For many years Turkey’s recipe for combating Kurdish nationalism was to pretend that Kurds did not exist. Even as Turkish troops battled the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), government propaganda maintained… Read more »
The overriding lesson of the abortive Arab Spring is that getting rid of a dictatorial and corrupt ruler is not enough. Building democratic institutions, and restoring confidence in a flawed… Read more »
Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution shook the Middle East, setting off the hopeful uprisings that came to be known as the Arab Spring, AFP reports: But five years later, the countries… Read more »
How does the Islamic State/ISIS win the support (or at least the tax dollars) of Iraqi and Syrian civilians, who tend to be less ideologically committed to the cause… Read more »
After Saudi Arabia’s execution of leading Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr sparked a violent protest at the Saudi Embassy in Iran’s capital, Tehran, Saudi Arabia quickly severed ties with its longtime regional… Read more »
An official State Department photo of the September 11 meeting in Jeddah between Secretary of State John Kerry and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, posted on Flickr, could be… Read more »
The U.S. strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy” and the formation of a “broad coalition” to do so, does not guarantee the… Read more »
There may be a continuum between the purportedly non-violent Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State, or ISIS. Nevertheless, “it bears repeating that ISIL’s campaign is not fundamentally… Read more »
The formation of Iraq’s new government in Baghdad on Sept. 8 is an important first step toward dealing with the Islamic State transnational jihadist movement, writes Kamran Bokhari, advisor for… Read more »
President Obama on Wednesday authorized a major expansion of the military campaign against rampaging Sunni militants in the Middle East, including American airstrikes in Syria and the deployment of 475… Read more »