I hate to agree with an Egyptian general about anything, but Abdelfatah Al-Seesi, who’s alsoEgypt’s defense minister, had a point when he warned his countrymen on Facebook that continued violent protest in the streets might lead to collapse. Ordinary Egyptians have plenty of reasons to be frustrated with the government of President Mohamed Mursi, which has by […]
There is an unremarked paradox in the tumult of the contemporary Middle East. Syria is an economically impoverished country of a little more than 20 million people that has been politically stagnant until 23 months ago. Egypt, by contrast, never socially at rest and with its ancient energies newly bestirred, is at 80.5 million people […]
It must have been unsettling for President Mohammad Mursi to find himself, on the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, forced to take measures reminiscent of those used by Hosni Mubarak in a last-minute attempt to rescue his regime from collapse. Faced with growing unrest and the failure of police to contain the turmoil in […]
Millions of people in Arab Spring nations are painfully realising that the fruits of revolution are not all they were cracked up to be. January 25 was meant to be a joyous occasion in Egypt, but instead of fireworks, there were Molotov cocktails and smoke from burning tyres and torched buildings. No major Egyptian city […]
As popular demonstrations swept across the Arab world in 2011, many U.S. policymakers and analysts were hopeful that the movements would usher in a new era for the region. That May, President Barack Obama described the uprisings as “a historic opportunity” for the United States “to pursue the world as it should be.” Secretary of […]
JORDANIANS go to the polls on January 23rd, the day after the Israeli election, but for people of Palestinian origin, who make up a majority in Jordan and a large minority (at least a fifth) in Israel, there are disarming similarities apart from the timing. Increasing numbers of them are likely to boycott the polls […]
Saudi Arabia is the world’s last absolute monarchy. Like Louis XIV, King Abdullah has complete authority to do as he likes. But while a revolution in Saudi Arabia is still not likely, the Arab Awakening has made one possible for the first time, and it could come in President Obama’s second term. Read Here – The Daily […]
AS EVERY monarch in the Gulf knows, even geysers of oil cannot keep all your subjects happy all of the time. Still, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia may have been surprised that his recent appointment of 30 women to the kingdom’s 150-person shura council should provoke a public protest. The all-appointed body, a sort of proto-parliament, has […]
America’s Middle East policy has been enthusiastically endorsed. Not at the UN or Arab League, however, but by the powerbrokers of Hollywood. At the Golden Globes, there were gongs for a heroically bearded CIA spook saving hostages and American face in Iran (Argo); a heroically struggling agent tracking down Bin Laden (Zero Dark Thirty) and […]
Because of its strategic location between the two twentieth-century centers of Arab power, Egypt and Iraq, Syria has been for many decades a bellwether of Arab politics, viewed widely in the region as the heartland of Arab nationalism. The fact that the first major pan-Arab nationalist party, the Baath, was established in Syria and the […]
looking beyond borders 