Middle East

Key Questions on Egypt’s Upcoming Referendum [Update]

As Egypt prepares to go to the polls once again, voting for a second constitution in the span of three years, following are key updates on the referendum taking place on January 14 and 15: 

Germany’s Contribution to the OPCW-UN Mission in Syria

By German Foreign Ministry

In response to a request from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the German Government has decided that Germany will make a substantial contribution towards the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons.

The Gulf is a Flashpoint for Cyber Conflict

By James Andrew Lewis, CSIS

Cyberattack is a new tool of national power. It provides a means of coercion, influence, and warfare.

The New Draft Constitution Part III: A Reactive Constitution

By Yussef Auf

Despite an increasingly volatile security situation and political climate, Egyptians are heading to the polls for the third time in less than three years to cast their votes on a new constitution. Given the state of the country however, the referendum will hardly be an accurate reflection of the text of the constitution itself. However, […]

Syria Ban Ki-moon’s Geneva Conference Invitation

By Frederic C. Hof

On January 6 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon dispatched written invitations to a “Geneva Conference on Syria” in Switzerland to be convened under his chairmanship. The conference would open with a plenary “high-level format” in Montreux on January 22, where “international participants will be present to demonstrate their meaningful support for constructive negotiations between the […]

Middle East in Search of a New Equilibrium

By Barbara Slavin

Many U.S. veterans of the Iraq war are feeling understandable anguish about recent al-Qaida gains in Ramadi and Fallujah. More American servicemen and women died in Anbar province, where Ramadi and Fallujah are located, than in any other region of Iraq during the U.S. military intervention. Now the sheikhs of Anbar are fighting al-Qaida in an uneasy […]

Anbar Awakening 2.0?

By Ramzy Mardini

The insurgency in Iraq had never truly ended. While its intensity was low for years, the progression of a neighboring insurgency in Syria was bound to spillover into Iraq, most especially Anbar province—the epicenter of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, which borders Syria.