Middle East Revolution
Regime Change and Upheaval in the Arab World
West's Harmful Silence on Bahrain
Araminta Wordsworth, Full Comment
Tyrants Use Foreign Aid to Buy Goodwill
Jonathan Stern, Fiscal Times
Revolts a Mixed Blessing for Iran, Turkey
Omer Taspinar, Today's Zaman
Iran' Arab Spring Hypocrisy
Saeed Kamali Dehghan, The Guardian
The Larger Game in the Middle East: Iran
David Sanger, New York Times
Western governments have had no problem in calling for Muammar Gaddafi to go. They have condemned Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen for firing on protester...(full article)
Shortly before he became prime minister of Somalia last fall, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed reached out to a Washington, D.C., public relations firm for help. If ever there was a coun...(full article)
Which regional power benefits the most from the revolutionary democratic change taking place in the Arab world: Iran or Turkey? This question is sometimes posed in reference to the...(full article)
Tehran supports the Arab spring ... but not in Syria....(full article)
The ambitions of the regime in Iran are a factor in American calculations about how to react to rebellions across the Arab world....(full article)
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Egyptians Skeptical of Broader Arab Spring - Younis & Younis, Gallup
Egyptians' views on the Arab Spring uprisings as indigenous movements for change are consistent with the Obama administration's stance on treating each Arab Spring country differ...
Egypt's Step Backward - Thomas Friedman, New York Times
Sadly, the transitional government in Egypt today appears determined to shoot itself in both feet....
In Egypt, Hopes for a True Revolution Fade - Oren Dorell, USA Today
Mohamed Zarea spent years under the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak helping to win the freedom of members of the Muslim Brotherhood jailed for their political beliefs. A year ago, he...
Iran Tests the Waters Off Syria - M.K. Bhadrakumar, Asia Times
A flotilla of Iranian warships crossed the Suez Canal and docked at the Syrian port of Tartus on Saturday. Iran's Defe...
Saudi Arabia's Free Speech Choice - Richard Cohen, Washington Post
Keep your eye on Hamza Kashgari. He’s the 23-year-old former columnist for Saudi Arabia’s Al-Bilad newspaper who had the extremely bad judgment to tweet an imaginary convers...
SCAF's Good-Cop-Bad-Cop Routine - Issandr El Amrani, The Arabist
To me, the answer has been clear for two weeks or so and more so in the last week, when Tantawy's reassuring words in a cabinet meeting were followed by the launching of an extre...
The Arab Spring's Misogynist Winter - Deborah Scroggins, NY Daily News
A year after they marched alongside men to topple regimes in the Arab Spring, Arab women are facing a wall of misogyny....
Crime Stirs Worry in Once-Safe Egypt - Fleishman & Hassan, LA Times
Egyptians say they don't recognize the country now, a place with carjackings, soccer melees and brazen bank robberies....
The Drift Toward War With Iran - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
The question of whether a war will break out over Iran's nuclear programme has been around for so long that is easy to become almost blase....
A Touch of Complacency over Libya - The Independent
Such is the chaos that, according to one poll at least, one in three people would prefer a return to authoritarian rule....
Libya Reveals Perils of Humanitarian War - Peter Beaumont, Observer
The mission to remove Gaddafi was a noble one. But it provides a further lesson in the pitfalls of such actions....
Is Egypt's Government Malicious or Incompetent? - Eric Trager, TNR
Is Egypt' current government deliberately instigating conflict, or just incapable of managing its own affairs?...
The Job Is Far from Over in Libya - The Guardian
Libya is free of Gaddafi's quixotic tyranny but is still miles from building a democratic alternative. Neither Britain, France, nor the UN will do it for them. The assumption that ...
The Long March of the Muslim Brotherhood - The Economist
A FLUSH of green is spreading across the Arab world, but not because its vast deserts are shrinking. Green is the colour of Islam and Islamist movements have reaped the biggest har...
Are Egypt's Generals Losing Control of Their Officers? - Patrick Galey, FP
Battered by a fractious security situation and embroiled in an escalating feud with the United States, Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has found it easier...
Libya Becoming More Dangerous After Gaddafi - Vivienne Walt, Time
As Libya marks the first anniversary of its revolution on Friday, the dozens of well-armed militia groups operating across the vast country have slipped well out of the control of ...
Tribalism and the Arab Spring - Ruth Sherlock, Bitter Lemons
In many ways the revolutions of the "Arab spring" have been uprisings of unprecedented unity. Autocratic dictatorships have yielded to millions calling with one voice for the rig...
Muslim Bros. Threaten to Review Israel Treaty - David Kirkpatrick, NYT
The Islamist party that leads the new Egyptian Parliament is threatening to review the 1979 peace treaty with Israel if the United States cuts off aid to the country over a crackdo...
A Tour of Egypt's Half-Finished Revolution - Abbas Milani, New Republic
To be sure, the rising political influence of religious fundamentalism is not the only challenge looming for Egyptian liberalism....
A Year After Uprising, Militias Hold Sway in Libya - Maggie Michael, AP
As Libya on Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi, hundreds of armed militias are the real power on the ground in the country...
Islamist Plot Behind the Libyan Rebellion - John Rosenthal, Nat'l Review
The very fact that the rebels would employ the signature method of al-Qaeda is itself evidence of the jihadist nature of the rebellion....
From Bad to Worse in Egypt - Daniel Calingaert, Wall Street Journal
The repression of civil society is far worse than anything seen under Hosni Mubarak....
Liberals and Minorities Fleeing 'Arab Spring' - Barry Rubin, PJ Media
Now if you are a real moderate in the Arabic-speaking world, Turkey, or Iran, you know that your future looks very dim. You don’t draw your interpretations from the Western med...
Hamas on Speed Dating Circuit - Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia
As the group makes new friends in Egypt and Turkey, will it leave its old friend Iran behind? Will it modify its positions on peace talks with Israel and the two state solution? ...
How the Iran Standoff Looks from Saudi Arabia - Mustafa Alani, Bloomberg
The most likely victims of a nuclear armed Iran are not the U.S. orIsrael, but the Gulf states -- countries that are engaged in intense competition with the regime in Tehran, but t...
Washington's War in Yemen Backfires - Jeremy Scahill, The Nation
Gen. Mohammed al-Sumali sits in the passenger seat of his armored Toyota Land Cruiser as it whizzes down the deserted highway connecting the Yemeni port city of Aden to Abyan provi...
Nervous Bahrain Marks Protest Anniversary - Washington Institute
February 14 marked one year since Bahrainis began emulating the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions by launching protests of their own. The demands for greater political reform quick...
Arab States More Stable Than They Appear - Ezzedine Fishere, Daily Star
With leadership essentially contested among Arab states, it is hard to see how non-Arab states could hope to lead. Let me put it clearly: the Turkish and Iranian bids for regiona...
Why Libya Isn't a Model for Syria - Barak Barfi, The New Republic
With the civilian death toll in Syria climbing ever upwards, commentators are increasingly suggesting that Washington and its European allies cobble together a military alliance ...
Red Roses, Black Market - Alessandra Ram, The List
Five places that aren't feeling the love this Valentine's Day....
Don't Fund Arab Spring Governments - Michael Rubin, Contentions
President Obama has reportedly included $770 million for “a Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund,” which “will provide incentives for long-term economic, political, a...
Can Tripoli Control All of Libya? - Daily Star
If the government can’t provide clear-cut answers to such questions, and exercise its authority, it can only await the next, inevitable flare-up in Tripoli, after the reconcili...
Saudi Arabia's Bloody Hypocrisy - Washington Post
Saudi Arabia is doing its best to bring about the end of Mr. Assad, whose Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, is a minority in a country with a plurality of Sunni Muslims....
One Year Later, Bahrain Slow to Reform - Gregg Carlstrom, Al Jazeera
The government has taken few steps to implement the recommendations of an independent inquiry into last year's unrest....
The Libyan Non-Model - Victor Davis Hanson, National Review
It is a good thing that Moammar Qaddafi is gone, even if by barbaric means. So what did we learn from the 2011 misadventure, given that some are advocating much the same sort of ...
Is Libya's Revolution Faltering? - Barak Barfi, The New Republic
The city of Tawargha is the only Libyan coastal town completely populated by blacks, the descendants of the slaves who were once trafficked through the Islamic world. Libya’s bl...
The Saudis Will Want the Bomb, Too - Michael Totten, PJ Media
It’s no secret that Saudi Arabia will want nuclear weapons if Iran gets them. Riyadh has been saying so for years and said it again a couple of days ago. It ought to go without s...
An Unwise Course for Egypt - New York Times
In Egypt, it’s unlikely that any group receives more money from foreign sources than the military — roughly $1.3 billion in United States government aid per year, more ...
Vengeance Stalks Libya - Mustafa Fetouri, The National
For the first time since the fall of the Qaddafi regime, a trial has opened near Benghazi of civilians accused of supporting the former regime. Some of four dozen civilians are als...
Bahrain Has Answered Its Critics - Houda Nonoo, RealClearWorld
Last November, the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) published its report on civil unrest in Bahrain and the government's response to it. By now, the report's crit...
Mubarak Cronies Have Plundered Egypt - Alaa Al Aswany, Financial Times
Does anyone believe that under present circumstances any candidate can win the presidency without the consent of the military council? The answer is a decisive no....
Egypt's Relationship With U.S. Is Ending - Peter Goodspeed, National Post
Egypt's beleaguered military rulers, Mr. Mubarak’s former allies, are reluctant to reform and resentful of pressure to hand over power to a democratically elected civilian gove...
Libya: Open for Business? - Maplecroft
Whilst the interim National Transitional Council (NTC) sustains only loose control over Libya, the rapid resumption of oil production and the gradual return of foreign oil workers ...
Pandering Won't Solve Egypt's Economic Woes - The National
It has been difficult to know just what Egypt's new military leaders stand for as they find their political footing, but one thing they have been apparently willing to stand agai...
West Can't Ignore Global Persecution of Christians - Conrad Black, NRO
Many of the outrages are perpetrated by groups the West is conditioned to thinking of as minorities, especially Muslims in general. But the response of the Western secular leader...
Egypt's Multiple Revolutions Rage On - Roger Owen, Bloomberg
Since the Muslim Brotherhood swept to political power in the recent national elections, the generals' relationship with this party has also become a source of concern. Like it or n...
Syria Slams UN Draft Resolution
Inside VOA | Contact VOA News ...
UN Approves Air Strikes in Libya
A pro-Qaddafi crowd stormed a news conference given by Libya's deputy foreign minister at a hotel in Tripoli early Friday. The United Nations Security Council voted Thursday to aut...
Gaddafi Planes Bomb Rebel City
Libyan students attend a pro-Gadhafi rally organized in the parking lot of the Rixos hotel where the foreign press is staying in Tripoli, Libya, Monday March 14, 2011. Teachers ...
Middle East Upheaval Timeline
First day of major anti-government action:
- Tunisia: December 18, 2010
- Algeria: December 28, 2010
- Saudi Arabia: January 21
- Egypt: January 25
- Yemen: January 27
- Morocco: January 30
- Bahrain: February 14
- Libya: February 15
 |
 |
| Rank | Country |
|---|---|
| 48 |
Tunisia (full country profile)
|
| 49 |
Saudi Arabia (full country profile)
|
| 62 |
Morocco (full country profile)
|
| 79 |
Algeria (full country profile)
|
| 89 |
Egypt (full country profile)
|
| 105 |
Yemen (full country profile)
|
Middle East from the Compass Blog
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Can Saudi Arabia Pump More Oil?
Saudi Arabia's geostrategic value lies in the fact that its immense reserves of oil make it a "suppl...
What Is Obama Doing in the Middle E
Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, told a group of suppo...
Maintaining Leverage Over Egypt
Andrew Exum argues that American leverage in the Middle East shouldn't be traded away so lightly: T...
U.S. Resets in the Middle East
According to Josh Rogin, the Obama administration is framing the Iraq pullout as a return to off-sho...
Latest News from Middle East
Golan Druse support for Syria regim
AP - Syria's embattled leader, Bashar Assad, appears to be losing one of his last bastions of reliab...
Israel to free Palestinian hunger s
AP - A Palestinian member of a violent Islamic militant group that advocates killing Israeli civilia...
Longest Palestinian hunger strike e
Reuters - A Palestinian held without trial ended a 66-day hunger strike Tuesday after Israeli author...
A Hunger Striker at Death's Door Tu
Time.com - "The West Bank's Bobby Sands" is how some in the British media have begun referring to Kh...
(AP)
AP - A main opposition group says the death toll in Syria has risen to 50, including 30 in Homs....