Category: Middle East/North Africa

‘Gross misconduct’ in Syrian dissident’s asylum denial

     

Forty-one-year-old Radwan Ziadeh’s résumé is enough to make a Washington overachiever blush, notes Suzanne Nossel, executive director of the Pen American Center and former deputy assistant secretary of state for… Read more »

Rethinking Political Islam?

     

  The Qatar quarrel may seem like a tempest in an Arabian teapot, The Washington Post’s David Ignatius writes. But at its heart is the question that has vexed the… Read more »

What comes after ISIS? ‘There is nothing, no plan.’

     

The announcement of the so-called caliphate was a high point for the extremist fighters of the Islamic State. Their exhibitionist violence and apocalyptic ideology helped them seize vast stretches of… Read more »

False Dawn? How (not) to advance Middle East democracy

     

Supporting indigenous democrats would be a more successful approach to promoting democracy in the Middle East than external intervention, especially militarized regime change, says a leading Arab democrat. “Foreign intervention… Read more »

Turks marching to fight rise of illiberal populism

     

Tens of thousands of Turks are marching from Ankara to Istanbul in an attempt to fight the rise of illiberal populism and defend democratic values, opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu writes… Read more »

Time to prepare for Iran’s political collapse?

     

In a region littered with failed states, Iran is often mischaracterized as an island of stability, notes Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The history… Read more »

Egypt’s new NGO law ‘militarizes’ civil society

     

Egypt’s new NGO law has militarized civil society and demonstrates how security leaders have exploited the need to counter a genuine terrorist threat as a justification to suppress political parties,… Read more »