Current Analysis Another "Historic Day" Looms in Iraq Yet another "historic day" will dawn in war-weary Iraq on January 30. As interim prime minister Iyad Allawi told Iraqi television viewers, "For almost the first time since the creation of Iraq, Iraqis will participate in choosing their representatives in complete freedom." Not to be outdone, Preside Chris Toensing • 10 min read
Current Analysis A Very Slippery "Landslide" for Mahmoud Abbas A chorus of international approval greeted Mahmoud Abbas' victory in the Palestinian Authority presidential election. January 9 was "a historic day for the Palestinian people and for the people of the Middle East," declared President George W. Bush, as the final count gave the Fatah party candidate Peter Lagerquist • 15 min read
Current Analysis Iran’s Nuclear Posture and the Scars of War In waging war on Iraq, one of the points the Bush administration sought to prove was that President Bill Clinton’s policy of dual containment had failed -- that despite a decade of threats, sanctions, military action and UN-led disarmament, Iraq had continued to develop weapons of mass destruction ( Joost Hiltermann • 13 min read
Current Analysis The "Olive Branch" That Ought to Cross the Wall The autumn olive harvest used to be a time of celebration in this West Bank village. Entire families would spend days together in the groves. Even Israelis would make special trips here at this time of year to buy our olive oil. But with new Israeli restrictions on access to the fields, Palestinian Abdul-Latif Khaled • 3 min read
Current Analysis Iran's Human Rights Record Should Be As 'Intolerable' As Its Nukes The Islamic Republic of Iran is in hot water with Washington and European capitals because of its apparent pursuit of a nuclear bomb. Dangling carrots of increased trade, the Europeans are trying to persuade Iran to renounce atomic ambitions. Skeptical of these methods but bogged down in Iraq, the B Kaveh Ehsani • 2 min read
Current Analysis The IMF and the Future of Iraq On November 21, 2004, the 19 industrialized nations that make up the so-called Paris Club issued a decision that, in effect, traces the outline of Iraq's economic future. The decision concerns a portion of Iraq's $120 billion sovereign debt—a staggering amount that all concerned parties recognize is Zaid Al-Ali • 12 min read
Current Analysis Hypocrisy Doesn't Win Arab Friends A prominent liberal Arab journalist who strongly supported the war in Iraq, has a long record of outspoken opposition to Islamic extremism, and has a deep appreciation for American values recently told me that he has never been more depressed or more alienated from the United States. Why? He was abs Marc Lynch • 3 min read
Current Analysis The Politics of Slaughter in Sudan One day in the summer of 2004, more than 400 armed members of the janjaweed militia attacked the western Sudanese village of Donki Dereisa. They killed 150 civilians, including six young children, aged 3 to 14, who were captured during the assault and burned alive later that day, according to Dan Connell • 11 min read
Current Analysis Gaza's Wars of Perception Operation Days of Penitence, launched on September 29, 2004, is the Israeli military's most extensive incursion into the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the current Palestinian uprising and its largest offensive within the Occupied Territories since the 2002 reconquest of West Bank cities during Operation Defensive Shield. Mouin Rabbani • 8 min read
Current Analysis Afghanistan's Presidential Elections Less than a month before George W. Bush's second bid for the White House, his protégé and partner in post-Taliban Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, faces an election that both men hope will not only establish the legitimacy of Karzai's presidency but also prove the Bush administration's claim that the war- M. Nazif Shahrani • 9 min read
Current Analysis Fahrenheit 9/11 Plays Cairo The cinema was crowded but not full when, at the end of August, Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 opened in a theater in Cairo's leafy southern suburb of Maadi. An audience made up of expatriate employees of UN agencies and well-heeled Egyptians snickered at each of Garay Menicucci • 6 min read
Current Analysis Off the Grid Air-conditioned transportation in Tehran is notoriously difficult to find. For pampered visitors such as the cultural anthropologists and documentary filmmakers from New York and Los Angeles who seem to converge on the Iranian capital every summer, a cool taxi ride to the northern parts of town reca Negar Mottahedeh • 18 min read
