The Iranian political demonstrations now under way have roots in the Arab Spring upheavals that began in December 2010 in North Africa. The starting point was Tunisia, the rare success story of the Arab Spring—despite two major terrorist attacks in 2015 and this week’s protests against austerity,…
Elliott Abrams, writing at the Council on Foreign Relations website, argues that America has an interest in supporting democracy in the Arab world. Here's an excerpt:
President Obama is putting on the hard sell to market the nuclear deal he reached with Iran. On July 14, in announcing the agreement, he said: “This deal shows the real and meaningful change that American leadership and diplomacy can bring—change that makes our country and the world safer and more…
Back in the heady days when the Western world was still enthralled by what was then known as the Arab Spring, the 2012 Egyptian presidential elections represented a watershed – if albeit a mixed one, given the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi. The coming-to-power of Morsi…
Concerned Veterans for America has launched a new video series on the failures of the Obama administration's foreign policy doctrine of "leading from behind." The launch begins with Libya as a case study in what's gone wrong with U.S. foreign relations. Watch the video below:
Elliott Abrams, writing for National Review Online:
This week marks the second anniversary of the fall of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Two years after the refrain “the people want to topple the regime” filled Tahrir Square, it is now Egypt itself that is toppling. Street violence has pitted various groups against each other—anarchists against…
One thing Hillary Clinton got right in her testimony before Congress last week: “When America is absent,” she said, “there are consequences.” But the administration she served has chosen to be absent, and we are seeing the consequences play out, from North Africa to the Levant, where the unchecked…
Iran is claiming to have successfully "hunted" an American drone, according to a piece in the regime organ Fars News Agency. The propaganda outlet claims that this is the first time Iran has shot down an American drone.
Two technology firms that monitor global Internet traffic report that Syria has been cut off from the Internet. Regular landline phone and cell phones services have been affected as well, Syrian opposition activist Ammar Abdulhamid told me. “Therefore, the possibility of accidental damage can be…
It's worth recalling President Barack Obama's foreign policy instincts before tonight's presidential debate on that topic.
Yesterday a car bomb in Beirut killed a senior Lebanese security chief along with seven others, while wounding hundreds in Ashrafiyeh, a busy neighborhood in Christian-majority East Beirut. The target, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, was close to former prime minister Saad Hariri and his late father,…
On and around September 11, 2012, al Qaeda attacked multiple American assets around the world. The attack that has received the most attention is the deadly attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. But the U.S.…
A pro-America rally is scheduled to be held tomorrow outside the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel. The expression of support for America is being organized by Im Tirzu Movement in order to "remind the United States that Israel is America's best friend in the Middle East"
In a message to Israeli citizens yesterday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he'd use his remarks at the United Nations to respond to the "black day" at the international body. Netanyahu is scheduled to speak later today.
“Bir Halek, Ya Fayyad” is not a catchy tune. But the popularity of Palestinian singer Kassem Najar’s song, which translates to “Get A Grip, Fayyad,” is an indication that Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, may be on the way out. Najar, however, is the least of Fayyad’s…
This evening on CBS's 60 Minutes, President Barack Obama called the recent violence in the Middle East "bumps in the road."
A central tenet of President Obama’s foreign policy platform is that al Qaeda is “on the path to defeat.” The death of Osama bin Laden, drone strikes in northern Pakistan and elsewhere, the Arab Spring, and Obama’s more conciliatory approach to the Muslim world have all supposedly come together to…
A large demonstration is planned for tomorrow, Friday, in front of the U.S. embassy in Cairo but, as you can see on Al Jazeera’s live streaming video, protesters are gathered today, too. The police have established their position at some distance from the crowd, as well as the embassy, and are…
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a presidential-style address this morning on the deaths of diplomats in Libya. Watch here:
Yesterday, on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an Egyptian mob stormed the U.S. embassy in Cairo, pulled down the American flag and burned it. In its place, they raised a black banner inscribed with the shehada ("There is no God but Allah, Mohamed is the messenger of Allah"), a pennant…
During the assault on the U.S. embassy in Egypt, demonstrators reportedly chanted “Obama! Obama! We are all Osama!” They yelled this obvious reference to Osama bin Laden as an al Qaeda-style flag was hoisted and the American flag brought down. At least one of the protesters at the anti-American…
According to a transcript of this morning's statement, President Barack Obama failed to mention the storming of the U.S. embassy in Cairo yesterday. His statement focused on the loss of an American ambassador and other embassy workers yesterday in Benghazi, Libya.
Here's video of the U.S. embassy in Cairo being mobbed yesterday:
A WEEKLY STANDARD reader points out that in all the early commentary about the events in Libya and Egypt, no one seems to have noted the date. Could it be, as he puts it, that "someone had it marked on a calendar to whip up a murderous frenzy on, oh, Tuesday 9/11"?
The Associated Press reports:
If Syria is a testing ground for the larger struggle of the American-led order in the Middle East against the Iranian-led resistance bloc, it’s also an example of the importance of the Kurds. An ethnic community with almost 30 million people spread across the Middle East—most densely in Turkey,…
In Beirut last week, former Lebanese MP and cabinet member Michel Samaha was arrested and later confessed to “planning terrorist attacks in Lebanon at Syrian orders.” A longtime ally of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Samaha was apparently acting under the direction of Damascus to stir sectarian…
Last week the Treasury Department leveled sanctions against Hezbollah for providing support to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in his efforts to put down the 17-month-old rebellion meant to topple his regime. Since Hezbollah has already been designated as a foreign terrorist organization, this…
Earlier this month, 48 Iranian Shiite “pilgrims” were abducted in Damascus. The Free Syrian Army claims they were members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who have been dispatched to Syria to protect one of Tehran’s vital interests, Bashar al-Assad’s regime. It’s not the first time that…
To Hell in a Handbasket
Kofi Annan resigned yesterday as the United Nations-Arab League Envoy to Syria after failing to bring an end to the internecine violence that has been raging in Syria since last spring.
For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, Saudi women are being allowed by their ultra-conservative government to compete. As the Saudi athletes marched in the opening ceremonies in London, the women’s faces and open arms showed a joyful sense of emancipation from the yoke of…
Why hasn’t President Obama intervened militarily in Syria? After all, this is a president who issued a directive last year stating that a “core” national security interest of the United States would be to prevent mass atrocities of precisely the kind Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is now…
For 22 years, Bandar bin Sultan was Saudi Arabia’s influential, irrepressible ambassador in Washington. After years in eclipse, he has just been named as head of the kingdom’s intelligence service. What does it all mean?
On Wednesday, July 18, a bomb killed at least three top officials from Bashar al Assad’s crumbling regime. Among them was Assef Shawkat, the deputy defense minister and former head of Syrian military intelligence. Different accounts of how Shawkat and the others were killed have been offered to the…
Advocates of robust American action in Syria to help remove Bashar al-Assad from power have typically made two arguments. One is the humanitarian case, urging the Obama administration to prevent further bloodshed in what is now turning into a campaign of sectarian cleansing against Syria’s Sunni…
The Syrian regime has reportedly perpetrated another episode of sectarian cleansing. Yesterday, the army and paramilitary gangs loyal to president Bashar al-Assad killed more than 200 people in the Sunni village of Tremseh, in Hama province.
The latest military developments in Syria are now generally understood as ushering in a new phase in the Syrian conflict. What’s less observed is that the minority Alawite regime’s mass killings of Sunnis and the intense fighting around the cities of Homs and Hama also seem to replicate significant…
Human Rights Watch has just released an 81-page report detailing the Syrian regime’s systematic use of torture against opposition figures. “‘Torture Archipelago: Arbitrary Arrests, Torture and Enforced Disappearances in Syria’s Underground Prisons since March 2011’ is based on more than 200…
At the end of an interesting op-ed, Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevy relates an interesting and revealing anecdote about Senator John Kerry, who is believed to be in the running for the secretary of state position should Barack Obama be reelected.
The Associated Press reports that, when it comes to Syria, the Arab League is uniting around the opposition:
News channel France 24 hosted a panel Monday night to discuss Egypt’s first civilian president, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi. One of the guests on the panel, via satellite from Cairo, was Nader Amram, a member of the Freedom & Justice Party’s foreign relations committee. (The Freedom &…
Either the Iranian regime is lying or Egypt’s new president, Mohammed Morsi, gave an interview that will raise some eyebrows.
Egyptian state television is reporting that authorities are delaying announcement of the results of last week's presidential election.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is helping to coordinate logistics for the Free Syrian Army, but not providing arms. “U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations…
Can Israelis be wistful? It is not the characteristic we usually associate with them; more typically they are said to be tough, sweet, angry, thoughtful, demanding—not wistful.
Reports are circulating of another Syrian regime massacre yesterday in a small town near Hama, al-Qubayr. It appears that, as with the slaughter at Houla two weeks ago, more 100 were killed, including many women and children.
From the Washington Post: "Asked Thursday whether he could envision a situation in which the United States would take military action in Syria without U.N. authorization, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said, 'No, I cannot envision that because, look, as secretary of defense, my greatest…
America's ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, unequivocally stated at the U.N. Security Council stakeout that Iran is "very much complicit in the killing that is going on" in Syria. Rice would not provide further details on how the Iranians are helping the Syrians suppress the protesters…
Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called the Syrian regime's latest atrocities "horrific." He also said that "it is far part time for the United States ... to put an end to the Assad regime."
Last Friday, a Lebanese military tribunal met for the fifth time in the trial of Sheikh Hassan Mchaymech, the Hezbollah dissident. The Shia cleric Mchaymech was first kidnapped in the summer of 2010 by Syrian security forces as he tried to cross the Lebanon-Syria border on his way to make a…
Maarab, Lebanon
Yesterday the Washington Post inexplicably published a piece about the Vogue profile of Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad—a profile published in March 2011. It’s inexplicable because it’s old news: Vogue removed the story, titled “A Rose in the Desert,” from its website long ago—and the fact that the…
An essay in the latest issue of Foreign Policy by Egyptian-born activist and journalist Mona Eltahawy, “Why Do They Hate Us? The real war on women is in the Middle East,” couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. Today Egypt’s new Islamist-dominated parliament drafted a law permitting men to…
The situation of the Palestinian Authority is grim. Its diplomatic offensive against Israel in the United Nations did not win it statehood, there are no serious negotiations with Israel because the PA refuses them, Hamas controls Gaza, and Palestinian elections keep getting postponed despite the…
In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee yesterday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reiterated President Obama’s August 2011 demand that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad step down. However, neither explained how this…
Here's video from Homs, documenting yet more violations of the Kofi Annan-brokered Syrian ceasefire that the Obama administration is celebrating:
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Foreign Policy Initiative offer these suggestions for what President Obama should be doing in Syria:
Last week, the Obama administration started releasing the $1.3 billion in U.S. military assistance to Egypt that’s been on hold since October. Over the objections of human rights advocates and democracy activists, Hillary Clinton signed a waiver allowing Washington to circumvent recent legislation…
Reuters reports that "Iran is providing a broad array of assistance to Syrian President Bashar Assad to help him suppress anti-government protests, from high-tech surveillance technology to guns and ammunition, U.S. and European security officials say."
In an article today in NOW Lebanon, Tony Badran reports that Hillary Clinton “dismissed a number of forward leaning options on Syria” proposed by Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to the White House. “What this means,” writes Badran, “is that Washington, which at one point subcontracted its…
Working to suppress the protesters in Syria, the army there, the New York Times reports, is "gathering confidence":
During the decades of international sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, successive U.S. administrations yearned for regime change. The hope was that longstanding frustration with international isolation and relative deprivation would inspire some unspecified Baathist general to assassinate…
In Now Lebanon, Hussain Abdul Hussain writes about “the new Arab thinking.” It was not born overnight, explains the Washington-based Arab media correspondent:
The Guardian has a fascinating piece on "The Arab world's first ladies of oppression," and how the wives of Arab dictators have served as objects of scorn in the Arab spring:
The case of Hamza Kashgari, the 23-year-old ex-columnist for the Saudi Arabian daily newspaper Al-Bilad (The Land), has exposed the convoluted internal situation in the desert kingdom. The controversy began on the birthday of Muhammad, when Kashgari wrote an imaginary dialogue with the Muslim…
Two years ago in Cairo, Nobel laureate and former International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei was the talk of the town. Newly retired from the IAEA, ElBaradei returned to Egypt in February 2010 after living abroad for decades. He began criticizing the Mubarak regime, hinting that he…
This morning, the White House released a statement regarding further atrocities committed by the Syrian regime.
Earlier in the week Israel Hayom reported that the new Tunisian constitution may include “a section condemning Zionism and ruling out any friendly ties with Israel.” Yesterday Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of al-Nahda (Revival), the main Islamist party that won more than 40 percent of the seats in…
Despite the violence from street protests that left some 38 people dead over the last two weeks, Egyptians went to the polls today for the first round of parliamentary elections. As the website for the semi-official Egyptian daily Al-Ahram notes, there will be three rounds of elections for the…
There was another attack on Coptic Christians today as they marched through the Cairo neighborhood of Shoubra. Until the late 1960s, it was predominantly a Coptic district (today, some estimate, it is 40 percent Copt), which is why the rally’s organizers felt reasonably safe to march. Instead,…
Opposition forces stormed the parliament yesterday after marching on the house of the prime minister, Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmed al-Sabah, to demand he resign. Protesters hold the prime minister responsible for failing to fight the country's growing corruption—this report from Al Arabiya's…
It’s been a lousy week for Bashar al-Assad. First came news that Syria was to be suspended from the Arab League despite the complicating fact that Assad still technically holds the presidency of the Arab League Council, the chief decision-making body of the organization. Then, last night, King…
It’s been a lousy week for Bashar al-Assad. First came news that Syria was to be suspended from the Arab League despite the complicating fact that Assad still technically holds the presidency of the Arab League Council, the chief decision-making body of the organization. Then, last night, King…
On Sunday, October 16, the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal was awarded the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade at Frankfurt’s historic St. Paul’s Church. Sansal is the author of six novels, including the widely praised The German Mujahid (Europa Editions, 2009), the first of his novels…
With Muammar Qaddafi still at large, continued fighting in parts of Libya, and an uncertain future ahead for that country’s long-oppressed people, one hesitates to make too many categorical judgments about the remarkable turn of events there. A few things can be said, however.
Earlier today, Syrian security forces arrested the brother of a Syrian opposition leader in exile, Radwan Ziadeh, who is now a George Washington University visiting scholar. Thirty-seven-year-old Yassin Ziadeh was at a demonstration after prayers (for the eid al-fitr holiday), Radwan told me on the…
Since the revolution in January, Egypt has been in a constant state of unrest. While the protests have been mostly peaceful, there are exceptions. The other week, dozens in one of Cairo’s slums—known as “Garbage City”—were throwing rocks at passing cars, demanding housing they had allegedly been…
John Bolton, writing in the New York Post, urges President Obama to "lead from the front."
With the advent of the Arab Spring, several former Arab tyrannies (Egypt, Tunisia, now Libya, perhaps Syria next) have thrown off dictators and are, or will be, moving toward elections. And in Jordan and Morocco, the kings have announced new constitutional arrangements that move powers to elected…
With Muammar Qaddafi surrounded in Tripoli, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad may be starting to fear more for his future. Perhaps he’s thinking that the international coalition that brought down the Libyan leader may now turn its attention to him—but now with a victory, once thought uncertain,…
Josh Rogin reports that the Treasury Department has announced new sanctions of Syria:
In Foreign Policy, John Hannah suggests that Syria's neighbors are betting on Bashar al-Assad's demise:
Beirut—Kuwait and Bahrain are the most recent additions to the list of Gulf Cooperation Council states that have withdrawn their ambassadors to Syria. First Qatar yanked its diplomat, after a regime-led mob attacked Doha’s embassy in Damascus. Now, with the ruler in Damascus laying siege to Deir…
Yesterday, Matar Ibrahim Matar, a former member of parliament from the main opposition bloc, Al Wefaq, was released from detention after more than three months in a Bahraini jail, where, he told the BBC, he was tortured. Matar was pulled out of his home by Bahraini security forces on May 2.
In some polls of Middle East opinion, Obama ranks lower than Bush. And now here come assessments from the region's intelligentsia. "Give Obama an ‘F’ in the Middle East," writes Lebanese journalist Michael Young, author of the award winning account of the Cedar Revolution, The Ghosts of Martyrs…
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has compiled a report on "Syria's Energy Sector." As FDD's Mark Dubowitz writes in the Hill: "This week, members of Congress are waking up from a debt-ceiling hangover to consider a bipartisan energy sanctions bill that would exert peaceful pressure on…
In his column for Tablet, Lee Smith asks, "The recent massacres in Oslo, Norway, and Hama, Syria, were both carried out by heartless sociopaths. Why does one of them—Syria’s Bashar al-Assad—continue to enjoy diplomatic relations with Washington?"
After cracking down on protesters and killing 1,500 of its own citizens, Syria seems to be changing its tactics:
“Sectarian violence in Syria raises fears,” screamed the headline of a Washington Post article on the murder Tuesday of 16 Syrians in the city of Homs, which lies 100 miles north of Damascus. Admitting that "confirming details" of what happened are hard to come by in a city under siege, the Post's…
Journalist and Arab media specialist Hussain Abdul Hussain links to a remarkable film about the Syrian uprising, Syria’s Youth Revolutionaries:
It’s been five months since the revolution that ended the 30-year tenure of Hosni Mubarak, but the upheaval in Egypt is far from over. Large protests have become routine if not habitual in Egypt. In late June, 1,000 civilians criticizing the slow pace of reform were injured in clashes with riot…
Cairo—By the time I arrived at Tahrir the morning of July 8, the iconic square was already flooded with tens of thousands of activists for what the Egyptian media dubbed “Persistence Friday.” For the first time since the 18 days of protests earlier this year that brought down Hosni Mubarak, nearly…
Israël Peut-il Survivre? (Will Israel Endure?)
Syrian protestors greet US ambassador Robert Ford with roses as his car entered Hama this afternoon during the midst of more Friday protests against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Ford wished to show his solidarity with the opposition, but is he also signaling a change in American policy?
Half a year after the fall of Tunisia’s Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, it’s time for a partial reckoning of the Arab Spring. Verdict: Uncertain.
For the last several months, Syrians have been loudly protesting their own government. The regime, led by strongman Bashar al-Assad, has responded by killing its own citizens, including women and children, and shutting off channels of communication that the protesters have been utilizing (such as…
It can’t give many Americans much lasting pleasure that the Israeli prime minister humbled our commander in chief this week on his home turf. To be sure, a president who seems to relish provoking public confrontations with an ally may have had it coming, but in the end Netanyahu’s speech before…
Paul Ryan defended America's role as the leading defender of freedom and liberty in a foreign policy address this evening. Speaking to the Alexander Hamilton Society, Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, laid out a vision that defended America's exceptional role as a world…
In his speech at the State Department on May 19, President Obama called Egypt essential to the future of democratic reform in the Middle East and North Africa. As the largest and most influential Arab country, Egypt could in large part determine the course of the regional uprisings and the prospect…
Saudi authorities have arrested Manal al-Sherif, a courageous female subject of the kingdom who blogged about the demand made by her and others for the right of Saudi women to drive motor vehicles.
Judging the likely trajectory of post-Mubarak Egypt requires assessing the depth of public support for Islamism, and usually this has meant assessing the strength and intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood. While the Brotherhood remains central, however, the country is also facing a frequently…
WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor Reuel Marc Gerecht weighs in this morning with a piece in the Wall Street Journal on how "killing of Shiites in Iraq was Bin Laden's undoing in the eyes of many Muslims":
Hitchens: "Death of a Madman"
Beirut
Spring isn’t what it used to be. Here, for example, is Robert Browning in 1841:
"You know what? I’m gonna call it. Bill Maher is the de facto leader of the Democratic Party."