Crisis Response Council was delighted to convene a workshop on the sidelines of the Middle East Peace and Security Forum in Iraqi Kurdistan. The workshop, Renewal, Revision & Resiliency: Is the Middle East Destined for Perpetual Conflict?, took place on November 19, 2023 and convened regional and international experts to assess the challenges facing the Middle East as the conflict in Gaza unfolded, and amid a number of regional de-escalation initiatives over the past year.
The workshop assessed whether the hopes and expectations that the Middle East was entering an era of stability was upended by events in Gaza, and examined whether the Middle East can prevent the war in Gaza from evolving into a regional war and whether the crisis, firstly, indicates the folly of under-estimating the potential for conflict relapse in the region after at least a decade of intense rivalry and proxy war; and, secondly, whether it, conversely, reaffirms the importance of regional dialogue initiatives such as the Baghdad Framework, the Saudi-Iran rapprochement in Beijing, the Abraham Accords and several other bilateral rapprochement initiatives, both for addressing and mitigating conflicts.
Stay tuned for a policy memo that summarises the analysis and recommendations from our invited experts.