A look at gender equality within the controversial Gulen movement’s educational institutions in Turkey.

Barak Barfi discusses realistic goals for Libya’s Transitional Council. Read more »

There has been a fair amount of media attention devoted to Egypt’s upcoming efforts to write a new constitution as well as a few stories here and there about the Libyan government’s plans to form a constitutional committee.  Both projects deserve whatever attention they are getting and much more given how new constitutions will shape the trajectory of Egyptian and Libyan politics.  There is another constitutional exercise going on in the region that has received far less attention.  Indeed, Turks convened a constitutional commission last October, keeping with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s promise to scrap the 1982 constitution, which was written at the behest of the military junta that took over the country in September of 1980.   The drafting of the constitution will unfold in four stages and is supposed to be complete at the end of 2012. The lack of attention—even in the Turkish press—is no doubt a function of both editorial decisions and the sense that Turkey is a good story, already a democracy, and even a model for those countries in the Arab world undergoing transitions. Read more »

Makram Rabah looks at the possible effect of Syria’s revolution on Lebanon.

The Project on Middle East Democracy’s report: The Campaign Against NGOs in Egypt. Read more »

I rarely write about Israel.  It’s important politically, but intellectually for me a bit of a bore. What more can be said about the country that has not already been said, especially the Arab-Israeli conflict of which the Palestinian problem is the core? You could pile the books, papers, and articles from floor to ceiling on the topic. Israel-Iran?  It’s covered. The ethnic and sectarian differences in the Holy Land? It’s been done.  Israel’s changing demographics?  Lots of smart folks have weighed in. The durability of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty after the Egyptian uprising?  I am sort of/halfway intrigued, but only because I once drank the water from the Nile and now I can’t quit Egypt.  Every now and again though, something comes across my desk on Israel that interests me.  In the last week or so, colleagues have suggested I read two short opinion pieces–one by Avi Shlaim Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, and one by the New Yorker’s David Remnick. Both pieces were a revelation—who writes better than Remnick?—but not necessarily because they offered any new or interesting insights about Israeli politics or society, but rather because of the fascinating way Shlaim and Remnick treat their subject. Read more »

On Saturday, the Washington Post published an op-ed under the byline of Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation, Fayza Aboulnaga, titled, “Why Egypt moved against unregistered NGOs.”   The Minister’s defense of her government’s actions is what one would call “lawyerly.” The NGOs were not registered under Egypt’s Law 84, there is evidence of wrongdoing, and no other government in the world would permit unregistered foreign and domestic NGOs to undertake the types of activities that Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and three Egyptian organizations were engaged in.  Yet, at its base, the issue is not a legal one.  Rather, it is political and the NGO affair suggests that neither Aboulnaga nor the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces—the Minister is widely believed to be close to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi—are very much interested in paving the way for a democratic Egypt, despite protestations to the contrary.  That is not to suggest that NGOs, like those currently under fire, will be a linchpin of an Egyptian transition to democracy, but civil society groups as a whole make up part of the fabric of democratic societies.  Destroying some of them through the legal system (which, in Egypt’s case, is geared more toward political control than justice) and thereby intimidating other non-governmental groups in the process reflects the open secret of Egypt’s transition—the inherently authoritarian worldview of the SCAF and its civilian allies. Read more »

Blogger NoonArabia for Bikya Masr says the United States must reevaluate its counterterrorism policy in Yemen.

Sandmonkey looks at a few major presidential candidates on the eve of registration for the race in Egypt. Read more »

With all the discussion of diplomacy (and its limits) and the robust debate about military action in Syria, the issue that haunts both is the nature of post-Assad Syria.  Will Syria end up like Iraq?  Like Lebanon of the 1970s-1980s?  Both countries have suffered much from sectarian and ethnic differences that politicians have manipulated for their own ends.  Or might Syria suffer far worse? Such has been the commentary about what might befall Syrians in a world without the Assad regime.  Few observers have looked at the deeply divided Syrian opposition without a credible leader and declared that post-Assad Syria will be a better place at least in the short run.  It is all about Sunni-Alawi bloodletting, especially.  I have come to support international action in Syria, but the big unknowns of post-Assad Syria—the political, ethnic, and sectarian dynamics—give me pause. Read more »

Ahmed Nagi says Egypt’s new government lacks a vision for resolving the Palestinian question.

Sami Moubayed takes a look at Yemen’s new president. Read more »

Yesterday I posted on the limits of diplomacy in Syria given all of the incentives for Bashar al Assad to fight on.  The question then is what to do about it.

I take the criticisms of intervention from the likes of Peter Munson, Andrew Exum, and Marc Lynch seriously. In the case of the Munson and Exum, these guys have actually picked up a weapon and gone to war and Marc did yeoman’s work on the issue in his recent policy memo.  There are regional specialists calling for intervention in Syria, but who haven’t taken the time to study the military complexities or the nature of the threat foreign forces might encounter if they intervened.  I include myself in that category.  As much as I am fascinated by militaries and politics, I am no guns and trucks kid.  Exum posted the Syrian military’s order of battle, which should be sobering to anyone itching to ride the first cruise missile into Damascus.  At the same time, observers also need to have a realistic view of the Syrian military, which on paper may have lots of equipment, but does not seem to be all that capable.  To paraphrase what Colin Powell said about the allegedly battle-hardened Iraqi military on the eve of Operation Desert Storm, “These guys are not 10 feet tall.”  The Shabiha—Alawi militias—would make me far more nervous than Syria’s regular military. Read more »

Below is the first installment in a series of three posts looking specifically at the prevailing debates on Syria and what to do about the situation there.

In mid January, I wrote a piece on The Atlantic  titled, “It’s Time to Think Seriously about Intervening in Syria.” I am gratified that in the ensuing seven weeks there has been a robust debate on the op-ed pages, blogs, Twitter, Beltway roundtables, and within the Obama administration about what to do about Syria.  No doubt, this has less to do with my 1500 or so words than the deteriorating situation on the ground in Syria, especially the onslaught in Homs.  As the debate suggests, this is not an easy issue.  As I mentioned in the article, “Syria has become a place where violence, colonial legacies, the mistakes of the recent past, and the hopes for a better Middle East have collided to create layers of complications and unsettling trade-offs for policymakers and outside observers.”  It is all these things and much more—the Syria issue intersects with great power politics, international order, the United Nations, the use of military force, and philosophy.  I’ve been struck by the way in which proponents and opponents of intervention have used precisely the same evidence to marshal support for their claims.  For example, Moscow’s support for the Assads is leveraged in a way both to suggest that only force can stop the killing and  as a reason not to intervene because with the help of the Russian (and Chinese and Iranians) whatever force that is brought to bear will do little to bring Assad down while killing a lot of people.  This is not a function of muddled thinking.  (There are many very smart people who are engaged in this debate.)  Rather, we are dealing with a complex problem, with little information, faulty analogies, and fresh memories of a searing decade of violence and intervention in the Middle East.  Unlike Libya, Syria is hard. Read more »