MENASource

Top News: US to Deploy Patriot Missile Batteries, F-16s to Jordan

The United States will send anti-missile batteries and fighter jets to Jordan at the kingdom’s request to boost defense capabilities in the face of an attack from neighboring Syria, Jordanian officials said Wednesday. EGYPT Egypt demands Ethiopia halt Nile dam, upping stakes Fearing the project will affect its main source of water, Egypt will demand […]

What the United States Should Have Said to Egypt about the NGO Trial

By Amy Hawthorne

The immediate US statements about an Egyptian court’s June 4 decision to hand down prison terms to employees of prominent American and German pro-democracy nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Egypt constitute a strikingly subdued response to an extraordinary episode.

Obama’s Drone Speech Misses the Mark

By Danya Greenfield

President Barack Obama’s speech on May 23 should be commended for acknowledging that the United States must shift away from a perpetual state of war against terror, renewing his commitment to close Guantanamo, and promising to provide greater clarity regarding when and how drones can be used overseas. However, Obama did not go far enough […]

Top News: Syria Rebels Say They Have Lost Battle for Qusayr

Syrian forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies seized control of the border town of Qusayr on Wednesday after a rapid overnight offensive, dealing a strategic defeat to rebel fighters.

An Argument for Military Voting

By H.A. Hellyer

The Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) of Egypt certainly does not leave any legal specialist in a state of boredom for very long. In most countries, the highest court in the land is hardly the topic of conversation in public discourse, except on rare occasions. Egypt’s SCC, however, breaks that mould quite regularly, issuing statements and […]

Syria: Hezbollah’s Military Intervention

By Frederic C. Hof

The loss of the strategic town of Qusayr by Syrian rebels clearly demonstrates that the presence of Hezbollah fighters inside Syria is a life preserver of sorts for a regime badly in need of one. That Bashar al-Assad can use the help is beyond question. Yet the wisdom of this intervention is very much in […]

Top News: US, Germany, and Rights Groups Slam Egypt’s NGO Trial

US Secretary of State John Kerry voiced concern Tuesday about the sentences handed down by a Cairo court on 43 Egyptian and foreign NGO workers, denouncing it as a "politically-motivated" trial. 

NGO Verdict Revives Calls for Reevaluating US Assistance to Egypt

By Nancy Messieh

After a lengthy year-and-a-half long trial, Egypt’s court sentenced forty-three Egyptians, Americans, and other foreign nationals to up to five years in prison. The trial, infamously known in local Egyptian media as the ‘Foreign Funding Trial,’ has come to a distressing end and is yet another test for US-Egypt relations, as well as a foreboding […]