Dubai’s chief of police, General Dahi Khalfan al-Tamim, claims that the Muslim Brotherhood is “a small group that has strayed from the true path.” He also says that the revolution in Egypt “would not have been possible without Iran’s support and is the prelude to a new Sykes-Picot agreement” (1). And that Mohammed Morsi’s election in […]
In Syria‘s horrific civil war, Islamists, ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to radical Salafi groups, are leading the fight against Bashar al-Assad. Once the war is over, Sunni Islamic political groups are bound to become the most important political force in the country. But Islamic politics is on the rise throughout the region, not just in Syria. In […]
As the networked world of the internet makes that which is distant seem very local, reality can be both distorted and amplified. The unfortunate “Innocence of Muslims” video served as a catalyst for the dissatisfaction felt by many toward American support of Arab nations. Yet this would not have occurred without the ability to spread […]
Parts of Aleppo‘s historic souk, or marketplace, have been burnt to the ground. The storied Sissi House, one of the region’s finest restaurants and famous for its tasty cherry lamb kebabs, has reportedly burnt down. Dar Zamaria, part of a wave of chic boutique hotels being carved out of Ottoman merchant houses (and which I reviewed […]
There is more to be said for President Obama’s Middle East policy than Shadi Hamid allows. While Hamid focuses on the gap between unrealistic expectations and real policy outcomes, the fact remains that in the space of two and a half years, between the president’s Cairo speech and the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces in […]
On Wednesday, Syria experienced its worst day of violence yet in the increasingly vicious civil war. More than 300 people were killed in a series of bombings and attacks all over the country, with two massive bomb blasts near army headquarters in Damascus. The violence is spiralling out of control, and Syria faces increasing division […]
Islamists of various political shades are now in power in a growing number of Arab states. They are a new reality that everyone will have to deal with, and therefore seek to understand. The challenge is that most of these parties have been in opposition for decades under long-established military presidencies, and during these years […]
THE wave of violence directed at Americans and Europeans in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Muslim world has had two particularly malign effects. First, it has made many Westerners, especially Americans, wonder why they and their governments should seek to play a constructive role in those parts of the world where people apparently […]
Modernity requires the willingness to be offended. And as anti-American violence across the Middle East and beyond shows, that willingness is something the Arab world, the heartland of Islam, still lacks. Time and again in recent years, as the outside world has battered the walls of Muslim lands and as Muslims have left their places of birth in […]
The immediate crisis involves a pair of post-revolutionary Arab countries — Egypt and Libya — that Obama has worked to ensure will be supporters of the United States as they endure difficult transitions from autocracies to self-government. Now part of a bitter U.S. presidential campaign, the attacks this week will test the diplomacy Obama will use […]
looking beyond borders 