In the Current Journal
Editorial
The outpouring of grief this week over the death of Anthony Shadid of The New York Times has drawn well-deserved attention to the foreign correspondents who work in conflict zones. Shadid, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes when he wrote for The Washington Post, was particularly gifted, brave and dedicated to getting the story no one else would try for, ...
Continue ReadingA Shifting Balance of Power
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Israel, Turkey and Iran in the Changing Arab World
THOMAS MATTAIR, executive director, Middle East Policy Council
Given the changes sweeping the Arab world, especially the demands for popular participation in government and the success of Islamist ...
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The Islamic Republic of Iran: Facts and Fiction
Over the last three decades, Iran has been a prominent feature of the world press and global media. Not a week has passed since November 4, 1979 ...
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Turkey and Iran's Nuclear Program
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) has suffered serious setbacks since it entered into force in 1970. For example, some nuclear states like Pakistan, India and Israel have refused ...
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Containing Iran: What Does It Mean?
Even before the onset of the Arab Spring of 2011, leading analysts spoke of containment as the dominant prescription for America's Iran policy.1 Yet the Arab uprisings have ...
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Democracy, Autocrats and U.S. Policies in the Middle East
The NATO operation for the protection of civilians in Libya, in support of a democratic uprising, took longer than expected and did not entirely comply with the mandate ...
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Spring in the Levant
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The Syrian Uprising of 2011: Why the Asad Regime Is Likely to Survive to 2013
Will President Bashar al-Asad make it to 2013? Chances are he will. Despite his regime's rapid loss of legitimacy, its growing isolation and tanking economy, no countervailing force ...
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Syria's Stalemate: The Limits of Regime Resilience
We are witnessing in Syria a stalemate between regime and opposition. The battle has been constructed as a zero-sum game from the very beginning, increasing the stakes tremendously ...
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Jordan's Arab Spring: The Middle Class and Anti-Revolution
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was watched closely during the early events of the Arab Spring in 2011. Many Western analysts expressed concerns that it would be the ...
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Building Political Infrastructure
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The Politics of Kurdish Crude
The entry of ExxonMobil into the Kurdish oil market has sent shock waves throughout Iraq's energy sector and its political classes. The presence of one of the world's ...
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Turkey: The Politics of a New Democratic Constitution
Most Turks agree that their current constitution — written in 1982 by the generals who had seized power on September 12, 1980 — is too authoritarian, statist and ...
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Saudi Arabia: Civil Rights and Local Actors
Transnational advocacy directed towards the Saudi Arabian government originated mainly out of Western democratic states, UN human-rights mechanisms, international rights NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), and local rights groups and ...
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Constituting Institutions: The Electoral System in Egypt
On November 28, 2011, Egyptians went to the polls to begin electing a new parliament in three stages. It was in many respects the first genuine democratic election ...
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Book Reviews
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Ben-Gurion: A Political Life / David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Renaissance
In 2005, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, came in second in a poll in which the Israeli public was asked to identify the 200 greatest Israelis ever. ...
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The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square
Egyptians and Egypt watchers are still digesting the ramifications of January 25, 2011, when a small group of activists organized what they thought would be a modest Cairo ...
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Islamic Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East
The George W. Bush administration claimed that "the lack of democracy led to Islamist terrorism," and that therefore, the "war on terror" was a means to eradicate terrorism ...
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Activists in Office: Kurdish Politics and Protest in Turkey
Kurds have lost out in the national liberation era of the modern world, not only because they failed to establish their own state in the twentieth century, but ...
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Crime of Numbers: The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question (1878-1918)
Crime of Numbers is a continuation of Fuat Dündar's postgraduate research. It is a controversial and provocative venture whose overarching thesis is that "during the First World War, ...
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