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 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 […]
A new free-trade agreement is under negotiation in the Asia-Pacific. If the talks are successful, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) will bring closer together at least 11 economies in East Asia and the Americas. But it faces many hurdles, and raises broader geopolitical issues. For example, China, the world’s second-largest economy, is not part of […]
Russia is moving toward a major military buildup even though the external military threat is at an all-time low. The Moscow leadership is committed to pursuing this military course in one form or another, convinced that a strong army is needed in the unfolding world order and that the buildup will stimulate the country’s development. Meanwhile, many adhere to the conventional theory that maintaining a large military force is […]
I have been traveling most of this week, watching events in the Middle East unfold from the American heartland. The reaction among many of the people there was a mix of shock, anxiety, and fear. They also wanted to know why people are storming U.S. diplomatic compounds. Americans are in disbelief that this is happening […]
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 […]
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
The tragic assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was the latest in a series of attacks by the country’s increasingly active Salafists. In late August, armed Salafist groups demolished Sufi shrines, mosques and mausoleums in Tripoli, Misrata and Zliten. Earlier this year, Salafists desecrated British World War II graves, attacked the Tunisian consulate over […]
As the United States and China circle each other in Asia, many in Washington hope and some in Beijing fear that India might become a military counterweight to the middle kingdom. However, two recent visits to Delhi by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie suggest that India’s prudent approach is […]
