The Set-Up Overflowing with distrust, deception, and ulterior motives, America and Iran’s tumultuous saga has the makings of a made-for-TV, B-rated movie. The twists, turns, and over-the-top drama are a guilty pleasure for movie viewers just as news junkies cannot get enough of the endless dramatics between the United States and Iran. The world wants […]
Going home. The resonance of that phrase is universal. The happy homecoming. The poignant or sad one. The unsure one. The second chance one. For His Royal Highness Prince Mahdi Al-Senussi that ultimate appellation of his “going home” remains to be determined. Forty-two years to the month that Prince Mahdi was forced to leave […]
The Iranian government has always been sensitive to Persian satellite TV programs beamed from various Western countries into Iran, in particular from the United States. While some Iranian TV programs by the diaspora advocate regime change in Iran, some offer merely entertaining programs including the latest TV series from Turkey, South America and the United […]
With the uneasy ceasefire in Gaza holding (for now), there is opportunity to reflect on the controversial and closely scrutinized Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) social media campaign which accompanied Operation Pillar of Defense. The IDF has used Twitter prolifically in the days since November 14th, when an Israeli airstrike killed senior Hamas military wing commander […]
Operation Pillar of Defense appears to be over, thanks to a ceasefire brokered by Egypt. There have been flareups in the few days since the ceasefire was agreed upon, but for now it seems to be holding. There were significantly less Israeli and Palestinian casualties from this conflict then there were in the last full […]
Israel’s attack on Hamas in the Gaza Strip has not elicited a strong response from the Arab world. It is as if the Arab Spring has not yet brought an intense focus on one of the core issues of Arab politics, as many assumed it would. While Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi and his Tunisian […]
Over the decades the opportunistic Turkey has dictated its Middle Eastern relations based on shifts in the regional balance of power. In the early 1990s up until around 2006, Turkey was finely enmeshed in Western sentiments and policies. But beginning in 2006 it recognized a leadership vacuum in the Middle East and began attempting to […]
The port city of Sidon in Lebanon witnessed an almost unthinkable act today. The Sunni bastion in the south of the country was transformed into the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Instead of Billy Clanton and Wyatt Earp, today’s belligerents in the shootout were the bodyguard of a controversial Sunni cleric and a Hezbollah […]
“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must –at that moment– become the center of the universe.” –Elie Wiesel Human rights abuses including, but not limited to, slavery, genocide, political persecution, and religious discrimination, are imperfect and irreparable stitches in a nation’s narrative tapestry. While these […]
The year was 1967 , ten years after the United States and Imperial Iran signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement as part of America’s Atoms for Peace program. At the time Iran debuted its first nuclear facility in Tehran, a 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor, supplied by the United States and fueled by highly enriched uranium. Fast […]
In a recently published piece by Your Middle East, a leading European digital magazine covering all things Middle Eastern, Omid Habibinia, an Iranian journalist in exile, sheds light on the plight of Iranian journalists inside Iran. In his piece Mr. Habibinia underscores the bravery of many Iranian journalists who, despite widespread repression, arrest, and torture of their […]
The possible Balkanization of Syria is an increasingly likely prospect – at least for the short-term – and could provide a historic counterpoint in the Middle East to what the West did to carve up the region almost a century ago. With the Ottoman Empire defeated after World War I, the triumphant Allies sought to ensure their […]
It is close to a decade that Iran’s controversial nuclear program has been at the forefront of foreign policy debates. The U.S. has considered an array of options such as threat of a military strike, diplomatic efforts and most recently tightened sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nevertheless, the issue remains unresolved […]
Dr. Mahmoud Khattab is the Chairman of the Syrian American Alliance. The organization is one of five that make up the Coalition for a Democratic Syria. A Sacramento-based doctor of internal medicine and originally from Damascus, Dr. Khattab’s mission is to help Syrian refugees who have fled their chaos-stricken country. Involved with the Coalition for […]
It’s that time of year again, the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) has released its “National Opinion Ballot Report” for 2012. The report presents the results of the FPA’s National Opinion Survey, in which 20,623 ballots were returned, the majority of these ballots emanating from Florida, California, New York, Colorado and Arizona. Needless to say, these […]