Gaza” plan frames the territory as a reconstruction and investment project, but avoids a basic question: Who owns the land?
Nearly half of Gaza consists of privately owned property registered to Palestinian families under deeds dating back decades. The plan makes no mention of ownership, compensation, or restitution.
A U.S. State Department official told MBN that Washington does not see land ownership as a question that can be settled now. “You can’t adjudicate property disputes while people are homeless,” the official said. The priority, he argued, is security and a new executive framework through the Board of Peace. “We’re not saying ownership doesn’t matter,” he added. “But it can’t be a precondition for everything.”
Arab officials are worried. “Gaza is not empty land to be redrawn on a map,” an Arab League official told MBN. Ignoring ownership, he warned, risks turning reconstruction into indirect expropriation.
Reconstruction that begins without recognizing ownership, Arab officials argue, rarely returns to it.
More details in the full report here
Clock Ticks for Baghdad
Iraq is moving to finalize its next government, feeling unusually strong U.S. pressure. On Jan. 24, the Coordination Framework, the dominant Shiite bloc with armed wings loyal to Tehran, nominated former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a third term.
That move triggered a hard U.S. message delivered privately to Iraqi leaders. “There is no place for militias in the new government,” an Iraqi government adviser told MBN, warning that defiance would carry “catastrophic” consequences. According to the adviser, Washington has raised the possibility of restricting access to Iraq’s oil revenues held at the U.S. Federal Reserve, sanctioning the oil sector and senior figures, and ending the U.S. waiver allowing Iraqi imports of Iranian gas. This step would immediately hit the electricity supply.
Publicly, U.S. officials have echoed the line, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio telling Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani that any government “controlled by Iran” cannot put Iraq’s interests first.
Baghdad is facing a harsh choice: it can either accommodate Tehran’s allies or preserve Washington’s economic lifelines. It doesn’t look like Iraq can do both.
Read the full report here
Joe Kawly
Joe Kawly is a veteran global affairs journalist with over two decades of frontline reporting across Washington, D.C. and the Middle East. A CNN Journalism Fellow and Georgetown University graduate, his work focuses on U.S. foreign policy, Arab world politics, and diplomacy. With deep regional insight and narrative clarity, Joe focuses on making complex global dynamics clear, human, and relevant.
Rami Al Amine
A Lebanese writer and journalist living in the United States. He holds a master’s degree in Islamic-Christian Relations from the Faculty of Religious Sciences at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. He is the author of the poetry collection “I Am a Great Poet” (Dar Al-Nahda Al-Arabiya, 2007); the political pamphlet “Ya Ali, We Are No Longer the People of the South” (Lebanese Plans, 2008); a book on social media titled “The Facebookers” (Dar Al-Jadeed, 2012); and “The Pakistanis: A Statue’s Biography” (Dar Al-Nahda Al-Arabiya, 2024).
Dalshad Hussein
Ghassan Taqi
A journalist specializing in Iraqi affairs, he has worked with the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) since 2015. He previously spent several years with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, as well as various Iraqi and Arab media outlets.
