202 Items

(AP Photo/Belal Darder)

(AP Photo/Belal Darder)

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

How the Death of Egypt’s Former President Shows Changing Politics

| July 01, 2019

Deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi fainted and died during an appearance in a Cairo court last month, part of an ongoing and likely politically motivated espionage case stemming from his escape from jail during the 2011 uprisings. The country’s first democratically elected president was unceremoniously buried the next morning in a public cemetery located in the capital, after Egyptian authorities refused his family’s request to bury him in the family plot in his hometown.

(AP Photo/Hesham Elkhoshny)

(AP Photo/Hesham Elkhoshny)

Analysis & Opinions

Arab Accountability Begins Here: Riyadh and Cairo in the Dock Over Khashoggi and Morsi

| June 19, 2019

The entire Arab region should pay attention to this week's calls by two respected United Nations agencies for international investigations into the deaths of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and ousted former Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi.

(AP Photo/Toufik Doudou)

(AP Photo/Toufik Doudou)

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

Algeria’s Second Arab Spring?

| Mar. 28, 2019

Since February, the long-entrenched regime of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been beset by mass protests and demands for economic and political liberalization. The potent mix of anger and hope fueling the demonstrations suggests that the country's elite erred in slow-rolling earlier reforms.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Capitol Hill

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex is Holding Our National Security Back

| Mar. 14, 2019

This battle between past and future is the hidden drama within the gargantuan $750 billion fiscal 2020 defense budget proposal. Nearly everyone favors high-tech weapons to combat great-power adversaries in the new millennium, in principle. But meanwhile, the military-industrial-congressional complex, as John McCain termed it, keeps pumping vast sums to sustain legacy weapons systems.

 

Afghan National Army-Territorial Force members prepare for an exercise at the Kabul Military Training Center in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 11, 2018. (Tech. Sgt. Sharida Jackson/Air Force)

Associated Press

Analysis & Opinions - Miami Herald

Peace with the Taliban? Trump Warned of Afghan Pullout Risks

| Jan. 30, 2019

Trump administration claims of progress in talks with the Taliban have sparked fears even among the president's allies that his impatience with the war in Afghanistan will lead him to withdraw troops too soon, leaving the country at risk of returning to the same volatile condition that prompted the invasion in the first place.

(MENARA)

(MENARA)

Paper

The Implications of the Syrian War For New Regional Orders

| Sep. 12, 2018

This paper argues that the impact of the eight-year war in Syria will reverberate across the region for years to come, and explores, in particular, four noteworthy legacies. First, it examines the series of interventions in Syria by regional and foreign powers (including Russia, Turkey, Iran, the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) that reconfigured the role of such powers across the region. Second, it reveals the emergence of two opposing alliances in the region, each comprising Arab states, regional Arab and non-Arab powers, global powers and local nonstate actors. These or similar alliances may well reappear in other Middle Eastern conflicts. Third, it analyses the striking number and variety of foreign forces that either directly fought in Syria or indirectly supported warring factions. Since 2012, these forces have included at least twenty states and major non-state players, alongside hundreds of smaller tribal, Islamist and secular rebel and pro-Assad groups. Finally, the paper suggests that the international community’s weak response to the untold war crimes on both sides, and its apparent de facto acceptance of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s incumbency, portend continuing regional authoritarian and violent political systems for the foreseeable future.