The Week: Most Recent Middle East:Arab Revolts

Anti-U.S. protests in the Arab world: What's next?

The Week — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 10:25:00 -0400

The U.S. has stepped up security at its embassies across the Middle East, bracing for a fourth day of protests stoked by an online movie trailer mocking Islam's Prophet Mohammad. Egyptian police in riot gear, anticipating swelling crowds after Friday's Muslim prayers, blocked roads to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and clashed with rock-throwing demonstrators. The Islamist group Muslim Brotherhood called for a "million-man march" in the city to protest the obscure, anti-Islam film. Libyan authorities have arrested four suspects allegedly involved in an assault that killed four people, including Ambassador...

The Arab mess -- and America's dilemma

The Week — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 06:15:00 -0400

This week's terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya — which claimed four American lives, including that of our superb ambassador, Christopher Stevens — reflects a much broader and deeper long-term problem for our national security: The Arab world as a whole is a massive failure. It is failing big, it is failing fast, and thanks to technology's ability to disseminate information quickly and widely, perceptions of that failure are spreading like a fast-moving cancer. The implications for regional and global security are profound. Just a few of the many problems that...

Tunisia's 'historic' election: 4 lessons

The Week — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:56:00 -0400

Ten months after Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi burned himself to death as a political protest — and set off a chain of events that led to the Arab Spring — more than 90 percent of Tunisian voters turned out this weekend for the country's first free and democratic election. Official results won't be released until Tuesday, but the biggest winner in the election for a 217-member assembly charged with writing a new constitution is expected to be the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, long banned under deposed President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. What can we learn from...

10 lashes for driving: Is life really improving for Saudi women?

The Week — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:02:00 -0400

A Saudi court has sentenced Shaima Jastaina to 10 lashes for breaking the country's ban on female drivers. The ruling came just two days after King Abdullah said women would be allowed to vote in local elections scheduled for 2015 and serve on the shura advisory council — firsts that were widely welcomed as a victory for women's rights. Considering Jastaina's sentence, is life really getting better for Saudi women on balance?

Women are still treated like second-class citizens: Abdullah's suffrage announcement was nothing but a public relations trick, says Nina Shea at National Review. Letting...

Saudi women win suffrage: Credit the Arab Spring?

The Week — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:32:00 -0400

Saudi King Abdullah surprised both his rigidly conservative kingdom and outsiders Sunday by announcing that by the next elections, scheduled for 2015, women will be able to vote, run for elective office, and formally join his advisory Shura Council. A self-described "cautious" reformer, the 87-year-old Abdullah said his royal decree conformed with Islam, and showed the House of Saud's refusal to "marginalize women in society in all roles that comply with sharia." Is this a sign that the Arab Spring is still reverberating in the Muslim world?

Yes. This is a welcome change: Saudi Arabia "seemed...

Can the West prevent Yemen from becoming 'another Somalia'?

The Week — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:04:00 -0400

Clashes between police and demonstrators have killed at least 60 people in Yemen this week, and the violence doesn't appear to have broken a political stalemate that has paralyzed this impoverished country for eight months. Oxfam has warned that 7.5 million people, a third of Yemen's population, are going hungry as the crisis drives up the price of fuel and food. With no negotiated settlement in sight, is Yemen headed for deeper chaos and starvation?

Yemen is careening toward humanitarian catastrophe: Yemen already had the third worst child malnutrition rate in the world, says Simon Tisdall at Britain...

Hosni Mubarak's 'iron-fisted' 30-year rule: A visual history

The Week — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 07:06:00 -0400

For many Egyptians, ousted President Hosni Mubarak's appearance Wednesday in a defendant's cage before a judge was one of celebration and redemption. "Today is a day of great happiness for all Egyptians… finally everyone is equal before the law, no matter who they are," said Mohammed El Kassas, a member of the January 25 Youth Coalition. Mubarak faces charges of corruption and ordering the killing of protesters who ultimately swept him from power six months ago. If convicted, the former leader could face the death penalty. Caged and lying on a gurney in a Cairo courtroom, Mubarak denied...

Yemen's wounded president's 'defiant' reappearance

The Week — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 09:50:00 -0400

The video: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has made his first televised appearance since a deadly explosion at his palace forced him to decamp to Saudi Arabia last month. In a pre-recorded speech broadcast Thursday, a visibly scarred and bandaged Saleh said he had undergone at least eight "successful operations" to recover from the apparent assassination attempt. (Watch the video below.) He did not offer to step down, instead suggesting that he is open to a power-sharing agreement with opponents in this Middle Eastern nation plagued by months of unrest. Noting his weak voice, immobile limbs...

America's talks with the Muslim Brotherhood: A mistake?

The Week — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 11:40:00 -0400

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. will begin engaging in "limited contacts" with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic movement that was outlawed under Hosni Mubarak, but has emerged as a powerful political force since his downfall. Clinton said the U.S. would press Muslim Brotherhood leaders on the importance of non-violence and respect for minority and women's rights. Critics of the Obama administration say the move will only increase the power of religious extremists. Will opening ties with the Muslim Brotherhood do more harm than good? (Watch Hillary Clinton's comments...

Is Syria provoking war with Turkey?

The Week — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:07:00 -0400

Old tensions are resurfacing on the border between Syria and Turkey, across which roughly 12,000 Syrian refugees have fled to escape a deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syrian troops have been massing near the border to keep more Syrian citizens from leaving, and Turkey, which is reportedly reinforcing its own troops in the area, is worried its neighbor could be preparing for cross-border strikes. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called the development "very worrisome." Are Syria and Turkey headed for a violent clash?

Syria could start...

Has the Arab Spring weakened the U.S.?

The Week — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:02:00 -0400

The Arab Spring is transforming into a "bloody summer," as dictatorial governments resort to increasingly violent means to crush popular rebellions. But democracy activists aren't the only ones facing an uncertain future. Autocratic regimes have collapsed, or are close to collapsing, in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and elsewhere, weakening or eliminating American allies in the fight against jihadists. The turmoil is also straining already struggling economies, increasing social tensions, and further threatening the region's stability. Will these pro-democracy uprisings wind up doing the U.S. more harm...

President Saleh leaves: Will Yemen descend into chaos?

The Week — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 09:28:00 -0400

Yemeni protesters celebrated in the streets Sunday over the news that President Ali Abdullah Saleh is in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, after sustaining serious injuries in a Friday attack on his compound. Saleh has transferred power to Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, at least temporarily. But given the Saudis' weeks-long efforts to get the embattled president to step down in exchange for amnesty, many observers "doubt Mr. Saleh will ever go back to Yemen," says Jon Leyne at BBC News. Is this good news for Yemen, or will the power vacuum create chaos?

Don't count Saleh out yet...

Will Saudi women drivers spark a revolution?

The Week — Thu, 26 May 2011 06:40:00 -0400

Saudi authorities have released a female activist, Manal al-Sharif, who spent five days in jail for defying the conservative Muslim kingdom's ban on women driving. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia — a key U.S. ally in the region — has so far escaped the wave of protests sweeping the Arab world. But al-Sharif's arrest — which came after she posted videos online showing her behind the wheel — has fueled calls for change from the country's youth. It has also drawn attention to her attempt to get Saudi women to join a collective protest by getting into cars and driving...

An ex-Blackwater boss' mercenary army: 3 theories

The Week — Mon, 16 May 2011 14:34:00 -0400

The crown prince of Abu Dhabi has decided the United Arab Emirates needs an 800-member battalion of foreign troops and he's hired Erik Prince, the controversial billionaire founder of security firm Blackwater Worldwide, to set it up, according to The New York Times. Prince sold Blackwater — now called Xe Services — under a cloud after a notorious 2007 incident in which company employees opened fire in Baghdad traffic, killing 14 Iraqi civilians. Prince's new company, Reflex Responses, will get a whopping $529 million to recruit and train the new military squad in counter-terrorism and...

Lara Logan's 'torturous' sexual assault in Egypt

The Week — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:35:00 -0400

The video: In her first interviews since being sexually assaulted in Egypt on February 11, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan says she thought she was going to die a "torturous death" in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Speaking with both The New York Times and 60 Minutes, Logan describes being separated from her producer and bodyguard by a violent mob of hundreds of men, who tore her clothes "to pieces" and assaulted her in an attack that lasted about 40 minutes. “For an extended period of time, they raped me with their hands,” Logan says, as quoted by The New York Times. After her 60 Minutes...

Why isn't the U.S. doing more in Syria?

The Week — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:32:00 -0400

As Syria escalates its deadly crackdown on pro-reform demonstrators, the Obama administration is clinging to hopes that it can use diplomatic pressure to help ease the crisis. The White House has stopped insisting that Syria's president, Bashar Al-Assad, is a reformer at heart, but it has yet to close the U.S. embassy in Damascus. President Obama is reportedly considering targeted sanctions against Assad and members of his regime. But has the time come to get tougher?

There is no excuse for going soft on Syria: "Even before the tanks rolled into Dara'a," says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, "the idea that...