Category: Middle East

Prof. Scott Lucas   One of the immediate headline issues in yesterday’s bombings in Iran, which killed at least 42 people including six senior Revolutionary Guard commanders, was US involvement....

Prof. Scott Lucas   The media will be buzzing for the rest of the day about an American “scrapping” of its plans to base missile defense in sites in Poland...

Ilan Berman After months of dithering and delay, the Iranian government appears to have grudgingly accepted the U.S. president's diplomatic overtures. Just shy of the deadline for dialogue set by...

Shlomo Ben-Ami   No matter how important rising oil powers outside the Middle East are becoming, the region will continue to be the world’s main source of energy for years...

Prof. Scott Lucas   Today, on Iran’s “weekend”, should be a political catch-your-breath day after the culmination of Parliament’s approval of 18 of 21 proposed Ministers for the Ahmadinejad Cabinet....

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and U.S. President Barack Obama expressed optimism about attaining Middle East peace after their White House Meeting on Tuesday. But journalists and regional analysts are far...

Iraq’s Arab-led central government and Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq are talking, but they are still far from agreement on issues of land and oil that threaten the country’s stability....

Prof. Scott Lucas   From Press TV, “Ahmadinejad aide says jail improves health condition”: Amid concerns over health conditions and treatment of Iran’s post-vote detainees, an aide to the Iranian...

Prof. Scott Lucas The immediate significance of Mehdi Karroubi’s letter, as it passed from Karroubi to Secretary of Parliament Ali Larijani and then, via Hashemi Rafsanjani, to the head of...

Scott Lucas, Prof.   Throughout the Iran crisis, we have referred to US-based efforts to manipulate the conflict for a much different objective: confronting Iran over its nuclear programme.  ...

Scott Lucas, Prof. The political scene in Iran is always shifting, but an hour last night brought dramatic evidence of the trends, not only in Opposition v. Government but also...

Scott Lucas, Prof.  Earlier this week I wrote, as part of our posts on the casualties and detentions in the post-election conflict in Iran, about a figure of 245 deaths...

Giles Scott-Smith Iraq 2003 is becoming ancient history within the Anglo-Saxon political world, as all the commissions have reported, the questions have been answered (as far as we know), and...

Scott Lucas, Prof.   This weekend, candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, in the context both of the Guardian Council’s purported recount of 10% of the Presidential vote and its appointment of...

Breffni O'Rourke As part of a strategy by Israel to improve relations with moderate, secular countries of the Islamic world, President Shimon Peres is visiting Azerbaijan on June 28. In the first...