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Thursday
Oct252012

Podcast #36: Mean Streets

Back for another podcast! Ashraf tells us about his ordeal in Tahrir Square, where secularists gathered against Muslim Brotherhood domination. We take a look at the political dynamics of the fight over Egypt's constitution, and the possible scenarios it could lead to. And finally we discuss the last US presidential debate, or at least the bits that have to do with the Middle East, and wonder at the lack of big ideas on either side.

Show notes:

 

 

Podcast #36:

Wednesday
Oct242012

Agha/Malley: This Is Not a Revolution

This Is Not a Revolution by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley | The New York Review of Books

Another almost melodramatically lucid-pessimistic view of the Arab uprisings and their consequences by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley. Much of the phenomena they describe is accurate, but what they object to is history in motion, which they see as more of loop. This is too depressed-romantic a view. There are terrible debts to be paid for the way power was organized in the Arab world over the last 60 years, they will be paid in blood. Let's get on with paying them, and not cry over spilt milk. But the idea that a restoration of the Ottoman model (in terms of a MB caliphate, not Turkish domination) is happening I find dubious.

I liked this bit:

The Islamists propose a bargain. In exchange for economic aid and political support, they will not threaten what they believe are core Western interests: regional stability, Israel, the fight against terror, energy flow. No danger to Western security. No commercial war. The showdown with the Jewish state can wait. The focus will be on the slow, steady shaping of Islamic societies. The US and Europe may voice concern, even indignation at such a domestic makeover. But they’ll get over it. Just as they got over the austere fundamentalism of Saudi Arabia. Bartering—as in, we’ll take care of your needs, let us take care of ours—Islamists feel, will do the trick. Looking at history, who can blame them?

Mubarak was toppled in part because he was viewed as excessively subservient to the West, yet the Islamists who succeed him might offer the West a sweeter because more sustainable deal. They think they can get away with what he could not. Stripped of his nationalist mantle, Mubarak had little to fall back on; he was a naked autocrat. The Muslim Brothers by comparison have a much broader program—moral, social, cultural. Islamists feel they can still follow their convictions, even if they are not faithfully anti-Western. They can moderate, dilute, defer.

Agha and Malley lament the rise of the Islamists and the bizarre Gulf-financed taste for Western interventionism that creates opportunities for Islamists, and the retrograde views most Islamists advocate under the patroller-fueled influence of the Salafi international. There is a potential key to making things go differently: the collapse of Saudi Arabia as it currently is politically organized. Which probably means, for a while at least, the collapse of order in that country in the way we see in Syria today. But that is the solution that is always unpalatable to the way the world is run — it has little to do with the Arab world and its politics, the security of the Gulf regimes is not underwritten locally.

Tuesday
Oct232012

Mubarak family worth hundreds of millions, not billions, investigators say

Mubarak family worth hundreds of millions, not billions, investigators say

Bradley Hope in The National, on a government report on Mubarak's wealth:

The report, a copy of which has been obtained by The National, reveals that Mubarak and his family have cash deposits of some US$300 million, as well as additional funds, properties and company stakes of undetermined value.

The only assets held specifically in the ex-president's name are a villa in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh - number 211 located on 15,640 square metres of land - and a third-floor apartment located in the Mediterranean coast city of Marsa Matrouh.

Mubarak and his wife Suzanne also have unspecified amounts of "liquid funds" in accounts in the National Bank of Egypt, says the five-page report, dated October 16, 2011. The former first lady also has an account in the Paris-based bank, Societe Generale.

Read the whole thing, it's full of details. The total amount of funds believed to be stashed abroad by the Mubarak family and his aides: $1.2bn.

Hope also has a full list of Mubarak family assets here.

Tuesday
Oct232012

Of printing in Cairo and Flaubert's cards

Friend-of-the-blog and fellow gentleman flaneur Matt Hall has a new piece at PRINT magazine about Cairo's hectic printing district alongside Mohammed Ali St, which is where one gets business cards and other office stationary. The article is not online (you can get a copy of the mag through the link above though) but Matt has some extra material up on this blog he contributes to:

An excerpt:

When Flaubert travelled to Egypt in 1849 in the guise of an oriental adventurer, the famous novelist accompanied his friend Maxime du Camp to the summit of great pyramid. Precluding any sense of a pioneering accomplishment, Flaubert reached the summit at dawn only to find pinned to the capstone… a business card.

The light increases. There are two things: the dry desert behind us, and before us an immense, delightful expanse of green, furrowed by endless canals, dotted here and there with tufts of palms; then, in the background, a little to the left, the minarets of Cairo and especially the mosque of Mohamed Ali (imitating Santa Sophia), towering above the others. On the side of the Pyramid lit by the raising sun I see a business card: ‘Humbert, Frotteur’ fastened to the stone.

The card gave a Rouen address, Flaubert’s hometown. It had been placed there as a gag by Maxime.

My own contribution to the wonders of Egyptian business cards will be a lot less literary. I recently found this one, for an upholsterer, while cleaning out my desk:

 

Flaubert might have approved.

Tuesday
Oct232012

Egypt’s Draft Constitution Opens the Door to a Religious State

Egypt’s Draft Constitution Opens the Door to a Religious State

Ragab Saad, for the Atlantic Council's Egypt Source:

If this constitution passes, it will be the first Egyptian Constitution that adopts a specific religious doctrine for the state. It also means that ancient texts on Islamic jurisprudence, and others that may not even exist anymore, will become sources of Egyptian legislation from which a parliamentary majority may select what it wants from its provisions, instituting authoritarianism in the name of religion. This scenario is the driving force behind the insistence that the constitution provide for a democratic regime in Egypt based on the principles of "Shura" (or consultation). It is an ambiguous concept that has no specific legal characterization, but it refers to a legacy of jurisprudence that ensures that “Shura” does not belong to the ruler alone. This is the essence of democracy.

The political climate in Egypt appears volatile, heated, and tense, with no signs of the social or political consensus necessary for the drafting of a new constitution. In the event that the Administrative Court dissolves the current Constituent Assembly, President Mohamed Morsi will form a new assembly under the provisions of Constitutional Declaration he issued in August. The president will not likely be able avoid a renewed crisis in the Constituent Assembly, and by extension the perpetuation of the conflict between Islamist parties and civil political groups. However, it is worth noting that the civil forces have yet to formulate a clear vision on the formation of the Constituent Assembly if the court rules to dissolve the current Assembly.

Yup on all counts.

Tuesday
Oct232012

Egypt's judicial hot potato game

For weeks now, Egypt has waited for a verdict by the administrative court on the validity of the Constituent Assembly (CA) currently drafting a new constitution. Just a few minutes ago, it was announced that the administrative court has referred the matter to the Supreme Constitutional Court, the highest court in Egypt.

As a reminder, the current CA is the second to be formed, by negotiations that ended in mid-June. The parliament approved the law forming the CA the day before it was dissolved by the Supreme Constitutional Court, and although Mohammed Morsi ratified this law a few weeks after he took office, the legitimacy of the assembly is still contested by secularists — either because they feel it should not be formed based on a model from a dissolved parliament, or because they object to its composition. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the CA, largely as a secular tactic to have the courts shut down a constitution-writing process in which Islamists dominate.

The secularists' hope is that once the CA is dissolved, Morsi will use the power he gave himself on August 12 to appoint a new CA, which would be largely the same. And then the secularists plan to file more lawsuits arguing that Morsi does not have that right. Ultimately, they rely on the courts to take their sides.

Now that it's in the Supreme Constitutional Court's camp, they might take heart. That court's decisions have generally not been in favor of the Islamists. But at the same time, they see themselves as having a mission to avoid a vacuum. For this path ultimately points to either a political deal on the constitution, or, a complete breakdown in the transition process in Egypt, at least when it comes to the constitution.

As Elijah Zarwan tweeted:

 

Tuesday
Oct232012

Le Figaro: L'émir du Qatar affiche son parti pris pro-Hamas à Gaza

Le Figaro: L'émir du Qatar affiche son parti pris pro-Hamas à Gaza

Interesting speculation in this article by Georges Malbrunot:

À Ramallah, Naplouse ou Hébron, le pari du Qatar viserait en fait à préparer l'après Abbas, en imposant Meshaal, qui se présente de plus en plus comme un leader nationaliste. Le travail de sape contre Mahmoud Abbas aurait déjà commencé cet été… par la diffusion par la chaîne qatarienne al-Jazeera du documentaire sur l'empoisonnement supposé de Yasser Arafat par Israël, avec probablement l'aide d'une «main palestinienne» dans l'entourage du chef de l'Autorité.

Khaled Meshaal as Abbas' successor? That would be a very different Middle East.

Tuesday
Oct232012

Qatar's Gaza policy and Egypt

Qatar's Gaza policy and Egypt

From Qatari state television al-Jazeera's coverage:

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, is set to arrive in the Gaza Strip to inaugurate a $254-million Qatari investment project to rebuild the impoverished and overcrowded coastal enclave.

The leader of the Gulf nation will be the first head of state to visit Gaza since the imposition of a widespread international boycott of the Palestinian territory.

"This visit has great political significance," said Hamas government spokesman Taher al-Nunu.

"He is the first Arab leader to break the political siege."

The investment project seeks to build 1,000 homes for poor families in the devastated Khan Younis area in the south of the Strip.

The 41km-long Gaza Strip, home to 1.6 million people, sustained major damage during a huge 22-day Israeli military operation in December 2008 and January 2009.

Khan Younis has been particularly hard hit during the international blockade of Gaza, imposed since 2007, and during the half-decade before that. A 2011 EWASH report revealed that 90-95 per cent of Gaza's water is safe to drink.

In a phone conversation on the eve of the visit, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the emir's intentions to help the people of Gaza, under an Israeli-led blockade since the Hamas takeover.

A late night statement from the office of Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi said his country welcomed the emir's visit to Gaza, which it said were part of Egypt's effort "to break the siege on the people" of the territory.

The Qatari emir's visit to Gaza is indeed a massive boon to the Hamas regime there, and not just financially. They have wanted, and the international community has denied them, the kind of formal recognition this visits grants for years. And it will really sting Mahmoud Abbas and the PA, whatever nice words they have to say about it, because the erosion of the idea that the PA is the sole representative of the Palestinian people is the single most damaging thing for them.

The Qatari emir can't go to Gaza through Israel, and thus must make his way via the Rafah crossing and Egypt. This must be a difficult thing for Egypt to swallow: Qatar, which is lending $2bn this calendar year alone to support the Egyptian pound, is doing more politically and financially for Gaza than Muslim Brotherhood Egypt has. Egyptians have long fumed about "little Qatar's" over-active foreign policy and its meddling in Gaza, an Egyptian near-abroad. I suspect the Muslim Brotherhood, whatever its initial euphoria and dreams of reconquering historical Palestine, will have similar reservations about the Qatari visit. They have, in the past few months, been slowly adjusting to the reality that the Gaza-Egypt-Israel relationship is a complex one and no dramatic change in policy — such as opening the border to commercial traffic and effectively ending the Gaza blockade —  has yet come. More than that, officially Egypt still sticks to the protocol of considering Mahmoud Abbas as the representative of Palestinians and Gaza as under theoretical PA authority (or that the end state of Palestinian reconciliation should be a West Bank and Gaza united under PA control). Qatar's visit undermines this — at a time when Morsi is under pressure from his own over his Israel policy.

 

Tuesday
Oct232012

Links 19-22 October 2012

Tuesday
Oct232012

Notes on the US presidential debate

I just caught up with last night’s US presidential debate — arguably the one that would be the most interesting for this audience, especially as the first segment was devoted to the Middle East. The one thing that struck me most is how limited the debate was, how frequently the bromides came, how few exciting ideas either of the candidates had to offer in what has to be one of the most exciting times in recent Middle Eastern history.

The differences between the candidates was on the surface mostly slim, largely due to Mitt Romney’s “pivot to the center” ending up being a “I agree with Barack Obama but can implement his policies better” line. Of course, as Obama pointed out again and again rather effectively, Romney changes his take all the time. (Juan Cole has a list of Middle East-related flip-flops or Etch-a-Sketch moments here

I think Obama clearly did better in this debate on substance, in part because of some Romney unforced errors:

  • Iran does not need Syria for access to the sea
  • Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some kind of council that organized the Syrian opposition? This is probably the biggest indictment to date of the failure of the, erm, Syrian National Council.
  • Romney wants to arrest Mahmoud Ahmedinejad for genocide. He said in the debate: “I would make sure that Ahmadinejad would be indicted for genocide. His words amount to genocide.” And then his campaign spokesman doubles down and suggests the UN can arrest Ahmedinejad. For something he has not done.

According to Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom, successfully indicting Ahmadinejad would be more than just a symbolic victory.

“I think it would remove probably one of the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, pro-genocide members of that regime in Tehran,” he told TPM after the debate. As to whether he would actually be arrested: “I’m hoping that he would be indicted and that action would unfold following that indictment. Absolutely.”

Others in the Romney camp seemed a little unsure of how the indictment would play out. John Sununu, a top Romney surrogate, told TPM after the debate that the hypothetical charges wouldn’t even be about Israel, but about the violent repression of his own people.

“No, no, I thought he meant in terms of what’s going on internally in Iran,” Sununu said. “I think that’s what the reference was to.”

So Ahmedinejad is guilty of pre-cog genocide in Israel and genocide against his own people. Wow.

Other aspects of the debate were grimly familiar, notably he unprompted, almost incongruous, pledges of loyalty and undying love to Israel from Obama. But there was little of substance new or frankly interesting. The debate on Syria was surreal on the Romney side, and cautious on the Obama side (although I thought he made a good case for a cautious approach and the difficulty of finding “good Syrians” to back. ) Most striking was that both candidates reject direct US military intervention and Romney rejects a no-fly zone enforced by US planes.

On Egypt, Obama’s intervention was telling of the malaise in US policy circles over Egypt, which is perhaps deeper than that of Libya (although the Libyan intervention’s monstrous lovechild, the disintegration of Mali, made a front-row appearance). Romney raised Egypt having a “Muslim Brotherhood president” as a problem in itself. Obama talked tough about the points on which Egypt policy is focused:

  1. The rights of women and religious minorities;
  2. Cooperation on counter-terrorism;
  3. The “red line” of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty;
  4. Economic development.

Aside from the last point he kept talking of Egypt in terms of US applying pressure to obtain the results it wants. It definitely frames Egypt as a “problem” more than anything else.

Monday
Oct222012

You've come a long way, Andrew Sullivan

✚ You've come a long way, Andrew Sullivan

Nice to read this simple statement on the Daily Dish:

If humanitarian aid can be suspended for the struggling Palestinians, cannot military aid be suspended for the prosperous Israelis? It seems to me that aid of all kinds should have basic human rights strings attached to it. I would have suspended all aid to Israel when it refused to stop its settlement policy on the West Bank, but that's a little like being in favor of an immediate space station on Mars, given the Greater Israel lobby's grip on Congress.

So let me just reiterate something that has no chance of ever happening, but I might as well put on the record: we should treat Israel as any other recipient of US aid. If a country is occupying and settling land conquered through war, if it's treating a minority population with inhumanity, the US should stand up for Western values. It should not single Israel out; but we have to stop treating Israel as the exception to every other US foreign policy rule.

Monday
Oct222012

Oil and Sand

 

In Search of Oil and Sand Trailer (French subtitles) from wael sayedalahl on Vimeo.

 

Issandr and I recently had the pleasure of watching the documentary In Search of Oil and Sand. This is an extremely personal, suprising and charming glimpse of Egyptian history. Narrator Mahmoud Sabit -- a neighbor of ours here in Garden City in Cairo, who lives in an astonishing crumbling old villa that belonged to his family -- is the son of a cousin and chief of protocoal for Egypt's last king. 

In the weeks before the 1952 Officer's Coup, his father and many of the other young glam royals were running around making a movie they'd written and cast themselves in ("Oil and Sand") about...a coup d'etat in an unnamed Arab country. The movie also featured actual US and UK Embassy officers (and likely intelligence operatives) playing the part of...American and Brittish spy-masters. 

The actual film was destroyed after the coup, but Sabet found the black and white rushes. This "royal home movie," as the trailer calls it, gives a sense of the (incredibly glamorous, perhaps heedless) lifestyle of the Cairo elite just before the revolution. When the faces of the Free Officers appear on camera towards the end of the movie, you understand how much they are coming from a completley different world. 

You don't have to be nostalgic for the monarchy -- or to agree with Sabet's argument that the US, in supporting the Free Officers, ushered in authoritarianism -- to find the film fascinating.  

Most of the people in the movie lost everything and were treated with what seems like remarkable pettiness by the Nasser regime. What's saddening aren't such personal losses and upheavals, but how little was gained from them. It's striking -- knowing what we know now -- to hear General Mohammed Naguib declare that the 1952 Revolution's goal is to "end corruption" in Egypt.

In a country whose modern history has been clumsily papered over and cordoned off, and that has yet to deal with the legacy of the Nasser regime (let alone the Mubarak one), this is a beautifiully shot and edited, modest but lyrical, act of historical recovery. 

Monday
Oct222012

In Translation: The crisis of the political Islamists

Khalil El-Enani, an Egyptian scholar of Islamist movements, has long criticized these movements intellectual stasis and their authoritarian internal structures. Post-Arab Spring, as these movements reached power through elections, he argues the question is whether they are able to retain any ideological coherence as they become ruling parties. In the piece below, he argues that the chief threat to the Islamists comes from this rather than non-Islamist rivals.

In my view, one of the striking thing about the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise in Egypt is the extent to which they were unprepared for power. This is both in the sense that they still seem lack the cadres (i.e. policy and government professionals able to run things) and that they have shown a surprising lack of vision when one has been expected to turn the country in a new direction. And they have also become much vaguer about the religious content of their discourse, in part because the Islamist field is divided on these issues, and in part because they have first sought to compromise on their ideology to anchor themselves in power. But does the “crisis of the Islamist political project” described below by El-Anani, or any “failure of political Islam” as Olivier Roy puts it, mean anything significant in their ability to rule? The previous regimes were ideologically void, but held on to power for many years. Failure of ideology does not mean failure of government or regime. So when I read about the crisis of Islamists, I do not think of an endpoint but a situation that may be with us for a long time, lingering and unresolved .

This translation is made possible by the support of Industry Arabic, which offers a wide range of professional translations services. Please check them out for your personal, NGO or business translation needs.

The Crisis of the Islamists’ Political Project

Khalil El Anani, al-Hayat, October 17, 2012

According to the Islamists’ opponents, the Islamists’ arrival to power was neither pure chance nor a stroke of luck offered by the Arab Spring but rather a result of long decades of opposition to existing regimes, which provided them with legitimacy and organization that others lacked. The Islamists cannot be blamed for this as much as their opponents, who busied themselves – and continue to do so – with attacking the Islamists and attempting foil their project more than they busied themselves with building the organizational and social structures necessary to compete with the Islamists on the political and the popular level. However, contrary to what some think, the danger the Islamists – or more specifically the Islamist project – face does not come from the outside but rather from within the Islamists’ political and ideological project itself.

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Oct212012

"Yes, I’m a blasphemer. Get over it."

Yes, I’m a blasphemer. Get over it.

Courageous and informative column by Maikel Nabil Sanad about Egypt's use of anti-blasphemy laws against Christians, atheists and Shias. Read it all.

Saturday
Oct202012

"The Uprising is Over. But What Is the Price of Bahrain's Victory?"

The Uprising is Over. But What Is the Price of Bahrain’s Victory?

So asks Bahrain watcher Justin Gengler in a post on September 30 regarding the state of the protests there that began on February 14, 2011 in the island nation, where despite an ever-growing dearth of international media coverage, tweeps are still being arrested for criticizing the ruling family, the riot police are surrounding entire villages to go after “enemies of the state,” whether they are dissidents or street thugs, and jail sentences are upheld against doctors who treat injured protestors:

[T]he uprising proper has ended.  Or, rather, it was made to end by the sweeping security response initiated with the State of National Security and subsequently entrenched via Bahrain’s effective “sectarianism as security” political strategy.  In this sense, the actual rebellion has long been over, and “major combat operations,” as some like to say, essentially were concluded with the second clearing (and for good measure razing) of the former Pearl Roundabout.

Click to read more ...

Saturday
Oct202012

Links 15-18 November 2012

Thursday
Oct182012

To get Western support, Arab secularists need to stop being stupid

Borzou Daragahi has a piece in FT titled Arab liberals need the west’s support (and a companion report here). He argues:

Close watchers of the Middle East knew the Islamists would be a major factor once Arab tyrannies were toppled. They have organisational capacity, popular support and international connections lacked by their rivals.

But what is most surprising, given the gutting they suffered at the hands of Arab dictators for the past few decades, is how strong, vital and persistent liberals, secularists and leftists in the region are becoming.

. . .

The challenge for the west and for the next US president, and a worthy subject for the next debate, is how to support liberal and secular political forces as well as the tolerant wings of the ascendant Islamist forces so that they pursue the pragmatist course of Turkey rather than the harsh, repressive vision of Saudi Arabia or Iran.

I'm all for greater Western support for like-minded people in the Arab world — rather than the betting on the Muslim Brotherhood as the new normal that has characterized, for instance, part of the Obama administration's approach. But it's not a one-way street. Arab secularists, leftist, liberal or conservative, have to not only be better organized and able to perform well in elections, but also stop having moronic attitudes towards the West.

Having lunch yesterday with a Western diplomat, he complained that for instance labor groups and other leftist forces refused to meet with him because they feared being accused of collaborating with Western forces. The MB, of course, has used the charge that secularists are Western-funded to tar them. The Mubarak regime used to do the same. But considering that Muslim Brothers spent much of the past 18 months ingratiating themselves with the West, they have to move beyond these fears and push back on these charges. And there is absolutely no reason for them to refuse to meet with Western officials, or form partnerships with like-minded political parties, trade unions, and other organizations in the West. The Muslim Brotherhood is not exactly impervious to attacks on having foreign ties, either, after all.

I believe in the electoral viability of non-Islamist parties, even if I despair of their divisions and organizational abilities. These things will improve. But I am simply dumb-founded by the stupid pseudo-nationalist positions some cling to. They need to multiply foreign ties and leverage them for political advantage. That's what the MB has been doing, even before it was in power. Why should secularists be any different?

Thursday
Oct182012

Corporatist Egypt: The intellectuals

Corporatist Egypt: The intellectuals

Just a note on my ongoing obsession with the pervasive corporatist aspects of Egyptian politics and the way different institutions perceived their role and demand recognition from power-holders. From Egypt Independent, a somewhat nauseating press release:

The Writers Union issued a statement on Wednesday criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood for marginalizing intellectuals because the draft of the new constitution does not include articles on their role.

The statement said intellectuals are the soft power that strengthens Egypt in the Arab and international arenas.

The draft gives the president the power to appoint a quarter of the members of the Senate from officials, ministers and former ambassadors, but did not mention writers, thinkers and artists and intellectuals, the statement added, who are the nation's conscience and mind. 

Thursday
Oct182012

Iran and Turkey Join Syria Peace Envoy in Truce Call

Iran and Turkey Join Syria Peace Envoy in Truce Call

NYT's Anne Barnard and Rick Gladstone report on UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's attempt to secure a cease-fire between the government and rebels in Syria:

Both Turkey and Iran publicly endorsed Mr. Brahimi’s effort on Wednesday. Those endorsements were significant because Iran is the most influential regional supporter of Mr. Assad’s, while Turkey supports Mr. Assad’s armed adversaries, is host to more than 100,000 Syrian refugees and has repeatedly called on Mr. Assad to resign.

In the past few weeks Turkey also has banned Syrian aircraft, moved armed forces close to its 550-mile border with Syria and engaged Syrian gunners in sporadic cross-border shelling, raising fears that the conflict in Syria could turn into a regional war.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who met this week with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey at a regional summit meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, was quoted by Iran’s state-run news media on Wednesday as saying he supported the Syria truce proposal and “any group that derives power through war and means to continue war has no future.”

Sounds like the Egyptian initiative to engage Iran on Syria is fast becoming a Turkish initiative. 

Update — Also, this from the Turkish paper Zaman:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday he had suggested to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad three-way talks including Egypt on the Syria crisis, given the apparent Saudi objection to Iranian involvement in a current quartet.

So who's doing the leading here? Not sure Cairo would have so easily dismissed a Saudi role.

Monday
Oct152012

Sulafa Hijazi

Sulafa Hijazi

Slideshow of work by Syrian artist Sulafa Hijazi, which Sultan al-Qassemi calls "one of the top artists of her generation." Amazing stuff.

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