By George Friedman GEOPOLITICAL WEEKLY, STRATFOR Lebanon was created out of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. This agreement between Britain and France reshaped the collapsed Ottoman Empire south of Turkey into the states we know today — Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and to some extent the Arabian Peninsula as well. For nearly […]
Summary It is a region wracked by religious struggle between competing traditions of the faith. Conflicts take place within and between states; civil wars and proxy wars become impossible to distinguish. That could be a description of today’s Middle East. In the Middle East in 2011, change came after a […]
A THOUSAND years ago, the great cities of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo took turns to race ahead of the Western world. Islam and innovation were twins. The various Arab caliphates were dynamic superpowers—beacons of learning, tolerance and trade. Yet today the Arabs are in a wretched state. Even as Asia, […]
Anthony W. Orlando HUFFINGTON POST Lecturer in the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Los Angeles Barack Obama is daring the terrorists. He’s standing in their front yard. He’s calling them out. Of course, that’s not how it’s reported. “U.S. ‘nowhere near’ decision to pull all troops […]
Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek has placed the blame for the turmoil in the Middle East on those who provided weapons exacerbating the conflict, during a meeting with his Kuwaiti counterpart […]
by John TirmanExecutive Director, MIT Center for International Studies HUFFPOST Enough has been said about President Obama’s speech on counter-terror last Thursday. Useful takes are Juan Cole’s good news/bad news analysis, and Stephen Walt’s Twitter comment, “Obama’s speech was step in right direction, but have learned to watch for what […]
by Hani Hazaimeh | May 23, 2013 JORDAN TIMES AMMAN — Jordan on Wednesday dismissed as baseless allegations that it is involved in arming Syrian rebels, reiterating its consistent position […]
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The Hanging Gardens of Babylon have long been regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, although not without […]
By Rami G. Khouri The Daily Star STORY SUMMARY Much of the discussion in the U.S. about President Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East next week centers around whether he will initiate any new diplomatic moves on Arab-Israeli peacemaking, and what he might say about Iran and the continuing […]
The Independent: By Robert Fisk: Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto […]
Russian TV: World Government stepping onto sovereign Nation-States, puppet politicians unable to cope with social challenges, chaos in the Middle East and ever increasing global crises – all this awaits us in 2013. Is it time for ‘We the People’ to wake up? More violence in the Middle East; […]
Source: The Independent Reviewed by Ziauddin Sardar Around 300 years ago, the bazaars of the Middle East were overflowing with luxury goods. The commercial centres of the region attracted all variety of fortune seekers, speaking numerous languages. There was nothing to indicate that the region would not continue to be […]
According to Wikipedia, Lesley Hazleton is an award-winning British-American writer whose work focuses on the intersection of politics, religion, and history, especially in the Middle East. She reported from Israel for Time, and has written on the Middle East for numerous publications including The New York Times, The New York […]
BY Maya Shwayder | December 26 2012 10:53 AM Before the June 2012 election in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was one of the largest pan-Arab political groups that was nonetheless shunted aside, gagged and suppressed. It was outlawed across much of the Middle East, including Egypt. Over the years the Brotherhood was […]
Bashar’s father Hafez al-Assad was brutal but never used chemical arms. And do you know which was the first army to use gas in the Middle East? by Robert Fisk, The Independent The bigger the lie the more people will believe it. We all know who said that – but […]
A former senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood outlined his disappointment in President Mohamed Morsi today, who is rushing through a new Egyptian constitution. By Gert Van Langendonck, Correspondent / December 6, 2012 Christian Science Monitor Cairo Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi addressed the nation tonight after two days of protests […]
Source: The Atlantic By ROBERT WRIGHT As the Muslim protests subside, more and more people have come to realize that what seems to have sparked them–one of the worst YouTube videos ever, which is saying something–isn’t what they were mainly about. But what were they about? Here theories differ, and some of the […]
RT: A new virus dubbed Gauss has attacked computers in the Middle East spying on financial transactions, emails and picking passwords to all kind of pages. The virus resembles Stuxnet and Flame malware which was used to target Iran, Kaspersky Lab says. Gauss has infected hundreds of personal computers across […]
By JEDDAH: AHMED HASSAN ARAB NEWS Published: May 4, 2012 01:44 Updated: May 4, 2012 01:44 The rising cost of living is the greatest concern for young people in the Middle East, according to a poll of young Arab men and women in 12 Arab nations, including the six Gulf […]
Israeli authorities are trying new methods to end hunger strikes among Palestinian prisoners. The measures include canceling prisoners’ rights to family visits and confiscating of their possessions. “Privileges such as family visits have been revoked and items such as electronics have been confiscated,” Sivan Weizman, a spokesperson for the Israeli […]