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The besieged Bashar al-Assad, once the darling of Western TV networks on account of being the “reformer” president of Syria, these days has very few outlets carrying his messages. One of them was Russia’s RT channel, through which Assad stated there that he had no intention of leaving Syria, and, also, that the Syrian More »
While Americans have been focusing on their election, there have been a few developments in the so-called “Middle East Peace Process.” PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas has said he would drop his precondition for negotiations – a total construction halt in the settlements and in East Jerusalem – and return to the table after the U.N. More »
With President Barack Obama’s re-election, many people across the Middle East are contemplating what this region might expect from his second term. Over the next four years, Obama will likely continue the policy directions set in his first term: by completing the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example, and reaching out to global players like More »
After just four months at the helm, Ahmed bin Abdel-Aziz al-Saud has been replaced as Saudi Arabia’s interior minister in favor of his deputy (and nephew), Mohammed bin Nayef (pictured above). The appointment of Prince Mohammed, who was assistant interior minister between 1999 and July 2012 (and deputy interior minister thereafter), is a logical move More »
Both U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger in today’s presidential election, Mitt Romney, have repeatedly called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. Neither appears to have a clear policy for achieving that goal nor have they explained what the future of Syria should be. The situation is certainly complex. Syria is More »
Concerns that the violence in Syria could spill over the border into Jordan were realized when a group of Jordanian militants were arrested, accused of planning a series of attacks in the capital, Amman. On October 21, Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID) announced that it had detained 11 local militants, who it alleged had been More »
Regardless of who is elected on November 6, Iran’s nuclear program is going to be one of the most important challenges the next U.S. president is going to have to confront. Unless Iran’s leaders shift course and suddenly decide to suspend their ongoing enrichment of uranium, the continuing progress of the Iranian nuclear program More »
As someone who writes and lectures about women and gender in Islam, I am often asked if women had any role in the making of the Islamic tradition. Happily, the answer is always yes. There were in fact many prominent women in the early history of Islam. At the top of the list would have More »
Egypt is deep into the messy process of drafting its new constitution. In the past few weeks, two different drafts were released within days of each other. Not surprisingly, there are several areas of major contention. At the heart of the matter are profoundly different views between religious conservatives and secular liberals on such More »
The fate of Egypt’s Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution is now in the hands of the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court, with many political parties and movements hoping for a verdict which would bring about the assembly’s dissolution. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood is fighting to keep the current makeup More »
The death of a senior Lebanese intelligence official in the October 19 bombing in central Beirut appears now to have been a targeted assassination. The official, Lebanese Internal Security Forces chief Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, was directly involved in providing logistical and supply-line support in Lebanon for the rebel Free Syrian Army, which is More »
Tension has increased again in the Persian Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain, the home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, after one policeman was killed and a second seriously injured by a homemade bomb during a clash with Shi’ite demonstrators in a village outside the capital, Manama. These latest casualties in Bahrain, in the troubles that More »
Fears are expressed almost every day that the war in Syria will spread to Lebanon, or to all of Syria’s neighbors. The problem, however, is not that the war “will spread” as if by nature, inevitably, the way spilled water spreads, but that it will be spread – deliberately, by the Assad regime. And that More »
On October 15 Turkish air force jets forced an Armenian plane en route to the Syrian town of Aleppo to land at Erzurum in eastern Turkey for a security check. Also, according to the Turkish disaster management agency (AFAD), the number of Syrian refugees in camps in Turkey has now exceeded 100,000. Since Syrian shells More »
For the past year and a half, Egypt’s NGOs have been targeted through a systematic chain of repressive violations, culminating in an orchestrated smear campaign led by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and its interim cabinets. During this transitional period, the prospects of civil society and human rights advocacy in Egypt faced More »
The conflict in Syria was “extremely bad and getting worse.” That’s what Lakhdar Brahimi, special envoy to Syria for the United Nations and the Arab League and one of the world’s most skillful diplomats, told the Security Council in late September. The major powers listened but offered no new ideas on how to end More »
I was in Tunisia last week and met with a wide range of people, including business, government, and civil society leaders; educators, journalists, bloggers, university students, and Salafist youth; young people unemployed and looking for jobs, and graduates who have newly entered the workforce. Below are some reflections on what I heard: • Numerous Tunisians More »
The violence and protests which recently took place across the Middle East have largely been attributed to rage over the anti-Islamic film The Innocence of Muslims, but their impact on the transition and ongoing political power struggle between moderates and extremists may hold broader implications for Western policy. The embassy attacks in Libya and More »
In 2006, in the midst of the furor over the publication of Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, Freedom House issued a statement that declared: At the heart of the cartoon controversy is the right, now and in the future, of an independent and uncensored press – and artists and writers in other venues – More »
With a draft of the Rights and Freedoms chapter in Egypt’s constitution published last week, rights groups and political movements have expressed concern over the limitations the new constitution may impose on Egyptian citizens, particularly its women. One of their main concerns is the vague and ambiguous wording that plagues the draft constitution, an More »
