The MENA Mix: Regional Recap is a monthly video podcast, produced by the Institute for Middle East Options (IMEO). Each episode features rotating experts who unpack and analyze key news stories shaping the Middle East and North Africa.
Our November episode brought together Roberta Maggi (CARPO Associate Fellow) and Dr. Alia Brahimi (Atlantic Council Middle East Program Non-Resident Senior Fellow). They covered Israel’s resumed Gaza airstrikes, escalating Israel-Lebanon clashes after strikes on Sidon and Beirut, Sudan’s deepening crisis after El-Fasher’s fall, Syria’s move to join the US-led anti-ISIL coalition, and the emergence of Iraqi mercenaries on Ukraine’s frontlines.
Roberta Maggi
Roberta Maggi is a development practitioner and consultant experienced in operationalizing international development assistance, program management, and technical analysis, with a focus on North Africa, specifically Libya. She specializes in good governance, institutional reform, ceasefires and security arrangements, community safety, oversight, and accountability. Her work has included leading multi-stakeholder dialogues, advancing security sector reform, and producing practitioner-oriented knowledge products. Prior to joining CARPO as an Associate Fellow in 2025, she worked as a program manager for the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF), where she implemented programs in Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq. She holds a master’s from the Geneva Graduate Institute and a Bachelor’s from King’s College London.
Dr. Alia Brahimi
Dr. Alia Brahimi is an analyst and scholar of international relations specializing in the Middle East and North Africa. She is a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs in Washington, D.C., where she hosts the geopolitical podcast Guns for Hire. Alia previously held academic posts at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics, has served as a political advisor on regional policy, and continues to brief governments as an expert.
Alia has written extensively for academic journals and edited volumes, and her book Jihad and Just War in the War on Terror was published by Oxford University Press. Her broader commentary has appeared in the Guardian, Foreign Policy, and Newsweek, and she regularly provides expert analysis to Reuters, the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Guardian. She also appears frequently in broadcast media, including NPR, CNN, the BBC, and PBS.
Alia earned an MA in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh, followed by an MPhil and DPhil in International Relations at the University of Oxford, where she also supervised undergraduate and graduate students and completed her postdoctoral research.