Middle East & North Africa Archive

I had the pleasure of taking part in France 24’s panel discussion program, The World This Week, on Friday. The other guests were Matthew Saltmarsh of the IHT, Billie O’Kadameri of Radio France International and Simon Kuper of Financial Times. The discussion focused on events in Libya, but we also covered Ivory Coast and the resignations of former French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodore zu Guttenberg. Part one can be found here. Part two can be found here. I recommend the discussion on Libya in particular, because Billie O’Kadameri offered some very useful insights into […]

In November 2010, the Saudi monarch, King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz, traveled to the United States for medical treatment, touching off rounds of fevered speculation about the prospects for succession in Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz’s own frail health and recent convalescence in Morocco gave the speculation further life. Of course, due to the royal family’s opaque approach to the issue, discussions of the internal rivalries that are reputed to divide the royal family are often based on mere conjecture. With little concrete information upon which to ground analysis, each decision of the royal family is then […]

One of the mysteries of Iran’s nuclear program is the fact that, despite periodic warnings about how close Tehran is to acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, the Iranian nuclear program is proceeding at a slower speed than that of earlier nuclear weapons states. Whereas Pakistan and North Korea needed only some 10 years to develop atomic bombs, Iran has had a nuclear program for almost three decades without producing a weapon. Various explanations could explain this deliberate pace. Iranian leaders might still be debating their nuclear weapons options and not yet committed to pursuing a nuclear weapon or capability. Iran’s […]

When this article was commissioned back in December, its aim was to provide readers with an understanding of the players and scenarios for a leadership succession in Egypt. Just who would rule the country when President Hosni Mubarak eventually relinquished power had been a central question in Egyptian politics for the better part of the last decade. The most oft-mentioned contenders were Mubarak’s second son, Gamal, and his close adviser, Lt. Gen. Omar Suleiman, then the chief of the General Intelligence Service. Rumors of Gamal Mubarak’s ascendance began in earnest around 1999 when, after a stint at Bank of America […]

Events in Libya are a further reminder for Americans that we stand at a crossroads in our continuing evolution as the world’s sole full-service superpower. Unfortunately, we are increasingly seeking change without cost, and shirking from risk because we are tired of the responsibility. We don’t know who we are anymore, and our president is a big part of that problem. Instead of leading us, he explains to us. Barack Obama would have us believe that he is practicing strategic patience. But many experts and ordinary citizens alike have concluded that he is actually beset by strategic incoherence — in […]

History demonstrates that revolutions often result in new or renewed forms of despotism. One reason for caution regarding the future of the Arab Uprising is that few Middle Eastern countries have political pasts not dominated by monarchy, theocracy or the military. So previous rebellions ultimately enhanced rather than mitigated socio-political intolerance. After all, Iran’s activist mullahs and al-Qaida’s founders were the products of rebellions against monarchist totalitarianism, too. It remains to be seen whether Egypt will become more democratic or return to military rule, or if the turbulence of the post-Mubarak period will open the door for the Muslim Brotherhood […]

Unlike the successful uprisings in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, characterized by largely unarmed protests and government crackdowns with tear gas and bullets, Libya is now in the midst of a full-bore violent civil war. Refusing to stand down, Col. Moammar Gadhafi has vowed “to fight until the last man and last woman to defend Libya from east to west, north to south.” While rebel forces have taken control of many town and cities, forces loyal to Gadhafi firmly control Tripoli, the country’s capital, and have started to contest the rebels’ control of strategic town and cities over the past week. […]

The wave of popular uprisings sweeping throughout the Middle East may give new life to what Evgeny Morozov, in his just-released book, “The Net Delusion,” called the “Google doctrine”: the “fervent conviction that given enough gadgets, connectivity and foreign funding, dictatorships are doomed.” Morozov initially dismissed that doctrine last August, when it appeared that the Iranian government had decisively broken that country’s Green Movement. But his assertion that new information technologies can just as easily be used in the service of strengthening authoritarian regimes as in toppling them is now being challenged by pundits citing the role of YouTube, Facebook […]

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq — Just a quick tour of the markets in any Kurdish city in northern Iraq is all that is needed to illustrate how far relations with Turkey, the once-hostile neighbor to the north, have come. Supermarket shelves are packed with Turkish goods, while new malls are flooded with Turkish brands. And many of the major business contracts, from airports to roads, go to Turkish companies. Turkey threatened Iraqi Kurdistan with an extensive military offensive just a couple of years ago, but the invasion that did occur was of a completely different nature. “I have to say that the […]

A peace plan for Libya, proposed by Venezuela’s President Chavez, is being considered by the Arab League. The idea, outlined by Chavez earlier this week, involves sending representatives from several countries to Libya to help negotiate an end to the fighting.

Great powers are sometimes molded by events as much as, if not more than, by grand strategy. In 1898, the United States — at the time an isolationist and anti-colonial power — entered onto the world stage after Spain allegedly sank the USS Maine in Havana Harbor. The commercial adventures of the East India Company compelled the British state to intervene in China, sparking the Opium Wars, while in 1850, the British foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, ordered the British navy into the Aegean in order to protect a British subject, Don Pacifico, and reclaim his lost property. All were defining […]

Historians will eventually gain a fuller understanding of the forces that propelled the 2011 Arab Rebellion and of the changes that made decades of pent-up anti-government rage explode at precisely this moment. But just two months into the still-spreading uprising, we already know some of the important factors motivating protesters. We have also seen the range of responses the protests have elicited from the various Middle Eastern governments facing mass calls for the end of their entrenched regimes. What we have learned so far suggests that the revolution, like a wildfire on wind-whipped dry brush, will continue to spread. And […]

Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan recently signed a series of railway agreements aimed at implementing the North-South Transport Corridor, including constructing rail links to connect the Iranian cities of Qazvin, Rasht and Astara. In an e-mail interview, Taleh Ziyadov, a doctoral fellow at Cambridge University, and Regine A. Spector, a visiting research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, discussed transport cooperation among Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan. WPR: How extensive are the existing transportation links among the three countries? Taleh Ziyadov and Regine A. Spector: Azerbaijan and Russia are connected by railroad and by a recently constructed modern highway linking […]

In Islamabad gunmen have shot dead Pakistan’s Minister for Minorities. Shabaz Bhatti, the only Christian in the government cabinet, was murdered on Wednesday in the gun attack on his car. The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the killing, calling Bhatti a blasphemer. He had been calling for changes to the country’s blasphemy law under which anyone who speaks ill of Islam can face the death penalty.

While the full story of the Arab uprisings — and in particular the Libya chapter — has yet to be written, sea power has thus far seemed curiously absent from the events of the Arab Spring. Although one Libyan warship apparently bombarded rebel positions in Tripoli and another may have defected, maritime power has not been central to the course of that country’s revolution. Similarly, the Egyptian navy played no meaningful role in overthrowing Hosni Mubarak, and now remains at dock for lack of funding. And what of NATO? In theory, the effort to relieve Libya and manage the chaos […]

It has become conventional wisdom among U.S. and European policymakers that the Muslim Brotherhood, with its superior organizational structure, will dominate any quickly held election in a post-Mubarak Egypt. Invariably, observations to this effect are followed by warnings about the movement’s beliefs and its questionable commitment to democracy. Those warnings took on ominous overtones when the Brotherhood announced Feb. 21 that it will establish the Freedom and Justice Party to participate in future elections. Many of the Muslim Brotherhood’s policy positions are indeed odious to Western sensibilities. In a democratic Egypt, however, the Brotherhood’s ideas may garner popular appeal. The […]

There’s so much to love about Charlie Sheen’s diatribes that about the only improvement I can think of would be to have Jean-Claude Van Damme be the one interviewing him. Obscured by the spectacle of Sheen’s crash-and-burn party are some very serious critiques of the consensus drug treatment paradigm in the U.S. But there are also some very important insights into U.S. foreign policy and national security. In particular, Sheen’s remarks, which I’m tempted to refer to as the Sheen Doctrine, illustrate one tendency prevalent on the left and another prevalent on the right, while succinctly articulating a major tenet […]