How will the corona pandemic affect the Middle East?

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By Itai Brun

What will the world look like one year from now, and how will the corona pandemic affect the Middle East? This article presents four possible scenarios: “continuation,” in which following a temporary interruption of a few months, there is a resumption of familiar global and regional trends from the pre-corona era; “revolution,” in which there is a fundamental change in the patterns that characterized life before the crisis and the world prepares for a new illiberal world order led by China; “breakdown,” in which all global actors emerge wounded from the crisis and the fragile structure of the international system collapses into chaos, expressed inter alia by new waves of upheaval in the Middle East; and “reconstruction,” in which the United States regains its initiative and resumes an international effort to repair the liberal world order and solve burning conflicts.