Is the conventional thinking which holds that al-Qaeda has been marginalized by the Middle-East protests mistaken?
Is There Any Upside to Middle-East Protests for al-Qaeda?
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Middle East & North Africa
Interview with Phyllis Bennis
In our special focus on Islamophobia, FPIF talks with Phyllis Bennis: activist, analyst, and writer on Middle East and UN issues for many years.
New U.S. Rebuke of Settlements a Product of Egypt Protests?
The U.S. is supporting a U.N. Security Council statement condemning Israeli settlements.
Last Thing Washington Needs Is to Share Blame if Egypt Becomes Another Pakistan
Washington’s optimal position may be as a concerned bystander to developments in post-revolutionary Egypt.
Washington Voices Impatience with Regime
Amid the continuing stand-off between protestors and the Egyptian government, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama appeared Wednesday to be losing patience with both President Hosni Mubarak and his new vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman.
A Middle East Deja Vu
Hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets, fueled by poverty, hunger, and anger at their repressive government. Egypt? No, Iran, 1951, before the election of Prime Minister Mossadeq.
Before There Was a Curveball There Was “Saddam’s Bombmaker”
Even before the Bush administration, there were those who believed — or pretended to — that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons.
Revolution is an Export Tunisia Can Be Proud of
“Tunisia is known for exporting olive oil and deglet nour dates but is pleased to add revolution as one of its principal items of export.” Revolution will be Tunisia’s only around-the-clock and never-out-of-stock, free-of-charge export item. It is its only Marshall Plan for fostering homegrown democracy across the Arab world. Let it be so.
A War Israel Is Ill Equipped to Fight
Israel is not confronting Arab armies or guerrilla movements, but an explosion of Arab democracy. It’s a “war” that it’s ill equipped to fight.
Pox Americana
In the name of its War on Terror, Washington had for years backed most of the thuggish governments now under siege or anxious that they may be next in line to hear from their people. When it came to Egypt in particular, there was initially much polite (and hypocritical) discussion in the media about how our “interests” and our “values” were in conflict, about how far the U.S. should back off its support for the Mubarak regime, and about what a “tightrope” the Obama administration was walking.