Category: Middle East/North Africa

Egypt’s civil society crackdown: rights defenders at risk of prosecution

     

Fourteen global human rights groups today urged Egypt to halt a renewed crackdown on civil society and rights defenders. The demand came as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a cabinet… Read more »

Envoy Khalilzad’s knack for being in room while history was written

     

One of the most intriguing individuals to play a leading role in the Bush-era wars is Zalmay Khalilzad, a polished diplomat who was the most senior Muslim in the White… Read more »

Democracy in the Arab World: Still a Mirage?

     

More than five years after the Arab Spring began, the euphoria that accompanied the region’s early uprisings has been replaced by a dogged realism, notes RAND analyst Seth G.Jones. From the indignant graffiti… Read more »

Obama Doctrine – pendulum swung too far?

     

  For any believer in the trans-Atlantic alliance, liberal interventionism and the overall beneficence of American power, President Obama’s long exposition of his foreign policy to Jeffrey Goldberg in The… Read more »

The Obama Doctrine: from ‘democratic messianism’ to ‘passive progressivism’?

     

  Experience has taught President Barack Obama to temper his idealism with a pragmatic, realist approach to foreign policy, leading him to reject liberal Democratic interventionism. Yet he remains a democratic… Read more »

Russia – a ‘hollow superpower’

     

Vladimir Putin was losing legitimacy even before the economy shriveled [but] with action in Ukraine and Syria, he has made it appear that Russia is the equal—and rival—of America, The… Read more »

Kanan Makiya: why Iraq failed after liberation

     

Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, no voice arguing for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein had greater moral weight than that of Kanan Makiya*, notes Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior… Read more »

Toward a negotiated transition in Syria?

     

Today, the Ides of March, marks the fifth anniversary of the rebellion in Syria against the Assad regime, notes Elliott Abrams, a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the… Read more »

Money and media problems marred elections in 2015

     

  Flawed and failed elections around the world last year were manipulated through vote rigging and corruption, intimidation, and violence, according to new evidence from the Electoral Integrity Project: Political… Read more »

Exploiting Disorder: al-Qaeda and the Islamic State

     

  A purely military approach to countering violent jihadist extremism risks entrenching the resentment and victimization of Sunnis and deepening chaos, according to a new report from the International Crisis Group (ICG). The… Read more »