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Alger Hiss, The “Loss” of China, and the Obama Administration’s “Blindspot” Toward The Islamist Threat

When Andrew McCarthy drew a parallel between the treatment of State Department official Alger Hiss in the 1940s and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin Weiner today it reminded me of an interesting discovery from my own research… Continue reading

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Muslim Brotherhood ‘Democracy’

Prior to Egypt’s presidential elections, Islamists made clear that the electoral process was an obligatory form of “holy war”… Continue reading

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Turkey Raises Central Asian Profil through SCO Link

The decision of the heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Beijing to designate Turkey a formal dialogue partner of the organization is yet another sign of recognition of Turkey’s growing influence in Central and South Asia… Continue reading

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Islamists Are Generally Winning But Not Everywhere and Not Inevitably

Hussein Ibish is one of the more interesting Arab writers on regional affairs. Ibish critiques the idea that assumes the inexorable rise of Islamist parties… Continue reading

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Yankee Go Home! Saith the Good Guys

The interesting news was not that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pelted with stuff while visiting Cairo, the important issue was who was doing the pelting… Continue reading

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Hindu vs. Muslim Honor Killings

Although the overwhelming majority of honor killings worldwide occur within Muslim communities, one would not know this by reading the mainstream media… Continue reading

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Will the Rebels Win Syria’s Civil War and What That Means

The tide seems to be turning in Syria… Continue reading

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Trans-Anatolian Pipeline: A Geopolitical Achievement, but no Panacea for Turkey’s Energy Independence

The realization of the Trans-Anatolian Project by 2018 will strengthen Azerbaijan in strategic terms, offering it a route to the world markets that bypasses Russia… Continue reading

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Why the Mass Media’s Best Effort to Understand Obama’s Failure to Make Israel-Palestinian Peace Fails

And this can be largely explained by a curious but constant missing ingredient in mass media coverage… Continue reading

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Rethinking Libya

Islamist factions have not emerged to dominate the Libyan election results… Continue reading

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Israel is in Good Shape Because So Many Others Decided Not to Be

The more I think about Israel’s security situation at this moment, the better it looks… Continue reading

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Obama’s spectacular failure

Obama came into office with a theory on which he based his Middle East policy. His theory was that jihadists hate America because the US supports Israel… Continue reading

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A First Look at Egypt’s New Constitution Shows a Careful Ambiguity On Islamic Rule

Although it isn’t official, the first two articles of Egypt’s new Constitution have been reportedly drafted by the committee of parliamentarians charged with that task… Continue reading

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Calls to Destroy Egypt’s Great Pyramids Begin

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt’s Great Pyramids… Continue reading

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The Turkish Naval Base at the Dead Sea during World War I

The Dead Sea was a major supply route for the Turkish army between eastern and western Palestine during WWI… Continue reading

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Does Power Moderate Radicals? Where’s the Proof?

An interesting and important question about the Middle East is whether being in power or running in an election inevitably moderates those who are radicals… Continue reading

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The Battle over Silwan

On the face of it, the sparring that erupted over a gate built illegally by Arab residents may seem like a miniature version of the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians over who controls the Holy Land… Continue reading

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Egypt’s “Sex-Slave” Marriage

What is being dubbed as Egypt’s “first sex-slave marriage” took place mere days after the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammad Morsi was made president… Continue reading

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Tunisia: Goodbye Democracy? Islamists Start to Take Over Media

The much-touted, Islamist-led coalition government in Tunisia is showing how little has changed… Continue reading

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“And What Do You Want to Say to the Iraqi People?”

I’ve been interviewed a number of times, for example, by Iraqi journalists. But this time there was a different kind of question at the end of the interview… Continue reading

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Yasir Arafat Is Still Dead and We Know Who Really Did Him In

Yasir Arafat is still dead. True, he was once alive…Continue reading

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Erdogan’s Invitation to Gülen: Reconciliation or Power Play?

On June 14, 2012, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly invited Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the powerful Gülen Movement, to return to Turkey from self-imposed exile in the United States… Continue reading

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Why Were Antique German Weapons Found at the Dead Sea in Recent Months?

Last month Israeli newspapers reported on the discovery of a huge cache of guns, bullets, artillery shells and mines in the Dead Sea… Continue reading

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Assessing Iraq’s Oil Industry

This article provides an overview of Iraq’s oil and gas industry, focusing in particular on its history since 2003 under the Coalition Provisional Authority and the sovereign Iraqi government… Continue reading

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Who Rules Egypt? The Battle Begins

It is impossible for the moment to say what’s going to happen in Egypt. But there are two basic scenarios… Continue reading