Atlantic Council blogs

Atlantic Council blogs provide short-form analyses from Council experts and a wider community of global voices on the world’s most important news stories.
View all
of our blogs
Subscribe to our
newsletters

Latest from across our blogs

MENASource

Sep 16, 2014

Top News: Muslim Brotherhood Leader Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder and Inciting Violence

By MENASource

The Giza Criminal Court sentenced on Monday Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and fourteen others to life in prison for murder and inciting violence. The fifteen defendants were tried for violence, which occurred following the ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in Giza’s Bahr al-Azam neighborhood on July 15, 2013. Violent clashes broke […]

MENASource

Sep 16, 2014

Top News: Parliamentary Elections Date to be Announced in October: Source

By EgyptSource

The Higher Election Committee (HEC), a seven-member judicial body in charge of overseeing parliamentary polls, is expected to complete all measures necessary for parliamentary polls to be held before the end of this year.

MENASource

Sep 15, 2014

Are We Giving ISIS Too Much Credit?

Ramzy Mardini, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, recently wrote in The Washington Post about the possibility of the Obama administration’s overestimation of the threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). It’s an interesting question.

Iraq Syria

MENASource

Sep 15, 2014

We Can’t Destroy ISIS Without Destroying Bashar al Assad First

By Frederic C. Hof

On Wednesday evening, President Obama took 14 minutes to articulate, in clear and persuasive language, a counter-terrorism strategy “to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL.”

Syria
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, President Barack Obama, and Prime Minister David Cameron

NATOSource

Sep 15, 2014

5 Ways for NATO, US to support Ukraine

By Jan Lodal, Washington Post

The Ukrainian military is capable of defending this line if it is given adequate NATO support, led by the United States. Five packages are needed:

NATO Russia

MENASource

Sep 15, 2014

Egypt’s Role in Libya: Lessons Learned from Iraq

By Nader Bakkar

Taking an in-depth look at what role Egypt can play in the current crisis in Libya reveals that a full military intervention, a limited military incursion, or a ‘surgical operation,’ are wrought with negative repercussions. But what of a collective Arab or international military intervention?  What of an indirect intervention to provide intelligence or logistical assistance […]

North Africa

UkraineAlert

Sep 15, 2014

Can Ukraine’s Parliament Election Bring Moderate Voices From Embattled East?

Could Ukraine’s parliamentary elections in six weeks produce representatives from eastern Ukraine who might provide a clear alternative voice for that region, distinct from those of the thuggish, Kremlin-sponsored “people’s republics?” If so, that could offer President Petro Poroshenko a set of credible, more moderate interlocutors to bring into negotiations to come over the east’s […]

Elections Politics & Diplomacy

MENASource

Sep 15, 2014

Top News: Anti-ISIS Meeting Kicks Off in Paris

By MENASource

French President Francois Hollande called on Monday for a global response to counter ISIS, as leaders of twenty-six countries gathered in Paris to discuss how to fight against the militant group.Tehran ridiculed the international conference on the jihadist threat that opened in Paris on Monday, insisting the Islamic State cannot be defeated without the support […]

UkraineAlert

Sep 15, 2014

Ukraine’s President Seeks Urgent US Help to Defend against Russian Aggression

By John E. Herbst

Petro Poroshenko Will Ask Congress’ Support in Getting US Weapons President Petro Poroshenko arrives in Washington this week at the most perilous moment in the history of independent Ukraine. After the Kremlin’s months of attacking Ukraine with its proxy militias, it directly invaded southeast Ukraine last month with thousands of regular Russian army troops, thus […]

Russia Ukraine

New Atlanticist

Sep 15, 2014

Ukraine News Roundup | September 15

By Irena Chalupa

Ukraine President Poroshenko Faces Backlash Over EU Trade Deal Delay via Wall Street Journal Bitter Survivors and Caravans of Coffins from Ukraine’s “Eastern Boiler” via Daily Beast As The Sanctions’ Noose Tightens, China Grabs Russian Energy Assets At Bargain Prices via Forbes 5 Ways for NATO, U.S. to Support Ukraine via Washington Post Europe’s Political Divorces Are Often Messy via Moscow Times Propaganda Army Speaks […]

Ukraine