By Manuel Langendorf and Abul-Hasanat Siddique
After decades of secular dictatorships, how will a new Middle East and North Africa alter centuries-old Arab-Western relations? This is the first of a two part series.
Since December 2010, the Arab revolts have shaken an entire region. Uprisings, initiated by youth activists, have undoubtedly changed …
Each week the editors at FPA choose five must reads from around the web and five of the best of ForeignPolicyBlogs.com. So if you’re looking for reading for the weekend, we’ve got you covered.
The internet went dark in Syria last week. Although media reports blamed the outage on a fault in optical fiber cables many in the tech community were skeptical. After all, it’s not the first time Syria shut down the internet in …
Trita Parsi on Sanctions and Iran’s Strategic Imperatives
Trita Parsi is is the founder and president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a non-partisan, non-profit organization through which Iranian-Americans could participate in American civic life. Dr. Parsi is considered a leading analyst and observer of US-Iranian relations, Iranian …
by Abul-Hasanat Siddique and Casper Wuite
Abul-Hasanat Siddique and Casper Wuite, co-authors of The Arab Uprisings: An Introduction, talk about the political unrest in the Middle East, the Syrian Civil War, the globalization of media, and the future prospects for the region.
Is the unrest in the Middle East and North …
The vice grip of prolonged violence suffocating Syria is sending the humanitarian situation there careening towards the fading lights of a blackout. With a death toll looming somewhere between 70-90,000 and a refugee population of over a million in two years time, international intervention to this point has been largely …
Barbara Slavin on Iran’s Regional Dynamics
Barbara Slavin is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor.com, a website devoted to news from and about the Middle East. The author of a 2007 book, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: …
“There have been gains in Tunisia. Through disagreements, controversies and blunders, the new phase, once the government is fully endorsed and up and running, will usher a new realism – a wake-up call […]” – Dr Larbi Sadiki regional expert and author of Arab Democratization: Elections without Democracy …
Editor’s Note:
The following is a guest contributing piece by Adam Hedengren. Mr. Hedengren is co-founder and managing editor of YourMiddleEast.com
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Young surfers on the beaches of Gaza, war in Gaza, media censorship in Tunisia, a Libyan boxer and an Algerian painter, youth unemployment, startups in …
The eleventh Iranian presidential election is scheduled to be held this June. Local council elections will also take place at the same time as presidential elections.
To take an analytic look at this year’s Iranian elections from a number of relevant angles, the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) will …
Articles From Around the Web
The Force
By Jill Lepore
The New Yorker
Once a country that regarded a large standing army as a form of tyranny, the United State’s has now become one of the largest spenders on defense — and its military spending exceeds all of the nation’s in the …
As the EU is dragged into coping with the ongoing financial crisis, there has been a lively discussion what will be the consequences on the EU’s foreign policy in the long-term forecast. Most of the arguments deal with a question of how the nature of the EU Crisis Management will change in …
The Economist’s Venezuela correspondent put out an informative video on the succession of the next possible leader in Venezuela, that can be found here. I also encourage everyone to read the last few posts on FPA’s Latin America blog for information on Venezuela as well. The consensus …
Pro-democracy and human rights movements beyond the EU borders will have a new access to grants from a budget of the newly established European Endowment for Democracy (EED). However, even though The Board of Governors of the EED held its meeting in Brussels on 9 January 2013, which also marks …
The recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, long-term wars pitting factionalist fighters against government forces, renewed international interest in counter-insurgency. Washington D.C. sparked a cottage industry in what became known as COIN: think-tanks climbed aboard, new prophets emerged, blogs bloomed. Press accounts in 2009-2010 trumpeted COIN as the U.S. surged …
