Category: Middle East

Mohamed ElBaradei was greeted by cheering crowds upon his return to Cairo. Now for the hard part   David Kenner 19 February 2010   Austrian Airlines Flight 863 touched down...

Prof. Scott Lucas 23 February 2010 Yesterday a prominent Iran correspondent for an international news agency wrote, as an afterthought on a post about the “Iranian Cyber Army”, “The authorities...

Prof. Barry Rubin 22 February 2010   How do leading Arab forces view the U.S. and Iranian maneuverings over Tehran’s drive to get nuclear weapons, the world’s number one political...

Daniel Kurtzer 08 February 2010   Ariel Sharon was considered the godfather of the Israeli settlements movement. His ardent support of settlements construction and the legitimacy he lent to the...

Dorian Jones 29 January 2010   Iranians fleeing the Tehran government's crackdown on its opponents are increasingly seeking refuge in Turkey.   Months of continuing political instability in Iran and the...

Prof. Scott Lucas Britain’s Financial Times has published a lengthy interview with Mehdi Karroubi. The full interview, covering Karroubi’s political involvement from 1979 to the present, is well worth a read, but...

Prof. Scott Lucas   insideIRAN publishes an interview with one of the most prominent US-based expatriate Iranians:   Fatemeh Haghighatjoo was a member of Iran’s Parliament from 2000 to 2004, and...

Prof. Barry Rubin   There is an iron rule in modern democratic politics that parties periodically ignore to their peril: if a party goes too far to an extreme--to the...

Prof. Scott Lucas  The world is once again watching Iran. A series of weekend developments are in the global press this morning. Thomas Erdbrink of The Washington Postcovers the Parliamentary report on the...

Barry Rubin If you launch a West Bank operation to defeat a terrorist war (against international complaints); build a security fence (despite international criticism); and fight a defensive action in...

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has told his Israeli counterpart construction work on land taken from Palestinians in 1967 must stop if there is to be peace.   Speaking at a press...

Ahmed El Amraoui   Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president and PLO leader, died on November 11, 2004 but his supporters and opponents continue to reflect - and often debate -...

Palestinian officials are preparing to ask the United Nations to endorse their quest for an independent state after years of failed peace talks, Palestinian authorities have said.   Saeb Erekat,...

Meredith Buel From the beginning of his administration, U.S. President Barack Obama said resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be a top foreign policy priority. After nearly 10 months of diplomacy,...

Prof. Scott Lucas   Again, with apologies in advance, I am reacting to an article in a US newspaper about the Green movement in Iran.   I do not want...