Welcome back to the MBN Agenda, our intel brief on the week ahead in the region.
Donald Trump’s “massive Armada” of U.S. Navy vessels remains on high alert in the Gulf, but the action, for now, is elsewhere. Talks involving Iranian and American officials in Muscat are on pause but may resume shortly. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Washington on Wednesday to lobby the White House to keep the pressure on Iran, even as the region’s Arab powers call for American restraint and continued diplomacy.
Also, this week in the Agenda, gaming out the Maliki challenge to forming a new government in Iraq. And two prominent Republicans in Congress turn their attention to a key player in Lebanese politics.
Follow our flagship MBN news sites (in Arabic or English) for the latest updates.
If you prefer to read the Agenda in Arabic, click here. Share your thoughts anytime at mbnagenda@mbn-news.com. And if the MBN Agenda was forwarded to you, please subscribe.
– Joe, Houda, Andres, Rami, and Ghassan
Washington Signals
Next Moves on Iran
The United States and Iran paused talks last Friday, yet channels remain open, and talks may resume as “early as this week,” according to President Donald Trump. Neither side is ready to walk away, a State Department official who works on Near Eastern affairs told Joe in Washington. “This was about stopping momentum toward confrontation. There was no illusion of a deal, but there was real pressure to keep the channel open.”
The U.S. and Iran are far apart, even disagreeing on the agenda. Washington has a long list of demands for Iran that go beyond its nuclear program. It wants Iran to have fewer missiles, end its support for regional proxies, and stop cracking down on domestic opposition. That’s hard to swallow for Tehran, which wants to talk only about nukes.
Gulf states are urging the U.S. to continue the negotiations. “If this shuts down, the next phase is military, and everyone pays the price,” said a Gulf diplomat. Prime Minister Netanyahu will make his case directly to President Trump on Wednesday in Washington to maintain pressure. In a sign of how seriously Tehran is approaching the talks, Ali Larijani, who leads Iran’s national security council and is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, is expected to be on the ground in Muscat if the talks resume.
There are differences of opinion in Washington. People close to Mideast negotiator Steve Witkoff are more open to a narrowly focused agreement on the nuclear program. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth favor a broader deal with Iran. No one rules out “kinetic” action, whether missile strikes or naval blockade, or both.
“It’s a holding pattern,” said the Gulf diplomat.
Read more → Click here
For more context → Watch Joe’s video here
Joe Kawly brings you raw conversations with ambassadors, envoys and negotiators behind the hardest foreign policy decisions.
Proxy Problem
The talks in Muscat were never just about centrifuges. U.S. and Iranian envoys met to prevent a slide into regional war driven as much by the nuclear issue as Iran’s network of proxies. “This was about stopping momentum toward confrontation,” said a senior State Department official. “There was no illusion of a breakthrough.”
Richard Weitz of the Hudson Institute told MBN that Iran’s nonstate allies in Yemen, Iraq, and elsewhere are central to U.S. concerns. “The nuclear program is only one of them,” he said. “Iran’s missile program, its treatment of its own people, and its connection to nonstate actors across the region remain major concerns.” He added that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard regards groups such as Hezbollah as part of its own force.
The Oman talks yielded no movement on proxies – who to Washington are the core threat, and to Tehran, the last deterrent they have after last year’s humiliating conflict with Israel.
Read more → Click here
Quote of the Day
“In many of our countries, corrupt politicians do not require sophisticated techniques to control the media. It is enough to allow the market to operate under a ceiling of fear. A journalist who gets close to a real corruption case is not only prevented from publishing but also from working, and their livelihood is threatened.”
– Karam Nama, “When the press is silenced, the corrupt smile,” The Arab Weekly, Feb. 9.
Congressional Pulse
Berri Problematic
On Capitol Hill, Hezbollah isn’t seen as the only cause of Lebanon’s troubles. His name is Nabih Berri.
Two Republican members of the House of Representatives – California’s Darrell Issa and Illinois’ Darrin LaHood – have introduced a bill that tries to ensure that Lebanese Americans can vote in their national elections this year. The Lebanon Election Integrity and Diaspora Voting Protection Act of 2026 would authorize the U.S. to impose sanctions in case the government in Beirut seeks to limit its influence in the election.
The target here is Berri, the veteran Lebanese politician and speaker of the parliament in Beirut. Berri has blocked electoral reforms in Lebanon that would protect and expand diaspora voting ahead of the 2026 election. Why? Primarily to protect Hezbollah, the Shia militia force.
Issa and LaHood are both of Lebanese heritage, and they say that Lebanon’s old school politicians are as big a problem as Hezbollah. “Mr. Berri has been in office for 34 years,” said Issa. “Everyone has left him alone for generations, while his vast wealth sits with relatives in Dearborn, Michigan.”
Read more → Click here
Regional Signals
The Maliki Veto
Will Nouri al-Maliki come back or won’t he? That is the question that’s tied up in Iraqi politics.
The former prime minister’s bid to return to power has split the ruling coalition in Baghdad and drawn a rare warning from Washington. Parliament again failed to convene Feb. 1 amid Shiite disagreements over Maliki’s candidacy, sources inside the bloc said.
Three exits are under discussion. The first is convincing Maliki to step aside in favor of a consensus figure, such as intelligence chief Hamid al-Shatri, a low-profile candidate with broad backing. The second is to force a parliamentary vote on Maliki despite opposition from Sunni blocs and key Shiite parties, a path unlikely to secure the necessary quorum. The third would extend Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s caretaker government for up to a year while negotiations drag on.
Washington’s position has hardened the stalemate. A senior coalition member said intermediaries tested whether the U.S. stance was negotiable and were told it was not, and that it would have diplomatic and economic consequences if Baghdad proceeds.
Maliki has dismissed this as “blatant American interference,” but his stance has deepened the divides that predated Trump’s warning. For now, the ruling coalition is stuck between escalation and retreat, and Iraq’s paralysis is deepening with no consensus in sight.
Read more → Click 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.
Houda Elboukili
Houda Elboukili, an award-winning Moroccan investigative journalist based in the United States, holds a master’s degree in journalism and Institutional Media from the Higher Institute of Information and Communication in Rabat and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakesh.
Andres Ilves
Andres Ilves is Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives at MBN. His career as a journalist and writer includes two decades at the BBC and Radio Free Europe.
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).
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.
