Middle East & North Africa Archives - Foreign Policy In Focus

The Israeli Exception

by John Feffer | May 4, 2010

North Korea and Israel have a lot in common.

Neither is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and both employ their nuclear weapons in elaborate games of peek-a-boo with the international community. Israel and North Korea are equally paranoid about outsiders conspiring to destroy their states, and this paranoia isn’t without some justification. Partly as a result of these suspicions, both countries engage in reckless and destabilizing foreign policies. In recent years, Israel has launched preemptive strikes and invaded other countries, while North Korea has abducted foreign citizens and blown up South Korean targets (including, possibly, a South Korean ship in late March in the Yellow Sea).

Does Israel Belong in the Club?

by Adam Robert Green | Apr 27, 2010

Next month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is expected to invite Israel to join its 30-strong club of rich, mostly Western countries pursuing a “stronger, cleaner, fairer world economy.” Accession would conclude three years of formal negotiations and almost two decades of lobbying from successive Israeli governments, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman especially keen to align his country with the world’s advanced democratic nations. OECD status will accelerate investment, raise Israel’s credit rating, and strengthen its voice in international affairs.

Iraq: Seven Years of Occupation

by Raed Jarrar | Apr 13, 2010

On April 9, 2003, exactly seven years ago, Baghdad fell under the US-led occupation. Baghdad did not fall in 21 days, though; it fell after 13 years of wars, bombings and economic sanctions. Millions of Iraqis, including myself, watched our country die slowly before our eyes in those 13 years. So, when the invasion started in March of 2003, everyone knew it was the straw that would break the camel’s back.

No Tea Parties for Bibi

by Leon Hadar | Apr 7, 2010

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington shortly after President Barack Obama’s victory on healthcare reform had both symbolic significance and practical implications for the Likud leader. Obama’s win was interpreted as Netanyahu’s loss, reflecting the zero-sum nature of the diplomatic clash between the rightwing Israeli leader and the liberal occupant of the White House.

The Problems of Partnering with Yemen

by Peter Bouckaert, Christoph Wilcke | Apr 7, 2010

The March capture in San`a of a New Jersey man with alleged ties to al-Qaeda has renewed public concern over potential threats of terrorism from Yemen. On March 14 and 15, Yemen’s air force again carried out airstrikes against what the government said were terrorist hideouts in Abyan province, in the south of the country. But as in other countries where terrorist organizations coexist with corrupt and repressive central governments and home-grown insurgencies, the fight against terrorism in Yemen is fraught with the pitfalls that come with a rampant disregard for human rights.

Blood Sport

by John Feffer | Apr 6, 2010

In the Mayan game of pitz, the first team sport in human history, two sets of players squared off in a ball court that could stretch as long as a football field. The object of the game was to use hips and elbows to keep the ball in the air and, if possible, get it through a hoop set high on a stone wall. The ball was roughly the size and heft of a human head. Indeed, given the sheer number of decapitations in the Popol Vuh, the sacred Mayan text that prominently features the game, scholars have not ruled out the possibility that the teams sometimes played with the heads of sacrificial victims. It’s also probable that, at the conclusion of the game, one team or the other fell en masse beneath the priests’ daggers.

U.S. Lawmakers Support Illegal Annexation

by Stephen Zunes | Apr 5, 2010

In yet another assault on fundamental principles of international law, a bipartisan majority of the Senate has gone on record calling on the United States to endorse Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony invaded by Moroccan forces in 1975 on the verge of its independence. In doing so, the Senate is pressuring the Obama administration to go against a series of UN Security Council resolutions, a landmark decision of the International Court of Justice, and the position of the African Union and most of the United States’ closest European allies.

Egypt’s Impending Political Earthquake

by Richard Javad Heydarian | Mar 31, 2010

Egypt, one of the most powerful U.S. allies in the Arab world, is sitting on a political volcano ready to erupt at any moment. The upcoming presidential elections will be a potential watershed in Egyptian politics and a fierce battle for Egypt’s soul.

Iraq’s Baby Steps Toward Democracy

by Adil E. Shamoo | Mar 30, 2010

The Obama administration may finally get some good news. Iraq’s recent elections for parliament might actually result in a non-sectarian, pro-American government. This outcome would enable the Obama administration to fulfill its goal of removing all but 50,000 support troops by this August and drawn U.S. forces down to zero by the end of 2011.

The Case for a Union

by fpifadmin | Mar 22, 2010

Victor Hugo famously quipped: “[I]l existe une chose plus puissante que toutes les armées du monde, c’est une idée dont l’Heure est venue.” Here’s one such powerful idea: a multi-state union that stretches from the Fertile Crescent to the Silk Road, connecting the Indian Ocean to the Caucasus, and the Mediterranean to Central Asia – a grand political-economic-security union (precise name to be determined) that finally brings the peoples of this ‘region’ under the same banner.