via LobeLog
by Jasmin Ramsey
Almost 1,000 Egyptians have died, according to the official count, since Aug. 14 when Egypt’s armed forces began clamping down on Muslim Brotherhood-led protests against the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. That number well exceeds the 846 people who officials say died during the 18 days of protest [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
Reacting to several recent developments in the Syrian war, Lebanon’s Hezbollah organization has escalated dramatically its direct military role in that fighting. This is Hezbollah’s first major foray on the ground into a conflict inside another country, and it will put strains on its military cadres as well [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
The Biblical quotation, “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” could not be more relevant to what Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s near unremitting hostility toward Iraq’s powerful Sunni Arab minority has generated: a rising drumfire of mostly Sunni Arab bombings aimed at Maliki’s Shi’a base as [...]
by Aurelie Daher
That Iran is deeply concerned with the civil war in Syria and is currently providing important assistance to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is not in question. What remains to be determined, however, is the form that its intervention — which has grown significantly over the past decade — is taking, its extent, [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
A sampling of the May 5 American Sunday talk shows demonstrated graphically the intense pressure mounting on the White House to move forward with potentially risky military options aimed at hastening the end of the crisis in Syria.
Embedded in much of the criticism of (or impatience with) [...]
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 Emile Nakhleh
via IPS News
The governing programme of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood has been disappointing. His commitment to genuine democracy has been faltering, and his efforts at inclusion and political tolerance have been wanting.
Morsi’s actions against the Egyptian comedian Basim Yousif belie his initial statements supporting [...]
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
Criticism of former Senator Chuck Hagel for not backing the 2007 US “troop surge” in Iraq demands an explanation of why that relatively small reinforcement was not the main driver for reversing Iraq’s descent into violent chaos. In fact, when proposed in late 2006, there was widespread doubt about its potential [...]
via Lobe Log
The signing on 6 December of a US-Iraq Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) concerning defense cooperation might suggest ties between Washington and Baghdad remain close, but such is not the case. In fact, the two sides have more generally experienced somewhat chilly relations in recent years, mainly because of actions taken by [...]
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