Middle East & North Africa Archive

Amateur video appears to show Syrian tanks in Aleppo as a Syrian general, who defected, calls on Russia to stop supporting Assad. World News Videos by NewsLook

Amid questions over the policy direction of a Muslim Brotherhood-governed Egypt, newly elected President Mohamed Morsi met with two rival Palestinian leaders this week. Morsi met with Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah president of the Palestinian Authority, on Wednesday and with Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, which controls Gaza, on Thursday. “If you are Abbas, you are very concerned about the strengthening and emboldening of Hamas,” said David Schenker, director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He emphasized that the meeting between Morsi and Meshaal marked the first meeting between Hamas, the […]

It looks like the vaunted U.S. pivot to Asia is going to be delayed. The ongoing conflict in Syria and the escalation of tensions with Iran make it highly unlikely that Washington will be able to shift away from its long-held priority focus on the Middle East anytime soon. When the Asia pivot was first floated by the Obama administration in 2009, it was based on a series of strategic assessments about the likely future of the Middle East. There was guarded optimism that a combination of effective sanctions and deft diplomacy could produce a workable deal on the Iranian […]

If the critics of the United Nations were to design a scenario to make the organization seem absolutely irrelevant, it would look a lot like this week’s debacle over Syria. On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council was meant to vote on a Western resolution to impose sanctions on Syria unless the government of embattled President Bashar al-Assad ceased significant military operations within 10 days. The vote was delayed after three high-ranking members of Assad’s inner circle, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and Defense Minister Gen. Dawoud Rajiha, were killed in Damascus that day. But with fighting escalating in Syria, the […]

On Monday, a U.S. Navy refueling ship in the Persian Gulf opened fire on what turned out to be a fishing boat, killing one Indian man and wounding three others after they ignored several warnings to stop their rapid approach. While the U.S. has offered condolences to the families of the fishermen, it has suggested that the use of force was justified, particularly in the context of a Navy that is more wary than ever of the dangers small boats can pose to large ships. “Starting with the USS Cole attack, the U.S. Navy came to recognize that there were […]

Libya, that sparsely populated North African country on the shores of the Mediterranean, has a history of punching above its weight. The Libyan people, in their first postrevolutionary elections, have just done it again, defying the conventional wisdom by thoroughly trouncing Islamist parties at the polls. Whether through the antics of its outrageous former dictator, the flamboyant Moammar Gadhafi, or through its opposition’s so-far-unmatched success at enlisting NATO’s firepower in deposing his oppressive regime, Libya has managed to make headlines and even to bend the curve of history. Conceivably, the latest electoral results, which still leave many unanswered questions, have […]

A few weeks ago, a couple of articles appeared in two Israeli newspapers — Israel Hayom and Maariv — criticizing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. At first glance, there was nothing terribly significant about the articles. After all, one can hardly open a newspaper in any language these days without reading a criticism of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. I have written several myself in these pages. But what stood out about these two articles is that they were written by people working for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As such, they represented a departure from a historical norm on both sides […]

The Pentagon’s annual assessment of Iran’s military power (.pdf), which was released last week, is notable for the amount of attention it devotes to Iran’s missile capabilities. While mentioning Iran’s other military assets in passing, the report describes Tehran’s missile capabilities in extensive detail, noting the improvements Iran has made to existing missiles, its efforts to develop more-sophisticated systems and the growing competency of Iranian forces in operating these systems due to more-frequent live-fire drills. Iran itself has also been placing greater emphasis on its missile capabilities recently, particularly in responding to the European Union’s implementation of oil sanctions earlier […]

Stratfor’s Vice President of Global Analysis Reva Bhalla discusses the recent rebel offensive that has begun on Damascus and its implications on the Syrian uprising as a whole. World News Videos by NewsLook

Somalia is facing yet another hunger emergency due to poor rains, conflict and a likely later-than-normal harvest. World News Videos by NewsLook

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton says Iran’s proposals to world powers are “non-starters.” World News Videos by NewsLook

In its just-released final audit report (.pdf), the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Funds (SIGIR) last week warned that billions of U.S. dollars may have been wasted or misappropriated in the process of reconstructing Iraq. While reports of waste surfaced early in the post-invasion occupation of Iraq, problems have also plagued the transition since 2010 from a military- to a civilian-led U.S. mission in Iraq. Many of those shortcomings came to light during a recent hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to assess the interagency effort in Iraq now that all U.S. combat […]

Protesters hurled tomatoes and water bottles at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s motorcade in Egypt’s second city of Alexandria. World News Videos by NewsLook

Moqtada al-Sadr, the populist Iraqi Shiite cleric, has returned to Iraq from Iran once more, ready to take on a prominent role in mainstream politics. For Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia was responsible for some of the bloodiest violence during the U.S. occupation, it is the latest of several evolutions since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Matthew Duss, director of Middle East Progress at the Center for American Progress, told Trend Lines that Sadr will have his work cut out for him moving forward. “Here is this firebrand who very effectively exploited popular anger at the American occupation, […]

One evening last week, the Chinese government threw a dinner party for a visiting international delegation. If the menu that night in Beijing was strictly kosher, it was because the guests of honor for the event came from Israel. And the day had featured a remarkable event. Just hours earlier, China’s Minister of Transportation Li Shenglin and his Israeli counterpart, Yisrael Katz, had signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on a multibillion dollar project inside Israel that some say could constitute an alternative trade route to the Suez Canal. While it is doubtful the Suez Canal’s importance will be […]

Preliminary results of Libya’s landmark elections suggest that the National Forces Alliance, a broad coalition of parties rallied under the banner of wartime prime minister Mahmud Jibril, will leave Islamist parties in the dust. World News Videos by NewsLook

International envoy Kofi Anna raises hopes of a revived peace effort in Syria, saying he has reached a framework with President Bashar al-Assad and will hold talks with rebel leaders. World News Videos by NewsLook