Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Human Rights

Whither the Party Line on Egypt?

by | Feb 3, 2011

Revolutions of world-historic potential, such as we are presently witnessing in Egypt, only happen once in a generation. There is enough awkwardness among the Washington establishment—bewildered at the sight of an uprising against a client state—that they are completely helpless to do much of anything in the face of the tumult on the Egyptian street. But no one is confronting a more awkward comeuppance, and responding to it more erratically, than the neoconservatives.

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Regime Change Redux

Regime Change Redux

by | Feb 2, 2011

The lesson of Tunis, Sanaa, and Cairo is that democracy rhetoric is more than a strategy for the assertion of American dominance. On the contrary, it is a language that fuses moral and political power into a radical claim that every human being deserves a voice in the decisions that affect their daily lives. The United States tried to promote democracy through the barrel of a gun. It’s time now for Washington to support democracy in the Middle East by pressing its authoritarian allies to put their guns away.

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Two Cheers for the Brotherhood

by | Feb 1, 2011

In the latest news out of Egypt, where people power is confronting regime rigidity, President-for-life Hosni Mubarak is doing what he can to maintain his perch. He has named a new cabinet, deployed more troops in the cities, and blocked al-Jazeera broadcasts. The opposition, meanwhile, hopes to bring a million people into Cairo’s streets to give the regime a final boot.

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Sexual Prey in the Saudi Jungle

Sexual Prey in the Saudi Jungle

by | Feb 1, 2011

He was an officer in the Saudi Royal Navy assigned to the strategic Saudi base of Jubail in the Persian Gulf, and he wanted to hire a maid. She was a single mom from Mindanao in the Philippines who saw, like so many others, employment in Saudi Arabia as a route out of poverty. When he picked her up at the Dammam International Airport last June, little did she know she was entering not a brighter chapter of her life but a chamber of horrors from which she would be liberated only after six long months.

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Mothers of the Jasmine Revolution

Mothers of the Jasmine Revolution

by | Jan 31, 2011

Like their revolutionary and brave Algerian sisters, who in the 1950s helped bring one of the most developed and vicious colonial armies to its knees and ushered the end of a longstanding European empire, les Tunisiennes challenged the premise that resistance, revolution, and war are the work of men alone. Defiantly, the women continued the resistance until Ben Ali “got the hell out.” Now that he’s gone, Tunisian women are appearing on Arab television and participating in the formation of neighborhood watch groups.

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