With the formation of the Syrian national coalition in Doha last weekend, the Syrian conflict seems to have entered a new phase. For the first time since the breakout of the Syrian revolution almost 20 months ago, the Syrian opposition has a representative body that can speak in its name. Western governments have long been […]
At the final presidential debate of the 2012 campaign season, President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney mentioned Israel some 30 times, more than any other country except Iran. Both candidates called the Jewish state “a true friend,” pledging to stand with it through thick and thin. Some political commentators criticized these effusive declarations of […]
Political Islam came to life after the Arab defeat of June 1967, with a new alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s president Anwar Sadat. Read Here – Le Monde
It is not true at all that all Arab armies are merely private militias at the beck and call of the rulers. Some of them are real national armies and quite a few have turned out to be more nationalistic than others during the Arab Spring. Although it has been reported that the deposed Tunisian […]
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 […]
Never mind the troubles of the West; the rest have problems too. Look at Turkey. A couple of years ago, this was a nation with an Ottoman spring in its step. Tired of rejection by Europe, it decided to seize new opportunities in the East. The economy was booming and Ankara had made friends of […]
Hezbollah’s launching of a pilotless spy plane, which was shot down by Israel’s air force in the southern part of the country in early October, has been seen as more evidence that the Lebanese militia is preparing for war. Israelis assume that the drone was gathering visual intelligence to help Hezbollah in its goal of bombarding distant targets with long-range […]
Throughout the U.S. presidential campaign, Republican and Democratic political operatives have strived to articulate major foreign-policy distinctions between President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney. Several close foreign-policy watchers, however, have struggled to identify any such differences. The final presidential debate on Oct. 22 finally cemented what has been apparent to many over the course of the campaign: […]
When Israel was bombing Beirut during the war of 2006, a colleague and I sat drinking a beer after a long, hard day, listening to the explosions coming every few minutes from the southern suburbs. “Is this what it felt like to be somewhere in central Europe in the 1930s?” he mused. Comparisons are never exact, […]
As the rebellion in Syria languishes on with little attention from the international community, aconfidential report authored by the U.N. Security Council’s Group of Experts was leaked to Reuters. This is not the first time such a “leak” has occurred, which implicates the credibility of the Group of Experts or the U.N. itself. The report allegedly confirms […]
looking beyond borders 