Essays
Anti-Trade Alliance
Who’s afraid of globalization? Everybody from Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders, it seems, and environmentalists and factory workers in between. An unlikely coalition of skeptics from across the political spectrum is driving the anti-trade movement.
Speed Bumps on the Silk Road
By Rebecca Liao
China has unveiled a “win-win” policy paper to guide its approach to the Middle East. Its $1 trillion One Belt One Road infrastructure initiative will extend all the way to North Africa. But can trade buy Beijing political clout in the region?
Made in Palestine
By Marda Dunsky
Expansion of Israeli settlements, restriction on access to water, and land confiscation are displacing Palestinians from agricultural livelihoods they have known for centuries. But olive tree growers and backyard gardeners are refusing to surrender their heritage. This is a story of farmers under occupation.
Is There Hope for Iraq?
Defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will offer Baghdad a fresh state-building opportunity to correct the mistakes following the ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003. As Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds pursue their own interests, a serious effort toward communal understanding is the key to progress.
Rise of the Militiamen
The end of the strongman era in Iraq has led to the rise of paramilitaries representing sects and ethnicities. Popular Mobilization Units have become part of the state’s official security structure. Although the PMUs have been instrumental in the fight against ISIS, their more powerful militias pose a stark challenge to the country’s future stability.
Scramble for Syria
Iran’s support for the Al-Assad regime in Damascus has long provided it with a foothold in Lebanon, Palestine, and the rest of the region. But with its deepening role in the Syrian civil war, Tehran is losing hearts and minds in the Arab World.
Fury in the Philippines
When President Rodrigo Duterte unleashed a deadly war on drug traffickers, criticism by the Obama administration highlighted growing tensions in the century-old U.S.-Philippine alliance. Will Duterte’s budding friendship with a new American president head off Manila’s tilt to China?
Ripples of the 1967 War
By crushing the Arab armies, Israel paradoxically resurrected the Palestinian national movement. But fifty years after Israeli forces captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the bitter struggle over Palestine continues, and continues . . .
Myths of the Six-Day War
By Ilan Pappé
Were Arab leaders determined to launch an attack on Israel? Were Israeli leaders willing to seek peace after their stunning military victory? New scholarship easily challenges the falsehoods long prevalent in Western circles.
Winds of Change
By Nabil Fahmy
The Middle East is reeling from domestic battles between progressive and repressive visions, the impact of globalization, and an exploding youth bulge. Now the reemergence of Russia, the rise of China, and the election of a nonconformist American president also require the Arab World’s urgent attention.
Inside Tunisia’s Power Struggle
Given the domestic upheavals that accompanied the Arab uprisings of 2011, how did Tunisia become the Arab Spring’s success story? Part of the answer is the pragmatism of the Islamist Ennahda movement, which formed a troika coalition with two secular parties after the ouster of the country’s dictator.
Turkey’s Authoritarian Legacy
It’s tempting to blame the country’s recent slide into repression on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s thirst for personal power. But did the ruling Islamist party ever really abandon the country’s long tradition of state authoritarianism?
Modi’s Bold New World
Narendra Modi was a global pariah only a few years ago, a Hindu nationalist vilified for anti-Muslim riots that left hundreds dead in Gujarat state. Halfway into his term as India’s prime minister, his swashbuckling foreign policy is scoring military and economic deals from Washington to Beijing.
Holding the Center
By Tobias Bunde
The specter of a revisionist Russia, disintegrating European Union, and isolationist America has Berlin rethinking its foreign policy. One important sign of the shift: Germany is assuming a crucial military role within NATO’s new strategic posture.
The New Battle Over LGBTQ
Donald Trump has expressed sympathy for gay rights in the past, but his conservative supporters are out to reverse the hard-won gains made by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. Activists are ready for a fight.
Women of Egypt
By Miwa Kato
The Tahrir uprising in 2011 was quickly followed by a backlash against women’s rights. Under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi the government is once again championing the role of women, but is gender equality possible without a change in public attitudes?
Story of an Egyptian Man
Especially in the West, Arab men are often stereotyped as violent fanatics or oppressors of women. The truth is that Arab men, too, experience daunting political, economic, and social challenges related to their gender roles.
Acts of Annihilation
Perceptions of the Islamic State’s attack on the Yazidis focus on the enslavement of women and girls, but the barbarous gender-based assaults on women as well as men are an integral part of the group’s campaign of genocide to eradicate a religious minority.
Egypt, Rebranded
By Jack Shenker
The “Egypt The Future” economic development conference reaffirmed the primacy of the strongman in Egyptian politics. That may win the hearts and minds of some global capitalists, but will Tahrir Square revolutionaries buy it?