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United States Institute of Peace

Mona Yacoubian

Vice President, Middle East and North Africa Center

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Mona Yacoubian is vice president of the Middle East and North Africa center at USIP. She brings more than 30 years of experience working on the Middle East and North Africa. Her work has centered on conflict analysis, governance and stabilization challenges, and conflict prevention.

Since returning to USIP as a senior advisor in 2017, her work has focused on Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Additional research interests include Russia’s role in the Middle East and violent extremism. In 2019, she served as executive director of the Congressionally-appointed Syria Study Group, which USIP was mandated to facilitate.

Yacoubian joined the U.S. Institute of Peace after serving as deputy assistant administrator in the Middle East Bureau at USAID from 2014 to 2017, where she had responsibility for Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Prior to joining USAID, Yacoubian was a senior advisor at the Stimson Center focusing on the Arab uprisings with an emphasis on Syria. Prior to joining the Stimson Center, she served as a special advisor on the Middle East at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where her work focused on Lebanon and Syria as well as broader issues related to democratization in the Arab world. From 1990 to 1998, Yacoubian served as the North Africa analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Yacoubian was a Fulbright scholar in Syria where she studied Arabic at the University of Damascus from 1985 to 1986. She has held an international affairs fellowship with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and is currently a CFR member. She earned a master's in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor's in public policy from Duke University.

Publications By Mona

Mona Yacoubian on Arab Normalization with Syria’s Assad

Mona Yacoubian on Arab Normalization with Syria’s Assad

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

By: Mona Yacoubian

Many Arab countries have concluded that President Bashar al-Assad is entrenched power and that they’ll need his cooperation to address challenges like refugees and the illicit drug trade. In Washington, there is no appetite to normalize with Assad. “I think ultimately what we see is just a fundamental tension between the need for accountability and fatigue in the region,” USIP’s Mona Yacoubian says.

Type: Podcast

Syria’s Stalemate Has Only Benefitted Assad and His Backers

Syria’s Stalemate Has Only Benefitted Assad and His Backers

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

By: Mona Yacoubian

Twelve years into Syria’s devastating civil war, the conflict appears to have settled into a frozen state. Although roughly 30% of the country is controlled by opposition forces, heavy fighting has largely ceased and there is a growing regional trending toward normalizing relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Over the last decade, the conflict erupted into one of the most complicated in the world, with a dizzying array of international and regional powers, opposition groups, proxies, local militias and extremist groups all playing a role.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

Mona Yacoubian on the Assad Regime’s Hold in Syria

Mona Yacoubian on the Assad Regime’s Hold in Syria

Monday, March 13, 2023

By: Mona Yacoubian

After 12 years of extraordinary brutality and humanitarian suffering, the Assad regime remains entrenched in Syria. With no solution in sight, there is regional momentum toward normalization as countries have “made the calculation that he’s here at least for the foreseeable future,” says USIP’s Mona Yacoubian.

Type: Podcast

Fragile States Provide Extremists Fertile Ground to Recruit and Grow

Fragile States Provide Extremists Fertile Ground to Recruit and Grow

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

By: Mona Yacoubian

Editor’s Note: Below are the excerpts of an interview originally published by the European Eye on Radicalization with USIP’s Mona Yacoubian about the various drivers of terrorism and constructive ways to address the phenomenon. She says the fragility of states provide an enabling environment for terrorists to operate and underscores the various ways that extremists benefit from this environment.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Fragility & Resilience;  Violent Extremism

Enormous Earthquakes Exacerbate Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis

Enormous Earthquakes Exacerbate Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

By: Mona Yacoubian

A powerful earthquake, registering 7.8 on the Richter scale, struck Türkiye and Syria early Monday morning, with a 7.5 magnitude tremor and other aftershocks felt by countries around the region. Initial figures suggest that in Türkiye as many as 2,921 were killed and 13,293 injured, with 5,600 buildings collapsed. All told, the death toll in Türkiye and Syria stands at 4,300 but is likely to continue to rise. The epicenter of the quake was Türkiye’s southern city of Gaziantep, home to nearly half a million Syrian refugees forced from their homeland amid Syria’s devastating civil war. While the international community mobilized quickly to pledge assistance, aid delivery to Syria — already dealing with massive humanitarian challenges in both rebel- and regime-held areas — will be particularly complicated given the country’s ongoing conflict.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy

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