Current Analysis Hear Out Muslim Brotherhood On a quiet, one-way street in Cairo’s middle-class Manial district, two bored security guards sit idly sipping tea. The building behind them houses a small apartment that serves as the main offices of the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest Islamist group in the Middle East. In Egypt, the Brotherhood is Joshua Stacher, Samer Shehata • 3 min read
Current Analysis Western Sahara Between Autonomy and Intifada In late February 2007, Western Saharan nationalists celebrated the thirty-first anniversary of their government, the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic. The official ceremonies did not take place in Laayoune, the declared capital of Western Sahara, but in the small outpost of Tifariti near the Algeria Jacob Mundy • 12 min read
Current Analysis Turkey, Cyprus and the European Division More than years after the opening of the ceasefire line that divides Cyprus, the island is closer than ever to rupture. When the Green Line first opened in April 2003, there was an initial period of euphoria, as Cypriots flooded in both directions to visit homes and neighbors left unwillingly behind Rebecca Bryant • 12 min read
Current Analysis Wasting Time In The Middle East Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice concluded her second trip to the Middle East in a month with little to show for her efforts. The meeting she hosted between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was undermined the day before it began. Olm Joel Beinin • 4 min read
Current Analysis The Pigeon on the Bridge Is Shot “Sometimes they ask me what it is like to be an Armenian. I tell them that it is a wonderful thing and I recommend it to everyone.” These were Hrant Dink’s opening remarks at a conference entitled “Ottoman Armenians During the Collapse of the Ottoman Empire,” held in Istanbul on September 24 and 25, Ayşe Kadıoğlu • 13 min read
Current Analysis The Pakistan Taliban A severed head is waved before a baying crowd. The camera zooms in to show a second bloodied corpse, the eyes gouged out and a wad of cash stuffed in the mouth, swinging from a pole. He is one of 29 “criminals, drug pushers, bootleggers and extortionists” executed for running Graham Usher • 14 min read
Current Analysis There and Back Again in Somalia When 2006 dawned in Somalia, the war-torn Horn of Africa nation had been without a functioning central government for 15 years. The main claimant to the title, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) formed in 2004, was unable to extend its authority beyond a small portion of the countryside. An uneasy Ken Menkhaus • 18 min read
Current Analysis Somalia Airstrikes Are Not the Answer On January 24, the US launched a second round of airstrikes in Somalia against alleged al-Qaeda terrorists believed to be responsible for the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Intended to eradicate these extremist elements from the Horn of Africa, the airstrikes instead exacerb Khalid Mustafa Medani • 2 min read
Current Analysis Winter of Lebanon’s Discontents In the two months since the standoff between the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and the Hizballah-led opposition began in earnest, the atmosphere in the Lebanese capital of Beirut has oscillated between ambient anxiety and incongruous routine. Tensions exploded on January 25, when four Le Jim Quilty • 16 min read
Current Analysis A Reckoning Deferred How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? That haunting question, posed by John Kerry to Congress when he was a discharged Navy lieutenant in 1971, helped to slow, and eventually stop, a pointless, unpopular war in Vietnam. That question, in part because Kerry declined to pose it The Editors • 10 min read
Current Analysis Iraqis Deserved Better Justice For much of the time that I wrote my biography of Saddam Hussein between 2003-2005, its ending remained unclear. Throughout the process of researching and writing the book, Saddam’s government was overthrown, and he went into hiding. In December 2003, US soldiers participating in Operation Red Dawn Shiva Balaghi • 2 min read
Current Analysis Behind the Gaza Breakdown The latest convoluted set of events within Palestine, and at its borders, form a depressing tableau that mirrors the conflict as a whole. Chris Toensing • 3 min read
