Middle East & North Africa

85 Items

Arab Spring at 10

James A. Dawson

Analysis & Opinions - Journal of Democracy

The Arab Spring at 10: Kings or People?

| Jan. 01, 2021

Ten years after the onset of the Arab Spring, the Middle East and North Africa are torn between two visions of progress: a democratic one that seeks to replace the leaders who dominate the region, and an ostensibly modernizing one that seeks to replace the people who inhabit it. Though the latter project is currently ascendant, it is likely to founder on its own internal contradictions. Arab publics may be ambivalent about democracy, but the region retains considerable democratic potential.

(AP Photo/BilalHussein)

(AP Photo/BilalHussein)

Analysis & Opinions

UN's children in conflict report reveals depravity of modern warfare

| July 30, 2019

The annual report on Children and Armed Conflict that the United Nations Secretary-General submitted to the Security Council this week comprises the usual grim inventory of large-scale crimes and atrocities covering over 24,000 verified grave violations against children in 20 countries. Yet behind these depressing statistics are several more troubling phenomena that the report does not mention, and that have crystallised through the half dozen continuing conflicts across the Middle East and South Asia.

(Aljazeera)

(Aljazeera)

Analysis & Opinions - Aljazeera

Why are so many children killed in wars?

| July 28, 2019

Al Jazeera has obtained a copy of the United Nations' report annual report on children and armed conflicts in advance of its publication. It found evidence of more than 24,000 cases of children being killed, maimed or forced to become child soldiers last year. So what needs to be done to protect the lives of our children?

(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/Emrah Gurel)

(AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Mohammad Morsi in Life and Death Mirrors Wider Arab Agonies

| June 17, 2019

BEIRUT — The death today of former elected President Mohammad Morsi of Egypt should be seen as perhaps the single most iconic moment of modern Arab political history. For he represented everything that is good and bad about political authority and governance in the past century of Arab statehood. Yet his legacy will only be fully clarified in the decades ahead when the fate of the ongoing Arab uprisings is also clear.

The members of Arab-Turkish Media Association and friends hold posters as they attend funeral prayers in absentia for Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, Turkey. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

(AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

CIA leaks spark new era in Khashoggi case

| Nov. 19, 2018

BOSTON — The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s leaks to several American news organizations this weekend that it believes with “high confidence” that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has triggered a series of fascinating political contests and confrontations that may profoundly impact several decision-decision-making spheres in Washington, within Saudi Arabia, and between the United States and foreign countries. We enter uncharted terrain here with potentially tumultuous results, largely because of the unprecedented, unpredictable, and mostly uninformed, uncaring, and dangerous nature of the Trump presidency and the rule of Mohammad Bin Salman.

(AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

(AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

How to Help the Middle East

| Sep. 08, 2016

Opinion polls indicate that the vast majority of people in the Middle East want to be governed by legitimate states that uphold the rule of law, protect civic rights, and promote coexistence among communities. The goal must be to reach a grand bargain that takes into account the major issues dividing the region, including the status of the Palestinians and Kurds, and creates conditions for viable political settlements in Syria and Iraq.

Damaged vehicles are seen on the debris of buildings after the airstrikes carried out by Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted Aleppo, Syria.

Getty Images/Anadolu Agency

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Syria becomes even more complicated

| July 23, 2016

"The failed military coup in Turkey and the country’s many links with key regional actors in Syria, Russia, Iran, and NATO clarify how difficult it has become to achieve political solutions to individual conflicts, because local, national, regional, and global interests of any single party do not line up nicely in a coherent and clear balance sheet of desirables and undesirables..."