via Lobe Log
by Robert E. Hunter
“Then we’ll have done all we can.”
“Very heartless.”
“It’s safer to be heartless than mindless. History is the triumph of the heartless over the mindless.”
Yes, [...]
by Barbara Slavin
via IPS News
It’s no wonder that Egypt has floundered in its efforts to create a more democratic system from the ruins of the Mubarak regime.
A sweeping new history of Middle Eastern political activists shows that the search for justice has deep roots in the region but has often been thwarted [...]
by Reza Akhlaghi
via Foreign Policy Association
With less than two months into the elections, what is your assessment of this year’s election dynamics and of the absence of key presidential contenders in the country’s faction-based political system?
In the upcoming elections, there is no sitting president running for re-election. So lack [...]
via Lobe Log
by Robert E. Hunter
Publication this month of Vali Nasr’s The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat, could not have been better timed. The US and the NATO allies are in the process of disengaging from Afghanistan — however they choose to describe the process — without first [...]
via Lobe Log
by Mitchell Plitnick
All was not as it seemed during President Barack Obama’s appearances in Jerusalem and Ramallah, where he addressed audiences of Israelis and Palestinians. On the surface, it looked like Obama was swearing fealty to Israel, and pledging unconditional US support for any and all Israeli actions. But a [...]
via Lobe Log
by Charles Naas
Not even a month in office, Secretary of State John Kerry took his first official trip to the troubled Middle East and immediately felt first-hand the pressures and metamorphosing power relationships in the region. He began his visit with a meeting in Rome with countries that provide assistance to [...]
via Lobe Log
by Robert E. Hunter
The stakes in President Barak Obama’s impending visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan have risen steadily in recent days. It is taking take place, after all, almost immediately following Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip around the region — but not to the same stops [...]
via Lobe Log
by Emile Nakhleh
As President Obama begins his second term and John Kerry becomes the new Secretary of State, they are faced with worrisome uncertainty in Egypt, civil war in Syria, repression in Bahrain, a moribund peace process, and a defiant Iran. In order to help create a stable Middle East [...]
via Lobe Log
by Henry Precht
I spent six years of my Foreign Service career in Egypt during the 1960s and early 80s and got to know the country fairly well. Over recent weeks I have been trying to make sense of the wintery Arab Spring that has descended.
In my last assignment, when [...]
by Emile Nakhleh
via IPS News
Despite the start of a government-inspired dialogue with the opposition Sunday, the Bahraini government continues to jail dissidents, arrest demonstrators, and use a rigged judicial system to convict them.
Although the Al-Khalifa regime officially is not a party to the dialogue, Western governments welcomed the justice ministry’s call [...]
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