“The Brotherhood has always had many enemies, but it also has a reputation for successful grass-roots organizing and charitable work…and the Brothers are known for their financial integrity”, says Peter Hessler in a new piece in the New Yorker. Hessler digs into the history of the Muslim Brotherhood and its rise to power as well as its organizational […]
I’ve contended in previous posts (here, here and here) that President Obama’s failure to enforce his numerous threats against the use of chemical weapons by the Bashir al-Assad regime in Damascus is a significant reason to doubt the credibility of his repeated vows to use military force to stop Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. So is my argument undermined now […]
What began as a peaceful sit-in to save a downtown park in Istanbul has erupted into a conflict between the forces of Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan’s government and liberal reformers. On Monday, June 17, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinic announced Turkey “will resort to calling on the military to contain these protests.” If one […]
Hassan Rohani, the 65-year-old Western educated cleric and a former chief nuclear negotiator, is the seventh President of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979. Iran’s state-run television reported that Mr. Rohani won over 50 percent of the electoral vote. Mr. Rohani ran on a platform of moderation, mending ties with the outside world, and easing social […]
Blogger’s Note: The following is a co-authorship piece by Soushiant Zangenehpour and Alireza Ahmadian. The 2009 (S)election Shock: What Happened? Nearly four years ago today, the world witnessed an orchestrated mass deception called “election” unfold over the course of a few hours in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Some of us in Vancouver, Canada […]
The major speech on counter-terrorism policy President Obama delivered last week at the National Defense University has generated a great deal of commentary about its implications for drone strikes and Guantanamo detainees. Little noticed, however, is the underlying message it sends to Iran’s leaders. Mr. Obama has made it a habit of talking tough to […]
A post last month argued that President Obama was fast approaching a defining moment for his foreign policy in view of the mounting evidence that the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria used sarin, a lethal nerve gas, in violation of Mr. Obama’s numerous warnings not to do so. The day of reckoning has now arrived […]
Eric Trager on the Muslim Brotherhood’s view of Iran and Iran’s foreign policy Eric Trager is the Next Generation Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is an expert on Egyptian politics and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Dr. Trager was in Egypt during the 2011 anti-Mubarak revolts. He visits the country on a […]
The gesture itself was subtle, but as the collection of briefing notes were set to one side, so with it went a thin layer of pulped political barricade. What remained were two government leaders seated across a table, a Russian president asking a British prime minister to state his case. David Cameron traveled to Sochi […]
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 an attempt to prevent protestors from using social media to coordinate and share with […]
An Interview with Gissou Nia, Executive Director of IHRDC To commemorate the fifth anniversary of the imprisonment of seven Baha’i Leaders in Iran, on Monday, May 6, the U.S. Bahá’í Office of Public Affairs is hosting an event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. This event is part of the Baha’i International Community’s “Five […]
Frederic Hof on Syria’s Weight on Iran’s Security Interests Ambassador Frederic C. Hof is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. In 2012 Ambassador Hof was tasked by President Obama to head the Syria policy at the State Department. Ambassador Hof was previously the special coordinator for regional […]
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 foreign politics, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He is […]
Syria is deteriorating before the world’s eyes. What is being done to stop this? At the U.N., a new crisis appeal entitled “Enough” features the heads of U.N. humanitarian agencies appealing for support in alleviating the humanitarian situation in the country and imploring an end to the diplomatic standoff that is fuelling the violence. The video […]
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 limited to food aid and […]