Avi Melamed - Inside the Middle East: Entering a New Era

Copyright 2022 by Avi Melamed

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Didier Bodin, DiCi Design

Maps by Didier Bodin, DiCi Design

Cover description: The Middle East is a multi-dimensional game of chess. What happens in one place impacts what happens in another. And what happens in the Middle East does not stay in the Middle East.

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-6933-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-6934-2

Printed in the United States of America

THE SIXTH DECADE OF MY LIFE unfolded precisely between the years 2010 and 2020. It just so happened that the same decade witnessed tremendous upheaval in the Middle East. I have devoted most of my life and professional career to expanding my knowledge and understanding of the Middle East. Having a front-row seat to history in the making was a rare and unique opportunity. Moreover, being privileged to be an educator as the region goes through such a fierce upheaval has been incredibly challenging and rewarding.

My bio lists my backgroundcounterterrorism professional, intelligence official, Middle East expert, policy advisor, senior official on Arab Affairs, social entrepreneur, etc. But to me, the most important title I have is educator.

Over the last two decades, I have had the opportunity to combine my professional background and skills and fulfill my purpose as an educator.

I became an independent intelligence analyst in the mid-2000s. Intelligence analysis, which provides the basis of my educational efforts, is extraordinarily demandingemotionally, intellectually, and physically. It requires the constant, persistent, and unrelenting pursuit of information and knowledge. And at the same time demands the unwavering practice of consistently evaluating my observations and predictions and testing and evaluating them against the on-the-ground reality.

I cannot allow my narratives or my emotions to make the analysis. I cannot hide beyond general concepts, narratives, and theories that do not reflect reality. And the only way I can assess if my analysis is accurate is to put my neck on the line and make predictions. That is the reason you will notice I have included predictions throughout the book. I resolutely practice what I preach.

Since entering the private sector, I have presented analysis in private and public forums, written articles, and provided briefings and lectures that outlined my predictions regarding various regional events.

I named my 2009 North American lecture tour The Middle East: Smoking Volcanoes, Fertile Ground. The tours theme centered on my prediction that the Arab world was on the verge of an outbreak of widespread social and political protests. Toward the end of 2010, my prediction came true, with the explosion of protests in the Arab world that came to be known as the Arab Spring or, as I prefer to call it, the Arab Awakening.

My ability to foresee the Arab Spring was one in a long line of documented accurate predictions throughout my career. This includes the inability to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement; the deepening of the internal Palestinian split; the resilience of the Arab monarchies in the face of the Arab Spring; the crisis and split within Political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhoodincluding their trend toward pragmatism; the growing Iranian threat; the disintegration of Lebanon; the war in Syria; the consequences of the war in Yemen; the rapprochement between Israel and Arab states; and more.

I mention this not to brag, but rather because I believe these facts validate the reliability of my books analysis. In this book, like in all my writings and teaching, I have tried my best to present the Middle Easts current geopolitical environment. I believe the analysis and predictions I offer accurately dialogue with the Middle Eastern reality. Therefore, in my estimation, this booklike the previous onewill be relevant for years to come.

The goal of my previous book, Inside the Middle East: Making Sense of the Most Dangerous and Complex Region on Earth (2016, Skyhorse Publishing, NY), was to provide the Western audience with the database necessary to understand the contemporary Middle East. To that end, I provided the historical background to build that database.

My 2016 book offered the reader a basic GPS to navigate the Middle East. I dedicated a large portion of the 2016 book to what, in my professional analysis, were (and still are) the core issues that influence the present and future of this region. This includes the struggle for identity, path, and direction in the Middle East; the Iranian-Arab power struggle; the strengthening of civil society; and the growing influence of social media. And finally, I had to be true to my roots as an educator and intelligence professional. And that meant I had to make predictions. I am humbly proud to say that, as of the summer of 2021well over five years after the book was publishedthe picture I painted regarding the Middle Easts course and direction has proven to be very accurate.

Writing my previous book occurred parallel to another exciting chapter in my personal and professional career. Between 2013 and 2018, I had the honor to serve as the Eisenhower Institutes Salisbury Fellow of Intelligence and Middle East Affairs.

At this point, I would like to express my gratitude to Jeffery Blavatt. Jeff was, at the time, the visionary executive director of the Eisenhower Institute. As the executive director, he asked me to build an educational program for undergraduate students at Gettysburg College. I designed a curriculum and taught a sixty-hour undergraduate course that offered an apolitical nonpartisan education about the Middle East. And I created a praxis that used intelligence methodology to teach critical thinking and media literacy. My goal was to equip young people with the knowledge, skills, and tools to accurately interpret the Middle East and predict the direction of future events. The program would come to be called Inside The Middle East | Intelligence Perspectives (ITME).

During my tenure, I was fortunate to teach five cohorts at Gettysburg College. My wife and business partner, Maia Hoffman, Jeff Blavatt, and myself take pride in the fact that many ITME alumni have been accepted to competitive positions in government, intelligence, national security, research, public policy positions, and more. Each graduate is a source of great pride to our generous donors and ourselves.