There is a village in Afghanistan by the name of Kobakai, a few winding hours from Kabul, where the lives of the residents changed because of one thing: water. With help from outside groups such as CARE, one morning the residents of Kobakai (ko-BAH-ki) woke to find that beginning that day they would not have […]
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 Africa homegrown or a Western-sponsored revolution for change? Abul-Hasanat Siddique: Home-grown. […]
The fragility of democracy has been on full display this week. Distressingly, challenges to freedom and order have occurred literally around the globe. Here is an overview of situations to monitor; all of these stories broke today, Wed. March 6, 2013. Venezuela I would be remiss to not start with the March […]
The Egyptian government is quite busy these days dealing with continued unrest, instability, and economic woes. Yet it has somehow found both the will and the resources to flood some of the smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. Former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime attempted on a few occasions to destroy the tunnels, but this policy […]
On February 11, 2011, approximately two years ago, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down as the supreme leader of Egypt after a reign that lasted 30 years. His rise to the pinnacle of the country’s power structure came following the 1981 assasination of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. This was considered the culmination of the Arab […]
“The United States is struggling to confront an uptick in threats from the world’s newest jihadist hot spot with limited intelligence and few partners to help as the Obama administration weighs how to keep Islamic extremists in North Africa from jeopardizing national security without launching war. We want to put up a map here and […]
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 world combined. […]
Just look to Egypt for the latest proof that the road to democracy is rocky and perilous. After weeks of protests and concerns over President Mohamed Morsi assuming expansive presidential powers–which I covered here–assertions of foul play during that the past weekend’s national constitutional referendum have come to light. Voter turnout is estimated at just […]
I have been off the blogosphere this month because of foreign travel and poor internet connectivity. Ironically, two of the countries I visited were Egypt and Israel. The current crisis broke out a couple of days after I returned home. As I write this blog a ceasefire announced last week by Egyptian Foreign Minister […]
Egypt’s fragile young democracy seems on a knife’s edge after President Mohamed Morsi decreed that decisions he makes until a parliament is instituted are not subject to judicial review. Morsi’s camp insists this measure is necessary to protect the democratically chosen assembly working to agree on and draft a constitution, which faces opposition from judges […]
Currently an attempt to maintain a cease-fire between Israel and the Gaza Strip is taking shape, with conditions based on the halt of rocket fire and artillery from both sides. An obvious conclusion to create a cease-fire is to stop shooting, but the roots of a cease-fire comes from a balance of diplomacy and the […]
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 […]
In today’s Guest Post, Jean AbiNader shares his interesting perspective on a recent article on Egypt by former Egyptian Ambassador to the U.S., Nabil Fahmy which appeared in the summer 2012 issue of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs. Jean, a long-time Middle East specialist, is President of IdeaCom, Inc. (www.goideacom.com) and directs its services […]
Over the last several decades, a variety of movements have arisen in the Arab and Islamic countries–a radical nationalism (Baath socialist, Marxist, pan-Arab, and so forth) and a series of Islamist movements (meaning Islamic fundamentalism in a political version). The movements have varied hugely and have even gone to war with one another–Iran’s Shiite Islamists […]