Current Analysis Egypt's Wall In late December 2009, Arab TV channels aired footage of throngs of demonstrators, surrounded by the usual rows of riot police, on the streets of downtown Cairo and in front of foreign embassies. Street protests in Egypt have been sharply curtailed in the last few years, but the scene was familiar t Ursula Lindsey • 16 min read
Current Analysis Arming Yemen Against Al-Qaeda Americans got a crash course on Yemen for Christmas. That’s because we’ve wanted to know more about the little-known, dirt-poor country in southwestern Arabia where the “underwear bomber” who tried to blow up a plane -- bound for Detroit from Nigeria on Christmas Day -- says he was trained. Preside Sheila Carapico • 2 min read
Current Analysis Catcher's Mitt Pakistan lies at the heart of President Barack Obama’s plan to wind down America’s war in Afghanistan. If -- as he avers -- the “overarching goal” is to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the war will be fought mainly in Pakistan. With fewer than a hundred fighters Graham Usher • 10 min read
Current Analysis Christmas Is Bittersweet in Bethlehem Bethlehem, Palestine is a special place to celebrate Christmas. It’s home to the Church of the Nativity and the field where shepherds, tending their flocks by night, spotted the star heralding Jesus’ birth. But apart from the historical mystique, here in Bethlehem we celebrate Christmas much like Ch George Rishmawi • 3 min read
Current Analysis Broken Taboos in Post-Election Iran The on-camera martyrdom of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year old philosophy student shot dead during the protests after the fraudulent presidential election in Iran in June, caught the imagination of the world. But the post-election crackdown has two other victims whose fates better capture the radical Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 10 min read
Current Analysis Once More Into the Breach Rashid Khalidi, Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009) Patrick Tyler, A World of Trouble: America in the Middle East (London: Portobello Books, 2009) Ussama Makdisi • 18 min read
Current Analysis Anatomy of a Nuclear Breakthrough Gone Backwards According to the headline writers at the hardline daily Keyhan, October 2 saw “a great victory for Iran” in Geneva. That day, Iran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili had sat down with representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, the contact group known as the Farideh Farhi • 15 min read
Current Analysis More Troops Won't Do It For the past two months, President Barack Obama has been weighing Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request to send an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaeda. That same effort, according to Obama, entails ensuring that the Taliban can’t regain control of the coun Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis The Precarious Existence of Dubai's Indian Middle Class Dubai, according to the conventional wisdom, is a bust. The International Monetary Fund predicts that economic growth in the United Arab Emirates as a whole will be lower in 2009 than in the last five years; the Dubai government has borrowed billions of dollars from Abu Dhabi to bail out its banks; Neha Vora • 11 min read
Current Analysis Fort Hood Shootings: Again We Will Be Judged for Acts We Didn't Commit So much is still unknown about the shooting at Fort Hood Army base and the motives of the alleged shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, but still I have that same queasy feeling in my stomach that I've had before: this will not be good for Muslims. First things first. Major Nidal Malik Hasan is in custody. W Moustafa Bayoumi • 2 min read
Current Analysis “Road Maps” and Roadblocks in Turkey’s Southeast “Whether you call it a terror problem, a southeastern Anatolia problem or a Kurdish problem, this is the first question for Turkey,” Abdullah Gül declared in May. “It has to be solved.” With these words from the president, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish acronym, Andy Hilton, Marlies Casier, Joost Jongerden • 17 min read
Current Analysis Damietta Mobilizes for Its Environment In 2008, Egypt’s Mediterranean port city of Damietta saw escalating protest against EAgrium, a Canadian consortium building a large fertilizer complex in Ra’s al-Barr. Ra’s al-Barr sits at the end of an estuary, where the Damietta branch of the Nile River joins the Mediterranean. It is a prime desti Sharif Elmusa, Jeannie Sowers • 16 min read
