Middle East & North Africa Archive

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to intervene militarily in Syria and work with Iran and Iraq to defeat the Islamic State has been met with a rather predictable response among Washington pundits: Putin is strong, and Barack Obama is weak. “Like Iran, Putin is willing to back up his pursuit of his interests with force,” writes Eliot Abrams in the National Review. “U.S. deterrence is dead,” says the American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka. The Washington Post editorial page bemoans Obama’s lack of a strategy for Syria and noted that while “shortsighted and cynical . . . at least Mr. Putin […]

By a fortuitous coincidence I found myself in Japan the week of the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which preceded the Japanese surrender in World War II. A special panel advising the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was divided over the wording of the government’s official statement, which is issued on major anniversaries of the war’s end. Should the words “aggression” and “apology” be used, or was “remorse”—the oft-employed substitute for a stronger expression—enough? Abe’s refusal to apologize for Japan’s colonial past, including its treatment of Koreans and other wartime atrocities, has divided Japanese political elites and […]

Last weekend, French President Francois Hollande met with Moroccan King Mohammed VI and signed an initiative to send French imams to the Mohammed VI Institute in Rabat, a center opened in March with the stated mission of promoting religious moderation and tolerance to combat radical Islam. The visit was an attempt to mend relations, which Morocco suspended last February for nearly a year following French allegations of human rights abuses. Although the France-Morocco initiative on imams is new, international religious training exchanges are part of an established phenomenon that Jonathan Laurence, a professor of political science at Boston College, calls […]

Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the United States has rejected deep involvement, hoping that the conflict would work itself out or at least remain limited to Syria itself. These hopes are now bankrupt. Syria’s humanitarian disaster and refugee crisis is only growing, with tragic consequences for the Syrian people. It is destabilizing neighboring nations and threatening Europe. Containment of the conflict has failed. Yet there is no movement toward a resolution that reflects American interests. There is only stalemate and chaos. From the American perspective, the core problem is that U.S. strategy has been based on three […]

Russia’s deployment of military equipment and personnel to Syria, combined with revelations about failed U.S. efforts to train and equip Syrian rebels, has rekindled criticisms of the Obama administration’s strategy against the self-declared Islamic State. The U.S. approach has been attacked from both sides of the political aisle, characterized as mission creep by some and weak incrementalism by others. During last week’s presidential debate, in particular, most of the Republican presidential candidates vied to burnish their national security credentials by vowing to expand U.S. military operations to defeat the Islamic State. However, the urge to “do something” in Iraq and […]

Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Tunisia and Algeria to discuss strategic ties. In an email interview, Geoff Porter, an assistant professor at West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center, discussed Iran’s outreach to North Africa. WPR: How extensive are Iran’s ties with North Africa, and what efforts are underway to expand ties? Geoff Porter: Iran has limited ties with North Africa. It had no ties with the Gadhafi regime in Libya both before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and it has not subsequently reached out to the warring Libyan governments. Relations with Tunisia were minimal, especially […]

Last week, 33 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, signed a letter to the U.N. Human Rights Council criticizing Bahrain’s human rights record, but also commending some of the government’s “positive steps” toward reform. It called on Bahrain to investigate claims of torture and abuse of detainees, hold perpetrators accountable and accept a visit by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture. “The human rights situation in Bahrain remains an issue of serious concern to us,” said the Swiss ambassador, who read out the letter in Geneva. It was the fifth such letter issued since Bahrain’s […]

American and Russian diplomats have proved to be congenitally unable to end the Syrian war. Could their military counterparts do any better? Last week, the Obama administration accepted a Russian offer of military talks over Syria. This is not necessarily a reason for much optimism. Moscow has sent aircraft, air-defense systems and significant amounts of new equipment to reinforce Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s beleaguered regime. Some analysts believe that Russian troops will be fighting on the ground soon. This could make the war even more dangerous. The goal of the new Russian-American talks, which kicked off with a phone call […]

After World War II, the United States reluctantly assumed global power. But most Americans considered this temporary, assuming the United States would disengage once Europe was back on its feet and the world’s war-torn regions were on the way to recovery. But by the time the Soviet Union finally collapsed and the Cold War ended 45 years later, Americans had become so accustomed to global power that there was little serious pressure for disengagement. Global power had become comforting and normal. Yet this, too, proved temporary. Now, weary after decades of containing the Soviet Union and 14 years of fighting […]

The wave of refugees washing over Europe today is the latest distress call from the remnants of what we still, for simplicity’s sake, refer to as Syria. The immediate reaction has been one of panic, with the European Union’s vaunted open borders—symbol of a generation’s worth of hard-won European integration—now at risk. There is much to criticize in the official and popular reactions in Europe. The flow of migrants from the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan has been building over a long enough time for the EU to have formulated a more effective response. But the shift in routes […]

On Sept. 13, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced the retirement of Gen. Mohamed “Toufik” Mediene, head of the Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS), days after sacking several top generals who worked under Mediene and weeks after the arrest of a former intelligence chief. Bouteflika’s office claimed that the retirement decision was made “in line with the constitution.” But that muted explanation belied the stunning decision to remove Toufik, as he is widely known in Algeria, who has been the head of Algeria’s state intelligence service for 25 years. Created in 1958 during Algeria’s War of Independence as the Ministry […]

One of the defining declarations of Barack Obama’s 2008 run for the White House was his pledge not only to end the war in Iraq, but also to change the mindset that got America involved in that disastrous war in the first place. In fits and starts, he has adopted that approach as president, particularly in his second term. Unfortunately it appears that Hillary Clinton, his former secretary of state and now the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, still hasn’t gotten the memo. Last week Clinton ventured to Washington’s Brookings Institution to talk about her views on the Iran […]

On Saturday, Tunisians flocked to Avenue Habib Bourguiba, in Tunis, to protest a draft law on “economic reconciliation,” which parliament approved in July. The initiative—strongly backed by President Beji Caid Essebsi’s Nidaa Tounes party—would freeze prosecutions of officials and businessmen from ousted President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s era who are being investigated for corruption, and create a special committee to which they would reveal their assets. Those funds would then, the government says, be injected into Tunisia’s flailing economy. Critics point to the evident impunity the law would grant to those guilty of corruption or embezzlement, further undermining Tunisia’s […]

Germany has never been an entirely comfortable power at the United Nations. The Security Council is, as Russian diplomats like to note, still run by the countries that defeated Hitler in 1945. East and West Germany did not even join the U.N. until 1973. Nevertheless, Berlin now pays over 7 percent of the U.N. budget, while Britain and France cover less than 6 percent each. At regular intervals, the Germans launch quixotic campaigns to win a permanent seat on the Security Council. Time and again, these plow into the sand. Despite these bids for a bigger role, German diplomats often […]

The Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen began as a war waged from the skies, but as it drags on, it is increasingly moving to the ground. In the past week, Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have deployed more soldiers to Yemen, capped by 1,000 ground troops from Qatar. Egypt reportedly sent 800 of its own soldiers, after rumors last spring of its willingness to join a potential ground war to drive the Houthis out of territory they have seized in Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa. The Qatari and Egyptian troops join a 3,500-strong battalion of soldiers from […]

Today the world is riveted by the tragic migrant flows from North Africa and the Middle East into Europe. Driven by conflict in their homelands, hundreds of thousands of refugees have risked—and sometimes lost—everything in search of security and opportunity far from their troubled nations. While addressing this humanitarian crisis is the most pressing concern for Europe, the United States and the rest of the world community, political leaders must also look further into the future: Today’s migrant crisis is the bow wave of tomorrow’s security challenges. In the contemporary security environment, a peace settlement or the removal of a […]

The governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, arguably the Arab world’s two most influential states, continue to express their determination to strengthen an alliance that has grown under Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. In late July, el-Sisi and Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman signed a deal they called the Cairo Declaration, a strategic blueprint to advance bilateral cooperation in a host of areas, especially defense and the economy. Since 2013, Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states have helped keep el-Sisi’s regime afloat, with billions in economic aid. Egypt, in turn, has been a partner in […]