Category: Blogs

Sisi’s Visit to Washington: Not Much Expected, Not Much Happened

By Dr. H.A. Hellyer

Amidst the anticipation of the first visit of an Egyptian president to Washington DC since 2009, there were a number of articles on Abdal Fattah El-Sisi’s visit to the White House in the first week of April. Much of the analysis was about what the Trump administration should want from Cairo. But the harsh reality […]

In Egypt, Watch this (Shrinking) Space

By Ashish Kumar Sen

President’s plan for state of emergency could further reduce space for dissent, said Atlantic Council’s Mirette Mabrouk Egyptian President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi’s decision to impose a three-month state of emergency in response to deadly church bombings will likely further shrink the space for freedom of expression and dissent in Egypt, according to Mirette Mabrouk, director […]

Purged from Turkish Army, NATO Officers Granted Asylum in Norway

By Mark Lewis, Associated Press

Norway and Turkey — NATO’s northern and southern frontiers in Europe — have been pillars of the Western military alliance for more than 60 years. But the diplomatic temperature between the two has fallen steadily

Is Russia Winning in Serbia? Maybe, But Not for the Reasons You Think

By Dimitar Bechev

One year ago, in April 2016 when Serbia held snap polls, the BBC ran the headline “Pro-EU Prime Minister Vučić Claims Victory.” One year later, after Aleksandar Vučić’s resounding win in the presidential election on April 2, the international media has styled him “Putin’s Serb ally.” Who’s right and where is Serbian foreign policy heading? […]

From Trench Coats to Tuxedos: How the Kremlin Deploys its Dirty Tricks Today

By Diane Francis

The same dirty tricks deployed by the KGB for decades are used in today’s Cold War 2.0, and have permeated geopolitics from Syria to Ukraine and the world’s capitals. But spies in trench coats been supplanted by Russians in tuxedos with huge bank accounts who use financial, social, and political weaponry to build tentacles that […]

Jihadists in Syria Stopped Fearing the United States When Trump Reached the White House

By Saleem al-Omar

The jihadist Abu Aisha opened his remarks on the United States with a verse from the Quran: “We will surely test you with fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient / Who, when disaster strikes them, say, ‘Indeed we belong to Allah and […]

This is How the World is Reacting to the US Strikes in Syria

On April 6, US President Donald J. Trump announced that the United States had carried out a missile strike on a Syrian air base in response to a chemical attack by the Syrian government, which killed nearly eighty civilians on April 4. Trump said the strike was in the “vital national security interest of the […]

Al-Azhar and Sisi’s Regime: Structural Roots of Disagreement

By Belal Abdallah

Tensions between Egypt’s religious leadership and its political leadership—represented by the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, and Egypt’s President respectively—have reached a point where they can no longer be concealed. The underlying disagreement has become public, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has raised this issue in his public speeches, the most recent of […]