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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.
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MENASource

Jun 2, 2012

Mubarak and the State of Emergency Sacrificed

By Michele Dunne

In another of the strange turns that have characterized Egypt’s post revolutionary trajectory, suddenly this week Hosni Mubarak and the state of emergency that typified and sustained his 30 year rule were set aside with 48 hours of each other.  Although the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) never had the courage to lift […]

MENASource

Jun 2, 2012

Developing Democracy in Egypt: A Work in Progress

By Catriona Knapman

The presidential elections were met with high expectations in Egypt. Yet the results of the polls have brought much disillusion and disappointment, forcing second-round voters to choose between the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate (Mohamed Morsy) and an ex-regime candidate (Ahmed Shafik), who together won only half of the vote in the first round. After the official […]

New Atlanticist

Jun 1, 2012

Stuxnets are Not in the US National Interest: An Arsonist Calling for Better Fire Codes

By Jason Healey

The United States government has apparently struck a blow against the Iranian nuclear enrichment capability by using Stuxnet to disable centrifuges.   While this cyber weapon destroyed centrifuges and seized up the enrichment process, the cost in American cyber power ultimately will not have been worth these limited gains.

Cybersecurity Iran

New Atlanticist

Jun 1, 2012

Egypt’s Prospects for Democracy

By Michele Dunne

Michele Dunne, director of the Atlantic Council‘s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, sat down with Reza Akhlaghi, senior writer at Foreign Policy Association Blogs, to discuss the Egyptian elections. What, in your opinion, were the key driving factors behind the mass revolt against Hosni Mubarak’s regime? Egyptians were disappointed by the fact that […]

North Africa

NATOSource

Jun 1, 2012

Cartwright: “We built the F-35 with absolutely no protection for it from a cyber standpoint”

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., AOL Defense

From Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., AOL Defense:  [Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James] Cartwright fears the Pentagon’s most expensive program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, might prove to be as vulnerable to enemy hackers as the old under-armored Humvees were to roadside bombs.

Cybersecurity Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

Jun 1, 2012

On American Military Intervention in Syria

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

The massacre in Houla and other regime atrocities that have been unearthed do not change American strategic interests with respect to Syria. Horrible as they are, they don’t tell us anything new about the nature of this odious regime. If it was a bad idea to intervene prior to the latest revelations, then it remains […]

Syria

NATOSource

Jun 1, 2012

Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

By David E. Sanger, the New York Times

From David E. Sanger, the New York Times:  From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities

Cybersecurity Security & Defense

MENASource

Jun 1, 2012

Top News: Protesters Arrive in Tahrir for “Disenfranchisement Friday” Rally

By Mara Revkin

Tens of thousands of protesters have begun filtering into Tahrir Square to participate in the "Disenfranchisement Friday," protests to demand that presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq be barred from running for the country’s highest office.

New Atlanticist

Jun 1, 2012

NATO’s Many Challenges

By Joshua Foust

I had the privilege of attending the Young Atlanticist Summit, sponsored by The Atlantic Council, during the NATO Summit last week in Chicago. It was a fascinating experience, getting to hear NATO officials discuss their plans with an oftentimes skeptical crowd. NATO tried to sell the summit as a watershed moment for the alliance – […]

Afghanistan NATO

NATOSource

Jun 1, 2012

Gallup poll: NATO intervention in Libya unpopular in Arab countries

By the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies

From the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies:  After French President Francois Hollande in an interview Tuesday hinted at an openness to military intervention in Syria