Middle East

An Iran Nuclear Agreement Could Help Afghanistan and South Asia

By Barbara Slavin

More is riding on negotiations in Geneva than just the world’s desire to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons.   An agreement between Iran, the United States and the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany could substantially improve the atmosphere for Iranian cooperation on regional issues, especially the upcoming major U.S. […]

Iran Task Force Launches New Issue Brief

The South Asia Center’s Iran Task Force launched its newest issue brief Iran, Afghanistan and South Asia: Resolving Regional Sources of Instability at an event on November 8. The event featured Fatemeh Aman, president of Global Media Trail and co-author of the issue brief; Laura Jean Palmer-Moloney, a senior research geographer with the US Army […]

This Week in South Asia: November 2-8

Commentary from the South Asia Center on the most relevant news from the region, and suggested “must-read” analyses from the week.

Amr Hamzawy on Egypt’s Turn for the Worse

By MENASource

Amr Hamzawy, prominent Egyptian academic, founder of the Freedom Egypt Party, and former parliamentarian in 2012, wrote a particularly poignant article describing his experience at the funeral at St. Mark’s church in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis and reflecting on the sad and dangerous turn in the course of Egypt’s political and social development.

Two Sorrowful Scenes at a Church Funeral

By Amr Hamzawy

While attending the funeral of my colleague’s aunt at St. Mark’s church in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, a woman in attendance approached me asking if she could ask a question. While I was expecting a question about my position on the course of events of July 3, 2013 and after, this delicate woman’s voice […]

Protecting the East Coast from Iranian Missiles

By Ian Brzezinski

In the wake of the government shutdown’s interruption of fiscal 2014 budget deliberations, Congress still faces tough decisions about national defense priorities. One controversial issue that will resurface shortly is the need to protect the East Coast from the threat of Iran’s growing ballistic-missile capability. When it does so, Washington should avoid repeating what has been an unnecessarily bipolar debate […]

Several NATO Members Offer to Help Eliminate Syria’s Chemical Weapons

By Adrian Croft, Reuters

On Syria, [NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Philip] Breedlove held out the possibility that NATO could play a coordinating role in eliminating chemical weapons although no request had been made for it to do so.

Militias Fight Gun Battles in Libyan Capital Tripoli

By Ghaith Shennib and Ulf Laessing, Reuters

Libyan militia fighters on the government payroll fought each other with rifles, grenades and anti-aircraft weapons on the streets of Tripoli on Tuesday in the worst clashes in the capital in weeks.

The People of The Square

By Amir Beshay

From its opening scene of masses chanting “The people want the downfall of the regime” in Tahrir in January 2011, you can tell that The Square will not be an easy movie to watch. From the widely-publicized birds-eye view of Tahrir, director Jehane Noujaim’s The Square zooms in on the lives of five very different […]