Essays

Rising global population means the world must produce more food. Empowering smallholders is the key to fighting hunger and feeding a growing world. Read More

A country with a bulging population faces crippling food security challenges. A high-level government commitment must address the availability of and access to food. Read More

If trends persist, nearly half of the world's adult population will be overweight or obese by 2030. A comprehensive intervention strategy is required to fight a scourge as damaging to the global economy as war. Read More

The tale of the Persian empire is one of vast farms, game reserves, and fisheries, elaborate kitchens staffed by thousands, and power. Centuries later, nations are still engaging in culinary politics. Read More

In the colonial era the Vietnamese appropriated French baguette and added local ingredients to concoct a sandwich that is now a hit with the patrons of restaurants and food trucks from Singapore to San Francisco. Read More

American media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict is more even-handed than critics claim, but key contextual factors go unreported or underreported. Among them: the impact of U.S. policy on the conflict. Read More

The region’s autocrats and foreign intruders created growing disorder. Democratic reform is needed to spare the region from a future of failed states, popular revolts, and religious extremism. Read More

The January 25 Tahrir Square uprising raised high hopes for change after years of dictatorship. But the failure of revolutionaries to organize and unite doomed the prospects for democracy. Read More

Washington’s foreign policy rests on shaky ground due to longstanding mistrust by Arabs and Iranians alike. To ease tensions and fight terrorism, the United States should support a new order based on cooperation among regional powers. Read More

Despite direct and continuous American diplomacy for decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has raged on and on. A Middle East scholar deconstructs seven decades of failed American policy. Read More

The Vietnam War lasted twenty years and cost the lives of more than two million Vietnamese and 58,000 U.S. troops. In the forty years since the Communist victory and American defeat, a surprising friendship has followed. Read More

Nelson Mandela’s leadership steered South Africa to the end of apartheid rule. But the remarkable rapprochement between the races can be traced to Mandela’s friendship with an Afrikaner Nationalist who helped save the country. Read More

Conservative backlash against Barack Obama and continuing police brutality against blacks indicates the country's legacy of slavery has not been overcome. Read More

Why are Canadians so ambivalent about the living conditions imposed on the country’s indigenous peoples, whose political communities survive despite being colonized and disempowered? A report from Turtle Island. Read More

Hobbes saw life as nasty and brutish, while Rousseau argued humans lack inherent differences in power and strength. A better framework for understanding division in modern politics: Truth Politics versus Power Politics. Read More

People are getting their news on smartphones and laptops, increasingly via Twitter and Facebook. A requiem for serious journalism? A New Media guru explains why we should embrace the Online Age. Read More

It’s commonplace to hear that the Internet is the end of great newspapers and broadcasters. Reflect on this: media empires were crumbling long before the World Wide Web came along. Read More

Investigative journalism seemed doomed when the collapse of the traditional business model saw newspapers cutting staff and even closing down. But digital technology is giving determined reporters new opportunities to dig up stories and publish them. Read More

Digital technology is enabling the spread of news and information across borders and around the world on an unprecedented scale. Yet, the challenges and risks facing professional journalists have never been greater. The executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists tells the story. Read More

Despite hopes for greater press freedom after the 2011 uprising, Egypt today is one of the most dangerous places in the world for reporters. Battling censors and evading detention is all in a day’s work. Read More

For decades, American films and TV programs have vilified Arabs as villains and terrorists. Now a new generation of directors and producers is challenging racial, gender, and religious stereotypes—and making us laugh and think at the same time. Read More

Gone are the days when diplomats could control messages crafted to influence foreign governments and citizens of other nations. Thanks to social media tools, publics are talking back—and to each other. Diplomacy will never be the same. Read More

With his undeclared war on Ukraine, the Russian president destroyed the post-Cold War system of mutual security commitments. In a quest to sustain his power, “Mr. Nobody” has released forces that he cannot contain. Read More

A Hollywood director tells how he tracked down an American drone pilot and Pakistani victims of drone strikes to make the powerful documentary film Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars.Read More

Ashraf Ghani became the new president of Afghanistan in a power-sharing deal that followed a contested election. Can he now address poor governance, corruption and the Taliban insurgency? Read More

The American-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is proving to be a failure. A military approach thwarted a long-term development strategy for the country. With foreign troops on the way out, the country braces for its uncertain fate. Read More

It is unlikely that the Taliban insurgency will topple the Kabul government and return to power anytime soon. But the group could command the Pashtun region—and threaten security in Pakistan across the border. Read More

Afghanistan has recorded tremendous progress in women’s rights. The world must understand how this achievement is an essential component of the rule of law and advance to democracy. Read More

“Not one benefit, political or military, has been acquired with this war.” That was G.R. Gleig, writing in 1843 about the British retreat from Afghanistan. While the West may have forgotten the Afghan hatred of foreign rule, Afghans have not. Read More

Kabul Memoir: An Afghan writer recalls family disagreements, and a wise patriarch’s way of settling them. Read More

Pakistan is watching the battle of two Sharifs—Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif versus powerful army chief General Raheel Sharif. A political crisis is fueling tensions between the country’s civil and military institutions. Read More

America’s toppling of Saddam Hussein unleashed new forces in the Middle East. The latest fallout: the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Read More

“Face to face with the fragility of the human condition”—a portfolio of a veteran photojournalist’s work in Afghanistan spanning twenty-five years. Read More

Art in our age is more than the Mona Lisa. The construction of major new museums like the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar and even an outpost of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi reflects the expansion of a global civil society. Read More

Art history that presents the Western canon as universal creates a world of inclusions and exclusions, undermining local voices and practices. Let us consider a redefinition of cosmopolitanism that demands the study of art in its social and cultural setting. Read More

The capital of the Islamic Republic is the new art mecca? When it comes to culture, it’s not your ayatollah’s Iran anymore. Despite continuing pressures including censorship, the country’s art scene is flourishing. Read More

Artists have spent a century claiming Egypt for the Egyptians. Now the powerful murals of January 25 have created a new public space dedicated to every citizen. Read More

Pop Art is fun. But does it embody meaning? The same question can be asked of higher-brow Concept Art. Some Egyptian artists are taking objects like soda cans and bottle caps and making statements relevant to the masses. It could change everything. Read More

The P5+1 talks are not just about Tehran’s atomic program. A comprehensive agreement should serve as a model for negotiations on a Middle East Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. Read More

Some 150,000 people have died in the revolt against the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad. Military, political and humanitarian intervention is needed to end the atrocities and prevent further destabilization in the Middle East. Read More

It is difficult to predict the outcome of the region’s transformation, but at least one thing is clear: we are witnessing the birth of Arab citizens who express themselves in the public sphere. Read More

Defeating despotism is only one goal of the Second Arab Awakening. The region must also embrace political, cultural, and religious pluralism, good governance, the rule of law, and inclusive economic growth. Read More

New research by the McKinsey Global Institute shows that the Middle East/North Africa region is falling behind in global flows of goods, services, people, finance and data. To reverse the trend, follow the example of Morocco and Dubai. Read More

The 2013 uprising against Muslim Brotherhood rule signaled a resounding defeat for political Islam and victory for the entrenched pillars of the republic. Yet, if the socioeconomic demands of the people remain unmet, protesters will fill the streets again. Read More

Neither armed struggle nor negotiations have achieved justice and independence. The failure of the latest American mediation effort may give further impetus to another means: civil resistance. Read More

The leader of the Ennahda Movement, hailing the adoption of a new constitution in January, explains why Islam and democracy are compatible. Read More

Some thirty years ago, dictators ruled and inflation soared. Today, Brazilians freely elect their presidents, while millions rise from poverty. The South American nation can teach the world something about building a prosperous democracy. Read More

Half the population of the planet will tune in to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. It’s not only a sport we love. It’s the game that explains who we are. Read More

Hosting the finals of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association brings glory to Brazil. But the globalization of the tournament also challenges the sporting culture of a nation whose name is synonymous with football. Read More

South African officials claimed that the 2010 football tournament would strengthen national cohesion and bolster the economy. There’s scant evidence that it did either. Read More

With commodities no longer booming, Brazil’s economy is in a slump. The good news is that whether or not President Dilma Rousseff wins re-election this year, economic reform is coming. Read More

Something important happened last June: hundreds of thousands of Brazilians began marching for better public services and government accountability—and against police brutality. The question is not only whether the unrest will disrupt this year’s World Cup, but also how it may change Brazilian politics. Read More

Long a national pillar above party politics, the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations has fallen under heavy public scrutiny. It must resolve crises in three areas: ideological neutrality, bureaucratic harmony, and social legitimacy. Read More

Middle Eastern immigrants began arriving in the 1850s, and Brazilian governments have long promoted a narrative of harmonious relations between Arabs and Jews. Is this a myth? Is it a basis for a more robust Brazilian foreign policy for the region? Read More

When the author arrived in 1995, she purchased an armored car and retreated to a gated community. Rio de Janeiro was a city at war with itself: elites of the wealthy enclaves versus the urban poor of the favelas. Society is now changing for the better, in ways that cannot be undone. Read More

The former mayor of Curitiba says decisive battles for the quality of life are being fought in cities, with the future of the planet at stake. He calls for citizen participation on a global scale to overcome poverty, ignorance and environmental degradation. To innovate, he argues, is to begin. Read More

Government bulldozers flattened the Badia East squatter district in Lagos earlier this year. Suppose its nine thousand residents had drawn maps, kept records, and documented their community’s dynamism over the past thirty years. Would it have been quite so easy to evict them? Read More

The urban centers of the New Economic Powers are bent on GDP growth to become influential global cities. Yet the Western model being emulated is itself facing serious sustainability challenges. It is necessary to ask whether material possessions and use of natural resources are the best measure of prosperity. Read More

From Cairo to Casablanca and beyond, millions of Arabs live in munatiq ‘ashwa’ia, or random areas. Informal developments continue to expand in response to state failure and incapacity. Arab governments should stop focusing on hyper-modern schemes and start empowering the poor for the creation of formal, legal neighborhoods with affordable housing. Read More

Once the site of a garbage dump, Al-Azhar Park is a verdant haven in the heart of one of the world’s most densely populated cities. The development project, led by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, achieved a grand urban vision for revitalizing center-city neighborhoods, restoring Islamic historical sites and reviving ancient crafts. Read More

The modern metropolis is vulnerable to all sorts of sudden and gradual threats, from hurricanes and earthquakes to the consequences of global warming. To cope, society must be resilient and the city managed well. Be prepared! Here’s an Urban Dweller’s Guide to the Elements. Read More

By the year 2100, our cities may be home to eight billion people, 80 percent of the projected global population. Much depends on how we navigate the intersection between urbanization and digital technology. Build the Smart City, but one street corner at a time. Read More

The Motor City, once the world automobile capital, is now better known for urban decay. Public services are abysmal, crime rampant, and leadership absent. But a promising comeback may be in the works, thanks to civic-minded corporate executives, leaders of charitable foundations, and nonprofit neighborhood groups. Read More

A Yangtze River boomtown reveals the dark side of China’s rapid urbanization. The skyline looks like another Hong Kong, with towering modern buildings and soaring bridges, but a closer look reveals worsening social stratification. By focusing on short-term economic gains, Chinese leaders risk creating divided cities with expansive slums and ghettoes of extreme wealth. Read More

Since the September 11 attacks, Gotham lives under a blanket of tight security. Police and guards seem everywhere. Inspections, intrusions and blockages are the norm. The financial cost is huge. Quality of life is diminished. Is there anything to show for it? Read More

A military judge found the U.S. army private guilty on twenty espionage and other charges related to the leaking of military field reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. But the lack of transparency in the proceedings raises questions about the legitimacy of the verdict and the harshness of the sentence. Rather than achieving justice, the conviction highlights President Obama’s war on whistleblowers. Read More

Hassan Rowhani scored an impressive victory in Iran’s presidential election in June with the help of reformists, but can he alter the political trajectory of the country? The odds are not favorable. Read More

Sanctions driven by the United States are now devastating Iran’s economy. But until the West lays out a detailed vision for normal relations with Iran, punitive measures may increase the risk of war. Read More

The deal for Iran to provide natural gas to Pakistan and India promised to bolster peace and prosperity in a volatile region. Instead, it became engulfed in a geopolitical struggle. Read More

Western media coverage emphasizes how Iran is a threat to global security but rarely explores the more complex contours of the dispute. Are journalists once again fueling a dangerous showdown in the Middle East? Read More

Reflecting on democracy, the Iranian philosopher argues: “In a tyrannical system, the first organ that stops functioning is the judicial heart, and that when our heart is so feeble, having a strong and robust body is little more than a naïve and ridiculous dream.” Read More

Three decades of American hostility to Iran has resulted in a “satisfying purity of indignation” but little more. It is time for presidential leadership, starting with small and symbolic gestures, to prevent an armed conflict that will cause irreparable damage to both sides. Read More

Western powers suspect that Iran is developing atomic weapons. But the controversy over the country’s nuclear program obscures the fact that Iran launched its pursuit of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes a quarter century before the Islamic revolution. It was the United States that helped Iran launch its nuclear quest. Read More

Iran’s colorful presidents rivet the world’s attention, but the real power in the Islamic Republic rests with a politician-cleric who is hardly known outside the country: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His story explains today’s Iran. Read More

Legions of young Egyptians are unemployed. Many eventually find work but in an informal labor sector that deprives them of social security and other benefits. The economic frustrations of a new generation pose a serious threat to Egypt’s democratic transition. Read More

Egypt’s economy is sinking under decades of misrule. Achieving a better future requires a transformation. Here’s the problem and how to fix it. Read More

With President Obama calling for a diplomatic solution, and the election of Hassan Rowhani as Iran’s chief executive, a fresh approach to nuclear negotiations is possible. But if diplomacy fails, there’s an Iranian case for withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Read More

Egyptians toppled the Hosni Mubarak regime in 2011 despite a solid economic growth rate. The lesson: politicians and policymakers must give due attention to the real needs and the expectations of vast numbers in the marginalized segments of the population. Read More

The displacement of millions of Syrians is merely the latest such crisis in the region. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees argues that the world must provide political solutions, not only humanitarian aid. Read More

Ali Hamouda is pumping gas in northern Jordan. Yasmin Khaled is sipping green tea chai at a trendy Amman café. Salma Farouk is languishing in a refugee camp in Turkey. Here are stories of the Syrian refugees. Read More

Despite the grim obstacles and prospects, Palestine refugees refuse to give up. Giving them justice is essential for Middle East peace. Read More

Some 70 percent of Haiti's skilled workers live outside the country. Tapping this important resource for economic development requires a better understanding of why they left and how they can effectively contribute to their homeland. Read More

Thousands of African migrants have fallen prey to human traffickers in Egypt. Their tragic stories unfold a tale of a desert border region's isolation and neglect, and a resulting descent into lawlessness. Read More

Iraqis have confounded Western expectations of refugee behavior. They did not leave their country en masse during the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Later when they fled sectarian violence, they refused to huddle in refugee camps. Arab traditions underpin a humane approach to asylum policy in the Middle East. Read More

Conflict and population displacement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is portrayed as impossibly complex. There are four competing accounts, depending on which side is telling the story. Interpretation of history will always be contested. A more inclusive narrative can clear the way to constructive solutions. Read More

Millions of people are being forcibly displaced by sudden and slow onset disasters related to climate change. The problem: there is no international legislation providing a clear and secure basis for their rights and protection. A look at what this means for refugees in Kenya and Egypt.Read More

Those who fled the Fall of Saigon in 1975 were refugees traumatized by wars and bound by old ways of life. In the United States, they built new lives in a country known for its fabulous fantasies, high-tech wizardry, and individualistic ambition. For many, the homeland is a destination, but no longer their destiny. Read More

The disease can be eradicated by 2018—with sufficient funds, commitment, and resolve.Read More

Xi Jinping received a strong mandate to govern during the 18th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China in November. Accelerating economic reform is clearly on his agenda. But how far will he move the country from authoritarianism to democracy? Read More

Gone are the days when China Central Television broadcast nothing but party propaganda. It is a modern media empire, operationally autonomous and fending off competition from a rising number of rival domestic channels. Now, like Qatar’s Al Jazeera, it is taking on the world. CCTV is a channel to watch. Read More

When Liu Yang became China’s first female taikonaut with the launch of Shenzhou 9 in 2012, it was yet another sign that the country is catching up with the United States in the conquest of outer space. Concerning the military motives behind China’s ambitious program, however, it’s time to separate wild speculation from valid conclusions. Read More

China is aggressively enforcing a self-declared zone of sovereignty in wide areas of the South China Sea. Its takeover of disputed islands and arrests of fisherman have triggered growing diplomatic and legal challenges to Beijing. Without a Code of Conduct for the contested waters, the region may become a new global flashpoint. Read More

The 14th Dalai Lama may be a Buddhist spiritual figure, but pragmatism is all that truly matters for him. He is a doctor of the mind, determined to locate the source of suffering and come up with a practical cure. As the author observed while traveling with him in Japan, it is a message that resonates far beyond Tibet and China. Read More

The United States should develop a new, comprehensive policy and a sustained strategy for advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Amid growing skepticism about and opposition to Washington’s policy in the Middle East, a serious effort can have a transformative effect on U.S. standing and credibility. Read More

How President Obama can get peacemaking back on track Read More

Why the Arab street finally revolted Read More

An American perspective Read More

A call for education reformRead More

The geopolitical contest for the region’s hearts and minds Read More

The pandemic is not out of the danger zone, but apocalyptic predictions about the collapse of armies, state crises, and a vicious interaction between HIV/AIDS and violent conflict -- especially in Africa -- have not come to pass. Careful analysis gives far less cause for pessimism than many imagined would be possible even half a decade ago.Read More

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvaa made the region a foreign policy focus in pursuit of greater South-South cooperation. An insider’s look at how the Brasília sees Arab democratization, Arab-Israeli peace, the nuclear standoff with Iran and trade and investment promotion.Read More

The results of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun proved once again that nations are not serious about addressing the danger posed by global warming. Non-stop consultations between developed and developing countries must achieve tangible and effective compromises before the follow-up conference in Durban in November.Read More

The big-power competition in Central Asia is not quite what it seems. More intriguing is how the region’s governments play the U.S., China and Russia off one another for political and economic gain.Read More

South Africa's liberation leader taught us a vital lesson when he navigated a peaceful end to apartheid: it is possible to be a great politician and a great human being at the same time. In reaching out to his old enemy, he bequeathed his nation the rule of law, freedom of speech, and free and fair elections. Read More

How the rise of developing economies–exemplified by BRICS– is changing the old way of doing business Read More

The microblogging service has become the digital tool of choice for political and social activists. But more important than Twitter’s protest-friendly architecture is the commitment of company executives to uncensored expression.Read More

There is no doubt that social networking helped bring Egyptians to Tahrir Square for the country’s January 25 revolution. But, equally important, services like Facebook and Twitter also prepared the ground by providing a model of horizontal communication and democratic participation.Read More

The effort to hold the former regime of President Hosni Mubarak to account is off to a poor start. But as the experiences of other nations in transition have shown, establishing a credible record of past abuses is essential to forming a democratic culture.Read More

Turkey has adopted a pro-active foreign policy in support of democracy in the Middle East. Together with a democratic and economically strong Egypt, Turkey can help Arab countries forge an integrated regional order.Read More

The militant Lebanese Shia group believes that the psychological makeup of individual fighters, rather than their weapons, is the key to their battlefield triumphs. An inside glimpse at how the Iranian-backed party sustains its war against Israel.Read More

Reflecting on Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s exclusive interview with The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, five leading analysts discuss whether Ankara’s regional approach is meeting the challenges of a Middle East in transformation.Read More

Washington’s policy of ‘authoritarian stability’ worked for thirty years in the Middle East. Strategic relations with Hosni Mubarak helped enable the U.S. to become the predominant power in the region. But domestic opposition groups used these ties as a cudgel in their struggle against dictatorship. With the fall of Mubarak, future U.S. cooperation with Egypt must overcome a legacy of mistrust. Read More

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has changed the political face of Turkey, with significant results to show for it—a booming domestic economy and enhanced international prestige. The jury is still out on whether he has the political will to address shortcomings on Kurdish rights, the Armenian genocide question, the future of Cyprus, and the rule of law, and thus elevate Turkey into a truly global player. Read More

In the past eighty years, Turkish society has not become as secularized as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk envisioned. But rather than choosing a radical or violent path, Turkey’s Islamists have become champions of democracy. This is a lesson in how to be modern and Muslim at the same time. Read More

After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish Republic oriented itself toward Europe to catch up with 'contemporary civilization.' But in the last ten years, Turkey has sought to play a more active role in the Middle East. The dramatic policy shift now stands to yield substantial strategic, political, and economic dividends following the Arab Spring. Read More

Turkey’s Justice and Development Party has targeted education reform as a priority—to stimulate economic growth as well as to promote conservative Islamic values. But, so far, the party has not cut loose from the authoritarian Republican legacy within the education system as much Turks had expected.Read More

As Egyptians prepare to vote in the first presidential election since the end of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, the old aphorism comes to mind: “Every nation has the government it deserves.” Egypt seems to be getting the presidential election it deserves—one reflecting the social and institutional weaknesses that have plagued the country for too long. There is confusion, suspicion, polarization. Conspiracy theories abound. And there is the mounting anxiety over the economy and public security. Increasingly, it seems, nervous citizens are pining for the stability—or at least the predictability—of Mubarak’s three decades in power. Read More

American research universities are the envy of the world, but they must adapt if they are to create kno wledge that responds to the ‘grand challenges’ of our epoch. Only an amalgamation of transdisciplinary, transinstitutional, and transnational frameworks has the potential to advance broader social and economic outcomes.Read More

In the coming fifty years, choices will be made about what kinds of energy systems to build for the future, where to build them, and how to distribute their benefits, costs, and risks. These choices will help determine which countries and communities flourish and which deteriorate. The fight is on. Read More

The Middle East is among the driest areas on Earth. Actually, it has plenty of water but much of it lies underground and unexplored. Go vernments in the region must undertake serious efforts to map ground water basins and aquifers and develop regulations for their use.Read More

The Indian government launched an ambitious plan to expand atomic energy output seven-fold by the year 2022. But a surprising grassroots movement has sprung up to challenge the program. Rather than focusing on worries about cataclysmic accidents, it is emphasizing citizen rights and government accountability.Read More

Meet the Predator, the unmanned attack aircraft that is defining warfare in the post-Cold War era. Initially deemed useless by the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency, it has become America’s weapon of choice in the War on Terror. With the creation of a new military bureaucracy dependent on identifying and striking new enemies, will Predator missions ever end?Read More

Global challenges related to technology demand attention to their social and ethical aspects and not only their tec hnical ones. but Science and Innovation Policy is not easy to get across to the gener al public. A solution: communicating policy through the genre of creative nonfiction.Read More

Political unrest after a disputed presidential election in Kenya left some eleven hundred people dead and three hundred thousand other homeless. But the turmoil also inflicted damage on the country’s knowledge system—the universities and research institutes that generate economic progress and are a key to strengthening democracy against ethnic-based politics.Read More

Conventional wisdom says that the issue of climate change is too complex and technical for ordinary people to grasp but a project called World Wide Views on Global Warming brought together four thousand citizens in thirty-eight countries who demonstrated a keen ability to debate the topic and make policy recommendationsRead More

The oath-taking of a popularly elected president did not complete the democratic transition in Egypt. The cycle of military autocrats has been broken, yet the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces remains a formidable power. Until such time when Egypt is demilitarized, SCAF will likely be part of a marriage of convenience with the Muslim Brotherhood. Read More

The cradle of modern political Islam, Egypt gave rise to the Muslim Brotherhood as well as a variety of other movements, including Salafis and Neoliberal Islamists. Now the revolution is shaking up not only the authoritarian state but also the autocratic structures of the country’s Islamist organizations and institutions. The result is likely to be a new wave of diverse, policy-based Islamist activism. Read More

Coming of age as a Jew in Egypt, the author protested against the British occupation and, as a young journalist, interviewed Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan El-Banna. Amid the crackdown on suspected Zionists and communists, he emigrated to France. Years later he returned to Cairo, this time as a correspondent for Le Monde, to interview another important Egyptian—President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Read More

To the surprise of many, Ahmed Shafik, a former military leader and Mubarak’s last prime minister, ran a respectable second in the race to become Egypt’s freely elected president. An analysis of why 48.3 percent of the voters preferred a face of the ousted regime to a candidate of the revolution. Read More

Egyptian political change is causing unease in Israel and among Palestinian leaders in Ramallah. Questions have arisen about the durability of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. In fact, a case can be made that despite the rise of Islamists in Egypt, this is an opportunity to rethink deeply flawed and outdated approaches to Arab-Israeli peacemaking. Read More

The leadership and vision of Nasser and Sadat gave way to foreign policy stagnation under Mubarak. After the popular revolt, Egypt now has an opportunity to regain its place as a political and ideological wellspring for the Arab world. A blueprint for a strategic shift. Read More

Mohammed Morsi was a pedestrian politician until recently, little known outside the circles of the Muslim Brotherhood. Today, he is the first democratically elected president in Egyptian history. An inside look at Morsi’s rise to power, and what to expect from the first Islamist to lead the Arab’s world’s most populous and important country. Read More

The January 25 revolution brought down the first, military-dominated Egyptian republic established after the 1952 officers’ coup. A new era of youth-driven dynamism has begun, pointing to a more open, efficient, and civic political system that should foster vigorous, healthy debate in the governing of the country. Read More

President Barack Obama entered office in 2009 calling for a new approach to diplomacy with Iran. Yet, as he begins his second term, the U.S. and Iran are on the brink of a conflict that could engulf the world. A Memo to the President on how America can avoid war.Read More

Washington’s response to the Arab Spring is to bolster secularists as a bulwark against the rise of Islamists. But the policy undermines the struggle for democracy. For a sounder approach, America should develop policies that address the sentiments and grievances of the man on the street.Read More

For much of the U.S., the September 11 attacks transformed Muslim Americans from an invisible minority to a shadowy people to be feared. During the Obama presidency, civil rights conditions for the community have gone from bad to worse. The popular climate has become uglier. Something has changed in America.Read More

In the film The Dark Knight Rises, Batman once again saves Gotham City from ruin but at the ostensible cost of the superhero’s own life. It is a parable that explores fear and anxiety in the Age of Terror and forces Americans to confront truths about the violence in their land. Read More

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 was a milestone in the long fight for health care reform in the U.S. But despite President Obama’s reelection, it is far from clear whether it will deliver on its promise. A close examination of the question of implementation.Read More

The demise of the American newspaper seemed to be the death knell for an All-American tradition: the editorial cartoon. But a spirited new generation of cartoonists is taking its irreverence online. Rest assured: the Republic remains in safe hands!Read More

From Katrina to Isaac, hurricanes have brought death and destruction. Two years ago came another calamity: the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster. Adding insult to injury, citizens no longer have a daily newspaper to inform on their troubles. The story of how a great American city wrangles the void.Read More