Middle East & North Africa Archive

Speaking in Tehran at a forum on human rights in February 2012, Iranian Chief Justice Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani called Iran’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1948 a “mistake.” Larijani was reacting to reports by the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, on Iran’s systematic violations of the declaration. Larijani went on to deny the incidents documented in the reports and assert that the U.N.’s evidence was false. But Iran is indeed expanding its crackdown on political, religious and social freedoms in advance of the June 14 election to select a successor […]

A key component of Iran’s Middle East policy is the deployment of unconventional actors to achieve political ends. Tehran has seen successes in this regard: Its client Hezbollah has become a major political party and militia in Lebanon, and, through the use of other such groups, Iran managed to increase its influence in Baghdad while diminishing that of the United States during the American war in Iraq. But Iran has now taken on considerable risk by intervening in a similar fashion in the Syrian conflict, where its mission is fundamentally different than it was in Lebanon or Iraq. In Syria, […]

Given domestic economic weaknesses, security competition with India and an antagonistic relationship with Afghanistan, Pakistan has traditionally sought external alliances with strong powers and pursued an offensive security policy. Nevertheless, there has been a dawning realization in Islamabad that a new approach is necessary, and as a result, Pakistan’s foreign and defense policies are undergoing important transformations, including a normalization of relations with neighbors and a renewed focus on domestic security threats. With a low growth rate, high inflation, budget deficits and unsustainable debt, economic weakness is the single biggest challenge for Pakistan. A major energy shortage, which both results […]

In February, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Turkey, indicating a willingness to help Turkey revive stalled negotiations over its longstanding bid for European Union membership. In an email interview, Rana Deep Islam, a project manager with Stiftung Mercator whose research focuses on Turkey-EU relations, explained the state of Turkey’s EU accession bid and how it could move forward. WPR: What is behind Germany’s recent statement that it will support reviving Turkey’s EU accession process? Rana Deep Islam: The German government under Merkel still does not have a clear-cut policy on how it wants to handle Turkey’s membership aspirations. On one […]

Does China have any real interest in cooperating on international crisis management with the West? Chinese officials at the United Nations have sided with Russia over Syria and refused to countenance a new sanctions resolution against Iran. These issues, coupled with Beijing’s assertive approach to sovereignty disputes in the western Pacific and Southeast Asia, have overshadowed those cases in which China has pursued cooperation, including efforts to stop a war between Sudan and South Sudan. Last week, however, there was a fillip for those who hope that China will invest more in collective security arrangements. On Thursday, the U.N. Security […]

On Wednesday, Syrian rebels seized 21 Filipino members of a United Nations peacekeeping mission from a disputed demilitarized buffer zone between Israel and Syria that has been monitored by U.N. forces since 1974. The border zone in the Golan Heights had been largely unaffected by Syria’s uprising until now, and the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) has not experienced a similar incident in the decades since it was formed. The group claiming responsibility for the kidnapping said the peacekeepers would not be released until the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad withdrew from a nearby village where clashes occurred over […]

As one of the founders of the original Non-Aligned Movement, India has often found itself standing between opposing camps, trying to keep from becoming entangled in the disputes that divide them. In the current environment, however, with a globalized economy and a shrinking, interconnected world, the feat of staying out of international conflicts poses especially complicated and potentially costly challenges. That is most evident as India tries to navigate its important trade relationship with Iran, while continuing to expand its valuable commercial, diplomatic and strategic links with the U.S. and Israel. The difficulty of maintaining relations simultaneously with bitter geopolitical […]

Egypt’s National Salvation Front, an opposition coalition, recently announced its intention to boycott parliamentary elections planned for this April, citing the Islamist-led government’s failure to consult the coalition about the election law. Emily Beaulieu, a political science professor at University of Kentucky and an expert on election boycotts, explained in an email interview the conditions under which election boycotts succeed and reviewed the present boycott’s prospects. WPR: What have been some of the most significant successful and failed election boycotts in recent history? Emily Beaulieu: Recent election boycotts that produced subsequent democratic reforms include the Philippines (1981), Equatorial Guinea (1993), […]

Since World War II, Americans have obsessively mined their armed conflicts for “lessons.” Every war spawns books, workshops and conferences. The U.S. military has even institutionalized the “lessons learned” process, creating organizations like the Army’s Center for Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kanas, which can turn information from the field into officially sanctioned lessons in short order. Within the policy community, where there are no generals and admirals to decide which lessons are worth learning and which are not, it normally takes a few years to reach agreement on the lessons of a given conflict — time allows perspective and […]

In March 2011, after Hosni Mubarak’s fall, when Egyptian protesters stormed and ransacked the offices of State Security Investigations (SSI) throughout the country, it appeared that efforts to reform Egypt’s chastened police force had achieved broad social and political consensus. Yet, two years later, accountability for past crimes, including those committed during the uprising, remains lacking, and the Ministry of Interior remains wholly unreformed and often brutal. Scenes of police violence have once again become commonplace, reaching a peak in Port Said in late-January, when more than 30 people, including two police officers, were killed. This weekend’s bloody clashes in […]