via LobeLog
by Shireen T. Hunter
The beleaguered Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, is the latest in the long list of the West’s favorite political leaders turned into pariahs. The conventional wisdom now is that Maliki’s flaws and wrong policies, especially his alienation of the Sunnis and dictatorial style of governance, are at [...]
via LobeLog
by Jim Lobe
After listening to the various statements, press conferences, and background briefings by “senior administration officials,” and initial reactions that followed tonight’s announcement about the interim accord between the P5+1 and Iran, it occurred to me that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may alter his recent course of repeatedly [...]
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 [...]
via Lobe Log
Lobe Log contributor Emile Nakhleh, an expert on political Islam and Middle Eastern society, recently provided a fascinating primer on Bahrain to the Bahrain Mirror (Arabic version), an e-newspaper run by Bahraini dissidents. As discussed in the Mirror’s introduction, prior to becoming the CIA’s former chief regional analyst, Dr. [...]
via Lobe Log
Justice is a fiction in much of the Persian Gulf. Nowhere is this truer than in Bahrain, a place where torture and state terror have become the norm. The country’s political elites talk frequently about freedom and the need for legal and political order. The reality, however, is that Bahrain’s judicial [...]
via IPS News
Several critical issues of unfinished business in the Middle East face President Barack Obama as he begins his second term. Washington must become more engaged come January because these issues will directly impact regional stability and security and U.S. interests and personnel in the region.
The issues include the Syrian [...]
via IPS News
This week’s decision by the Bahraini court of appeals to uphold the prison terms against Bahraini opposition activists is a travesty of justice and an indication that Bahraini repression continues unabated.
Bahraini officials, when confronted with angry world reaction to the court’s decision, cynically hid behind the claim they would [...]
via Lobe Log
I am hearing the drumbeats of war again. They sound so much like the drumbeats of 2002 that I have to wonder whether the old drummers have been brought out of storage to play the same music to a new audience.
This time the drums are directed at Iran. Surely, [...]
via Lobe Log
Bahrain remains a repressive state, and civil rights are violated daily. Forty-one years ago, Bahrain celebrated its first year independence as a budding democracy. This December it will celebrate its forty-second independence as a practitioner of repression and reprehensible autocracy. For all intents and purposes, Washington unfortunately continues to tolerate [...]
This week Al Jazeera English (AJE) aired a program that speaks to an article we published on Monday by Dr. Emile Nakhleh, a former top Central Intelligence Agency officer and Mideast expert. Nakhleh argues that by continuously repressing reform movements within their country, the autocratic rulers of Bahrain, Syria and [...]
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