The Economist recently published a retrospective on U.S. policy in the Middle East. The Bush administration’s tactical and strategic failures and the Obama administration seeming inability to produce results, in addition to organic changes in the region, have diminished American political clout in the eyes of many, the author writes. Despite the apparent weakness in U.S. policy, the Obama administration has had some quiet successes. On Iran, “Obama’s mixture of diplomatic overtures ...

Yemen’s ruling party, the General People’s Congress (GPC), announced yesterday that it will seek to eliminate constitutional term limits allowing President Ali Abdullah Saleh to run for a third seven-year term in 2013. The proposal will be brought up for a vote in the GPC-dominated parliament on Saturday and following likely approval will be subject to a national referendum in April. Opposition party members protested the decision, which they said would effectively install ...

Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has appointed new ministers of youth and sports, trade and handicrafts, religious affairs, and communications following the recent protests. The Daily Star reports that the opposition Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) is calling for the removal of the interior minister as well. "PDP founder Nejib Chebbi told a news conference that the two ministers (of communications and interior) 'symbolize the policy of hardening, violence ...

President Barack Obama directly appointed Robert Ford as Ambassador to Syria and Frank Ricciardone as Ambassador to Turkey on Wednesday, bypassing the Senate confirmation process. Ford, a career foreign service officer, most recently served as a senior diplomat in Iraq and was the U.S. Ambassador to Algeria from 2006 to 2008. Ricciarone, also a career diplomat, was the Deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan and served as the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt from 2005 ...

In a new article at Middle East Report Online, Mona El-Ghobashy details the numerous flaws in Egypt's recent parliamentary elections saying that they "defied expectations, not because the ruling National Democratic Party again dominates Parliament but because of ...

Sarah Trister writes at The Christian Science Monitor that U.S. support for undemocratic regimes sends the message that "repressing civil society won’t interfere with a strategic relationship." Trister cites Egypt as a prime example of a country which receives significant amounts of aid from the U.S. while effectively stifling the work of independent NGOs: "The Egyptian government has arbitrarily canceled NGO events and conferences, detained and deported NGO workers, and frozen ...

Kuwait’s parliament filed a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad Al Sabah on Tuesday. Opposition parliamentarians announced the move after questioning Al Sabah for eight hours about the recent crackdowns on opposition politicians and activists. The vote will take place on January 5. Habib Toumi writes that the motion may force Emir Sabah IV Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah to reshuffle his cabinet or dissolve parliament.

Noha El-Hennawy writes that Mohamed ElBaradei's rapid rise to prominence upon his return to Egypt in February 2010 "resembled the welcome a warrior receives upon returning from victory." However, the initial excitement has since been tempered by disappointment as ElBaradei has failed to connect with Egyptians on issues such as the economy, instead spending most of his efforts on gaining signatures for his "seven reform demands," an approach that Manar al-Shorbagy, a political ...

Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh has a new op-ed in the International Herald Tribune explaining the challenges currently facing the regime in Tehran. Takeyh argues that the Islamic Republic has failed both practically and philosophically. Elite defections have weakened the government and popular dissent, while less visible than in previous years, remains a strong force. According to Takeyh, the demise of the old political and religious structures is ...

Amidst ongoing protests, Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali spoke to the country on Tuesday. In his speech, Ben Ali blamed foreign television channels for exaggerating the severity of the riots and explained what the government plans to do to help the unemployed. Tunisian authorities have also tried to quell the violence by suspending the police officers who confronted Mohammad Bouazizi, the 26-year-old who set himself on fire after police took away the produce ...

In a recent interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, Joost Hiltermann calls the new Iraqi government "a good basis for setting out," while also expressing concern about the power-sharing agreement. Hiltermann says the newly established National Council for Strategic Policy has yet to be fully defined, and that it remains to be seen whether "Allawi feels that it satisfies his earlier demands for having a real check against ...

The attempted suicide of a young man last week and deteriorating socioeconomic conditions have sparked unprecedented protests throughout Tunisia in recent days. Lachen Achy describes the economic situation, saying that the government has "failed to make policies guaranteeing enough job creation to absorb new entrants to the labor market" and that the country has "one of the highest levels of unemployment among Arab states: more than 14% overall ...

Last week, Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi announced corruption charges against one of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s closest confidants, First Vice President Mohammad Reza. According to the AP’s Brian Murphy, Reza’s indictment by the Iranian judiciary—which is controlled by Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani’s brother Sadeq—is a direct response to Ahmadinejad’s firing of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki earlier this month. “The developments revealed the increasingly complex political maneuvering within the Islamic Republic as it ...

At The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Roberto Roccu describes the failure of Egypt’s established opposition to connect with workers and rural voters. The highly visible campaign led by Mohamed ElBaradei and the active Egyptian blogosphere have given many observers a distorted view of the potential for change in Egypt, according to Roccu. The “institutional opposition” focuses too much on the urban elites and fails to incorporate the “movements arising from the lower ...

Writing in The Washington Post, Mohamed ElBaradei criticizes Egypt's current political system and calls for greater international support for democratic reforms.  In theory, Egypt is a modern country with political plurality, an independent judiciary, and a president, legislature, and laws that “reflect the will of its people,”  ElBaradei writes.  In reality however, President Mubarak and the ruling party enjoy “imperial powers” over the county’s political and economic structures. Many Egyptians are fed up with ...

Washington Post opinion writer Conor Williams has a new piece arguing against the reductions to the international affairs budget proposed by incoming House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). Williams writes that the spending cuts would devastate American diplomatic efforts, while doing little to trim the deficit. Citing statements from U.S. military leaders, Williams explains that “well-funded diplomacy is crucial to national security,” and that reductions will only cost the U.S. ...

Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) held its seventh annual conference in Cairo last weekend. Party luminaries including President Hosni Mubarak, his son and NDP Policy Committee Chairman Gamal Mubarak, and NDP Secretary for Organizational Affairs Ahmed Ezz delivered remarks to the assembled party members. In his speech, President Mubarak hailed Egypt's economic growth, while acknowledging that many working-class Egyptians have yet to see their quality of life improve. The success of a political ...

In a recent interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm, Mohamed ElBaradei derided the Mubarak regime and countered criticism of his reluctance to personally lead the Egyptian opposition. Egyptians have increasingly turned to “radical” Islam as the state has failed them, ElBaradei said: “They’ve lost their identity as citizens because they have been treated as slaves. So if I see 100,000 people in the streets, yes I will be with you. But I’m not ...

At Babylon and Beyond, Amro Hassan writes that the recent high-profile suicides of two unemployed men have sparked a series of violent demonstrations in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. Most recently Hussein Nagi Felhi, an unemployed 24-year-old, committed suicide after shouting “no for misery, no for unemployment” during a rally earlier this week. According to Hassan, “The death triggered protests met with tear gas after scores of jobless youths hurled stones at police and set ...

Bloomberg’s Fiona MacDonald and Dahlia Kholaif report on growing tension between Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Sabah and the Parliament. MPs recently summoned the Prime Minister to answer questions about the recent police crackdown on activists and opposition politicians. Al-Sabah, the nephew of Emir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, has clashed with the Parliament before. In December 2009, he survived a no confidence vote and he has dissolved the Parliament twice. According to MacDonald and Kholaif, the recent ...