Beyond the War: Building Tomorrow’s Middle East

The U.S.-Israel-Iran war marks one of the most consequential turning points the Middle East has faced in decades. Its reverberations extend far beyond the battlefield, disrupting energy markets, fracturing diplomatic relationships, and forcing the region to confront hard questions about its economic, political,
security, and social future.

Within this crisis lies an urgent question: what does the path forward look like?

The Middle East Council on Global Affairs (ME Council) convened a panel to explore constructive pathways to promote progress in the region. Panelists assessed the role of research and evidence in grounding policymaking, the imperative of empowering youth to shape policies, the power of honest storytelling in keeping regional publics informed, and the value of strategic foresight in navigating an increasingly uncertain landscape.

At its core, the conversation asked: what does meaningful progress in the Middle East actually look like in the wake of this war? How do we build institutions, narratives, and systems resilient enough to serve future generations? And how can collaborative, intergenerational, and cross-sectoral efforts turn this moment of crisis into an opportunity for lasting change?

Noor Al Thani

• Youth are not abstract stakeholders in multilateral decision-making, bearing the consequences of decisions made across different arenas for the next 50 years.
• Genuine influence and accountability do not come only from having a seat at the table, but from active involvement in the decision-making process and tangible participation in the steps necessary to bring about effective change.
• Youth disillusionment has been earned by learning to read what institutions say and do. The way forward is not the complete abandonment of existing institutions, as the current youth still sees value in multilateralism, but rather their reform and restructuring.
• Fear associated with trusting youth falls on flat ground when historical examples are analyzed. Establishing new spaces alongside existing institutions, dedicated to governance, technology, and their intersection, will provide effective opportunities for youth leadership.
• There is a need to bring voices from areas and groups that are consistently overlooked into youth conversations, and investment in youth documentation and analysis is important, as external narratives are being imposed on the region and its future.

Nayef Al Nabet

• The future will not be determined by the technologies themselves, but by what the youth can achieve using those technologies.
• The ease of access to knowledge makes learning more accessible, the emergence of talent more possible, and entrepreneurship more likely. The countries that shape the future of AI are not those that build the most technology, but those that develop the most talent, making education and knowledge production crucial to progress.
• A major challenge for current decision-makers is the oversaturation and abundance of information in an environment that demands quick decision-making. AI and technology can help shorten the process and uncover overlooked connections and gaps, helping governments prepare for the future rather than react to events.
• AI cannot replace human judgment. Technology cannot create better governance, but good governance can facilitate the effective use of technology to achieve better societal outcomes.
• GCC states have divergent visions for the use of technology and AI, with the next phase requiring implementation and the delivery of meaningful public value. Investment in education, research, and talent development is essential; technology will continue to advance, but investment in people ensures the region’s future prosperity.

Tamara Hiamni

• Conventional sources of information are no longer seen as credible. A form of discipline has developed among journalists, as they comprehend overwhelming information from official channels while having limited access to local, on-the-ground reporting from affected communities.
• The lack of sustained vocal input from groups directly or indirectly affected by policies, conflicts, and decisions means their interests are not always taken into account.
• The shock expressed by external spectators to the conflict and events unfolding in the region shows dismissal of history as an important informing factor in the larger geopolitical events.
• The current U.S. administration is said to be defined by its lack of expertise in foreign policy, making it less equipped to navigate the current period.
• The youth’s ability to bridge distance and to communicate youth-to-youth between areas of conflict and faraway regions with little to no prior knowledge of the conflict adds nuance and texture to narratives from conflict that have often been lost when communicated through formal, traditional channels.
• The responsibility of the youth in the media is to present an often overlooked, alternative and nuanced image of their home’s reality.

Nadim Houry

• Young people are active political actors in the present, and the framing of youth as “the future of reform” is incorrect.
• Formal politics structurally refuses to recognize youth agency, rooted in the preservation of power. This is compounded by legal, institutional, economic, and social barriers — from party membership rules to unemployment to gender and familial hierarchies.
• Youth participation has been more successful in fluid rather than institutional settings, where power is more diffused and connections are horizontal.
• It is increasingly difficult to consolidate long-term reform amid crises demanding immediate response. Historical moments like the Arab Spring confirm that effective reform, coalition-building, and tangible results are lengthy processes.
• The trade-off is not between speed and patience, but between the capacity to imagine a different future and to take deliberate steps toward it, which requires youth to have real decision-making power in proposing alternatives, not just protesting existing structures.
• The region is fraught with generation after generation of experienced reform failures and frustrations, creating a sense of reform leadership rooted in these experiences that they refuse to relinquish to the younger generation.
• Conflicts in the region unite but there are no spaces for collaborative work. Inter-generational collaboration enables regional collaboration on intersecting interests, with an emphasis on lifting intra-regional travel restrictions.