Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Month
Category

Middle East

Egypt

Elbaradei Quits Egyptian Presidential Race

Mohammad Elbaradei has withdrawn from the Egyptian presidential election. He is the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and was a thorn in the Bush administration’s eyes because of his honesty and lack of tolerance for false accusations. Elbaradei says he is afraid that the presidential election will be fixed by Egypt’s powerful […]

Bahrain

Turkey Warns against Sunni-Shiite Civil War in Mideast

Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu Ahmet Davutoglu warned Wednesday in Tehran against a Sunni-Shiite civil war in the Middle East, which he said was being encouraged by some (unnamed) forces. Among the flashpoints in the area has been the confrontation between Iran and the United States at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Iran conducted a […]

Pakistan

Top 5 Foreign Policy Challenges for US, 2012

My list of challenges last year this time more or less nailed it, especially my concerns about the Mubarak era ending in Egypt. Many of the dangers to which I pointed still exist, of course, but a whole host of new difficulties has emerged. 5. The compromise reached in Yemen is unacceptable to many reformers. […]

Iraq

Iraqis Celebrate being Free of US Troops, Fear US Meddling

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq held a rally in a sports stadium on Saturday to celebrate Iraq being free of US troops. He declared a national holiday, and thousands of Iraqis were surprised to receive a text message from him on their cell phones saying “All of us are for Iraq; the glory is […]

Egypt

New Year’s 2012 in Tahrir Square, Egypt

New Year’s in Tahrir Square, Cairo: The leftist crowd begins by singing the national anthem. Then a woman revolutionary calls out, “Bread, Freedom and social justice!” “A civil state, civil state!” “May the military government fall!” she chants, and the crowd repeats. “Treatment for injured [protesters]!” “Free Egypt, with God’s permission!” “Free Egypt, with God’s […]

Arab World

2011: End of US Hyperpower & its War with Islamdom

Some years are pivotal and serve to mark off eras of history. 2011 saw the end of American hyperpower, and it announced the end of a decade of US-Muslim conflict that began with 2001. It saw the killing of Usama Bin Laden, the virtual rolling up of al-Qaeda, the repudiation of al-Qaeda’s methods by the […]

Egypt

Top Ten Myths about the Arab Spring of 2011

1. The upheavals of 2011 were provoked by the Bush administration’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq Bzzt! Wrong answer. None of the young people who made this year’s revolutions ever pointed to Iraq as an inspiration. The only time Iraq was even brought up in their tweets was as a negative example (“let’s not […]

Syria

Gascoigne: Syria, the Invisible Massacre

Martin Gascoigne writes in a guest essay for Informed Comment The ongoing conflict in Syria, in a year of tremulous conflict across the region and beyond, singularly fails to ignite passions in the West. Oddly, even professional media coverage is relatively lacking, certainly compared to the interest in, say, Egypt. It is not as if […]

Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved