Middle East

Moving the New US-Saudi Relationship Beyond Reassurance

By Richard LeBaron

Over the past two months, US and Saudi officials have done what they needed to do to calm the waters in US-Saudi relations. Senior officials visited Riyadh to discuss the status of the negotiations with Iran; the Saudi interior minister visited the United States to coordinate Syria policy more effectively; the vocal complaints of the […]

Syria: Escaping the Policy Cul-De-Sac

By Frederic C. Hof

The collapse of the Geneva II negotiations seems to have inspired a reassessment of Syria policy within the Obama administration. The Assad regime challenges vital US interests in at least two respects: as a magnet for al-Qaeda and other transnational terrorists; and as a perpetrator of war crimes and crimes against humanity producing tsunami-like effects […]

Tip-toeing Toward Criticism: 27 Countries Rebuke Egypt at UN Human Rights Council

By Amy Hawthorne

In a setback to Egypt’s efforts to convince the international community that it is moving toward democracy, twenty-seven countries delivered an unprecedented joint statement on Egypt at the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on March 7.  This is the first time that so many countries—the United States, the European Union “big three” […]

Three Years On, Arab Transitions Remain Incomplete

Three years after a wave of popular uprisings swept aside long-standing regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen, the future of the region remains uncertain. The Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East held a panel discussion on March 11th to discuss the current state of the Arab transitions to look ahead at economic and […]

Egypt UN Delegation Critical of UN Human Rights Council Statement

By EgyptSource

During the twenty-fifth Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 7, the Egyptian delegation strongly refuted criticisms of its human rights record expressed in a joint statement of twenty-seven nations. The joint statement, which included endorsement from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Turkey, expressed “concern about the […]

Egypt’s New Government and the Workers

By Tom Rollins

Last week Egypt’s new Prime Minister, Ibrahim Mehleb, announced he was banning bottled water in government buildings.  “This step comes from my eagerness to cut spending and share the lifestyle of ordinary people,” Mehleb was cited as telling reporters. On social media, reactions fluctuated between nods of approval and criticism of a “silly PR move” […]

Russia is Playing a Weak Hand Very Strongly

A regular contributor to CNN.com, Ambassador-in-Residence Michael Oren writes that in both Syria and Iran, Russia has played its relatively weak strategic hand exceedingly well and is threatening to outmaneuver the United States in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the United States has paused its effots to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace in order to generate pressure on […]