The storming of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday echoed events following the 2005 Danish publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that led to widespread protest in 2006 and assaults on Danish embassies around the world. Today, Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, and his government are playing the same role that his predecessor Hosni […]
Many Arabs believe that the Arab Spring is a Western, and more specifically an American, plan since the days of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to divide the Middle East into smaller rival nations to breed discord and plunder their wealth. Some subscribe to the theory that recent events in Egypt, Libya, Yemen […]
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 […]
An eruption of violent unrest across the Middle East is confronting President Barack Obama with the most serious challenge yet to his efforts to keep the Arab Spring from morphing into a new wave of anti-Americanism – and he has few good options to prevent it. Read Here – Reuters
Who lost the Arab Spring? After the murder of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three other American diplomats in Libya, President Barack Obama’s performance during the upheaval in the Arab world will inevitably become a highly charged political issue. Read Here – The National, Abu Dhabi
BRUSSELS/ALGIERS: Egypt, Algeria and Morocco on Thursday slammed an anti-Islam film that has sparked protests worldwide, but also denounced attacks on US missions by angry protesters. Egypt’s Islamist President Muhammad Mursi vowed Thursday not to allow attacks on foreign embassies in Cairo, saying the Egyptian people reject such “unlawful acts.” Speaking during a visit to the European […]
Any possible US military action in the Gulf would not be supported by American voters as they look for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, according to this year’s edition of Foreign Policy in the New Millennium, a wide-ranging survey of American public opinion conducted by the non-partisan Chicago Council on Global Affairs, writes Francis […]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for the United States to declare “red lines” for Iran and its nuclear program makes it even harder for the Obama administration to walk the line between calming Israel and increasing the pressure on Iran. As Washington considers its responses — and anticipates how Iran would respond in turn — the […]
SINCE the wave of Arab uprisings started last year, the theory of “Arab exceptionalism” promoted by many Western governments to justify supporting dictatorships has looked a lot weaker. There was virtually no demand for democracy in rich, pro-Western or strategically valuable Arab countries, it was once breezily argued. Now the buzz phrase is “monarchical exceptionalism”. […]
looking beyond borders 