Current Analysis Manhunting in Africa The penultimate scene in the recently released film Captain Phillips, about the 2009 seizure of the US-flagged cargo ship Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates, depicts the methodical precision with which a Navy SEAL Team 6 unit identified and then captured or killed the pirates during their doomed attem Steve Niva • 5 min read
Current Analysis Round Two to Arafat The release of the Swiss Institut de Radiophysique’s Experts Forensic Report [http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/06/yasser-arafat-report-swiss-institut-radiophysique-full-text] Concerning the Late President Yasser Arafat has lent further credence to the proposition that the iconic Mouin Rabbani • 3 min read
Current Analysis New Alliances and Schisms in Sudan The ten days of protests in Sudan beginning September 23, 2013 were the largest in the country since the installation of the military government of Omar al-Bashir in 1989. As Middle East Report editor Khalid Mustafa Medani explains in an interview with KPFA, unlike the youth-led protests of 2011 and Amanda Ufheil-Somers • 1 min read
Current Analysis What Comes Next Whatever comes next [http://mondoweiss.net/2013/10/israelpalestine-recognized-comprehensive.html] in the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, the State of Israel is here to stay. To acknowledge this fact is not to nod to Israel’s “right to exist” -- people have rights, states are supposed Chris Toensing • 4 min read
Current Analysis UN Admission, Ours and Yours Having declared independence in May 1948, the new State of Israel was lacking in international legitimacy. Recognizing the deficiency, Israeli officials invested tremendous effort over the course of 1948-1949 in securing Israel’s admission to the United Nations. A recent paper [http://www.tandfonli Jamie Stern-Weiner • 3 min read
Current Analysis Iran, the Twenty-First-Century Island of Stability Iran’s 1979 revolution, in helping to push out Jimmy Carter and bring in Ronald Reagan, offered up one of the few instances in the latter half of the twentieth century where domestic politics in a Third World country affected domestic politics in the United States more than the other way around. Aya Kevan Harris • 4 min read
Current Analysis Breaking Point One of the many plot lines lost in the summertime discussions of a US strike on Syria is the pace of refugee movement out of the country. As it stands, the refugee crisis is overwhelming and likely to stay that way. Another external military intervention would further accelerate the mass flight and Omar S. Dahi • 8 min read
Current Analysis On the Signs of Intervention in Syria Today Secretary of State John Kerry presented documents in support of his case [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23906913] that the Syrian regime ordered a chemical weapons attack that killed 1,429 Syrians, including 426 children. Days earlier Kerry had promised “consequences” if the US j The Editors • 8 min read
Current Analysis Egyptian Workers After June 30 The independent labor movement that has flourished in Egypt since the ouster of former president Husni Mubarak enthusiastically supported the Tamarrud (Rebel) campaign for the huge June 30 demonstrations asserting a popular vote of no confidence in President Muhammad Mursi. The Center for Trade Unio Joel Beinin • 9 min read
Current Analysis On Egypt's Day of Infamy August 14, 2013 was a day whose events and meaning Egyptians will be debating fiercely for decades to come. Following that day’s bloodshed, Egypt is in the middle of its most severe crisis since the fall of ex-president Husni Mubarak in February 2011. The fate of the country -- popular sovereignty o The Editors • 7 min read
Current Analysis Catastrophe in Cairo The weak US response to the August 14 massacre of protesters in Egypt signals a preference for the Egyptian military's vision of stability over the uncertainty of a genuinely democratic political process, says Middle East Report editor Chris Toensing in a segment on Democracy Now! [http://www.democr Amanda Ufheil-Somers • 1 min read
Current Analysis An "Electoral Uprising" in Iran “Last night I sat in traffic with my wife and daughters for three hours,” a Tehran office manager recounted, “and the car did not move one meter.” The day before, Iranians had chosen Hassan Rouhani as the Islamic Republic’s seventh president. “All the cars honked their horns, and people danced and c Kevan Harris • 16 min read
