Welcome to the debut edition of MBN Agenda. Every Tuesday – before dawn in Washington, in the early afternoon in the Middle East – the four of us will provide our readers in the Arab world with an indispensable intelligence brief on the events driving the week in the region. 

We’re based in Washington. More than at any time in recent history, the U.S. capital is shaping outcomes in the Middle East, from the ceasefire in Gaza struck by President Trump last month to the closer American relationship with the Gulf on technology and defense. We’ll explain American thinking and preview impending decisions. Above all, we’ll be connecting the conversation here directly with what’s happening and being talked about in the key capitals across the Arab world. We and our colleagues based in the Middle East will take you behind the scenes, providing the kind of in-depth and straight reporting Arab audiences can’t find elsewhere.

The Agenda is published in Arabic (read here), as well as in English, the language of the wider region and the debates around it. MBN is America’s Arabic language voice for the Middle East and North Africa. Our mission is give audiences there accurate reporting and analysis.

First a quick intro of the Agenda team. Joe Kawly is a veteran Washington-based correspondent for MBN and its flagship Arabic-language Alhurra network. Check out his podcast The Diplomat. MBN reporter Aya Elbaz is the host of “What Is the Story,” Ezat Wagdi is MBN’s State Department and Washington Correspondent, covering U.S. policy and its impact across the Middle East. Cheyn Shah is a reporter who’s going to track the executive the policy deliberations around the region across the capital. As reporters, their goal is to explain what’s coming and why.

Tell us what you think at mbnagenda@mbn-news.com. If you were forwarded this newsletter, subscribe here. 

– Joe, Aya, Ezat and Cheyn

One New Thing

Unlikely Visitors

For the next couple of weeks, the most important capital in the Middle East is Washington.

You see that from who’s coming here: Syria’s president dropped by yesterday, and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince follows him next week.

The visits are historic and linked. Ahmed al-Sharaa is the first-ever Syrian head of state to come to the White House since independence in 1946. The optics are striking: a presidential handshake in the Oval Office for the man that Washington once considered a global terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head. Remember, too, that Syria has been sanctioned and isolated by Washington for most of its history.

There was substance as well to the unfreezing of relations. President al-Sharaa focused on three things: to join the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS; to get relief from sanctions to unlock support for reconstruction efforts after over a decade of civil war; and to reduce Syria’s dependence on Russia for oil and defense.

Shortly after the closed meeting, the U.S. Treasury extended sanctions relief, pausing Caesar Act sanctions for an additional 180 days. The legislation was passed in 2019 to isolate the since-deposed regime of Bashar al-Assad, so permanent relief must come from Congress.

In return, the U.S. wants the new leaders in Syria to find missing Americans and destroy any remaining chemical weapons. State Department spokesman Thomas Pigott said that Damascus is “working hard” to achieve these.

As the meeting took place, dozens of Syrian-Americans gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue, dancing the traditional Dabke, waving flags, and chanting for the removal of sanctions against Syria. That was remarkable too: An Arabic president being welcomed not with protest or condemnation, but with cultural celebration and political expectation. Ezat took some pictures that you can see here.

Next up, the man from Riyadh

A week from today, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman makes his first U.S. visit in seven years. His message, according to our reporter Sukina Ali, is that the bilateral relationship must move from oil to shared strategic interests and technology.

Behind the scenes, the U.S. is now again pushing to normalize Saudi ties with Israel. Kazakhstan’s decision last week to sign on to the Abraham Accords hardly means the Saudis are next. There is too much to figure out on Gaza and Palestine – see below – to think a deal is at all close between Riyadh and Israel.

MBS will use next week’s trip to make the case for a new kind of alliance with America, possibly as a precursor to improved ties with Israel. Top of the Saudi asks is a security relationship more similar to Qatar’s. Qatar received a unilateral security guarantee from Trump in September, which MBS hopes also to get. MBS will also be looking for and pledging investment and technology partnership to support his multi-trillion Vision 2030, which aims to remake Saudi Arabia into a cultural and technological great power.

While the U.S. is supportive of the Kingdom’s AI ambitions, it is hedging its bets by investing across the Gulf. Last week, the U.S. approved the export of 60,000 of the latest Nvidia chips to the UAE, dwarfing the 18,000 approved for Riyadh back in May.

Signals

In this section, we decipher Washington’s diplomacy toward the Middle East.

A U.S. delegation – led by Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka and including Deputy Undersecretary of the Treasury John Hurley and NSC counterterrorism specialist Rudolf Attallah – was in Beirut Sunday to press Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Hezbollah. By the end of this month, the Lebanese army is supposed to complete the first, critical phase of taking the Shia militia’s arms south of the Litani River.

The U.S. is concerned. Iran has funneled roughly $1 billion in recent months to strengthen Hezbollah’s military capabilities, Treasury reported last week. Money moving  across the Syria border continues despite U.S. efforts to choke off funding for Hezbollah.

President Aoun told the delegation that Lebanon is enforcing anti–money laundering and counterterror finance measures, and is imposing harsh penalties on related financial crimes.

To try to preempt trouble south of the border, President Aoun has called for dialogue with Israel. Israel is divided on how to respond, a U.S. official told MBN, noting that one faction in the Netanyahu government sees an opportunity for a “constructive opening” with Beirut from the “reformist tone” of Lebanon’s leadership. A different faction in Israel views Lebanon as a “failed state.” 

In private, a Lebanese source close to the government told us that a sore spot between Washington and Beirut is the format of any talks. The Lebanese “strongly desire” indirect talks mediated by the U.S., this source said, while an official in Washington says the U.S. wants direct negotiations between Beirut and Israel.

Morocco’s Dance with Algeria

The ambitious U.S. push to secure a Morocco-Algeria peace deal faces a 60-day window set by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.

The clock is ticking louder after a Oct. 31 UN Security Council vote, which cemented Morocco’s Autonomy Plan as the basis for Western Sahara talks – a clear win for Washington.

A Moroccan diplomatic source told us the U.S.-drafted resolution faced intense resistance, going through 45 amendments by Algeria and others before passage. The final vote was secured only after a flurry of personal, high-stakes calls by King Mohammed VI to wavering leaders in the “final meters,” personally moving the ‘Yes” tally from six to 11 votes.

There are 40 days (of the albeit self-imposed) deadline left to deliver a foreign policy win by forcing a Maghreb reconciliation.

In Conversation

Sudan Two-Step

The Sudanese government says, not surprisingly, it fully backs U.S. efforts to designate the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as a terrorist organization. But it’s reluctant to back diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire amid distrust of the United Arab Emirates.

Sudanese Ambassador to Washington Mohamed Abdalla Idris told Aya that Khartoum “supports the proposal, is open to cooperation, and will engage to the fullest extent” with the push led by Senator Jim Risch and others in Congress to label the RSF a foreign terrorist organization.

The peace talks are another matter. While the U.S. proposed a truce on November 6 and the RSF signaled its willingness to accept the deal, the Sudanese Armed Forces are bucking. Ambassador Idris said Khartoum refuses to participate in talks if the UAE remains part of the U.S.-led Quad mediation group. The UAE has backed the RSF in the conflict. Abu Dhabi “cannot play both roles – to become a party and then a mediator,” Idris said.

In Brief

Turkey: Indispensable – and unwanted – player in Gaza. The Israelis want no role for Turkey, civilian or military, in Gaza. Nor do many Arab states. But Vice President JD Vance said in his recent visit to Israel that Ankara “has a constructive role that cannot be ignored.” What’s going on here? Turkey is the rare regional power that’s willing to put money and boots on the ground to support security and reconstruction in the enclave. That makes countries like the UAE nervous about Ankara’s ambitions to reassert its power in the region. Meanwhile, Turkey’s willingness to engage with Hamas, one U.S. intelligence source told us, explains Israel’s wariness. So Turkey is both needed and feared in whatever plays out after the Gaza conflict.

Jared in Jerusalem. Kushner, the presidential envoy and son-in-law, was in Israel Monday to push toward Phase II of the Gaza ceasefire. During his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they discussed the demilitarization of Gaza. Another really thorny question: who’ll police and rebuild the enclave. Reuters reported yesterday that the UAE does not want to get involved, joining Azerbaijan, Indonesia and numerous other countries approached by the U.S.

One Good Read

The Battle Iranian Women Are Winning” – Arash Azizi, The Atlantic

Three years ago, the Women, Life, Freedom protests rocked Iran. Today, the Islamic Republic is still standing – but it is losing its ability to control how women dress.