Middle East

The Week in Egypt – November 4, 2013

Catch up on the latest out of Egypt every week, with analysis, news updates, photos, videos, and more.

Congress Discusses the Future of US Aid to Egypt

By Mohamed Elgohari

During the House of Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Next Steps on Egypt Policy,” three US administration officials, Derek Chollet, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Ambassador Elizabeth Jones, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Easter Affairs, and Alina L. Romanowski, USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for the Middle East, testified […]

The Widening Gap Between France and Germany Over Defense

By Judy Dempsey, Strategic Europe

Steadfast Jazz takes place against the background of a widening gap between France and Germany over defense and security matters.

Save the Children of Syria

By Barbara Slavin

While the United States, Russia, and the other parties interested in the civil war in Syria haggle over the ground rules for admission to a Geneva peace conference, Syrian children are succumbing to polio and other horrible diseases and losing precious years of schooling.

Iraq’s Security Needs

By Ramzy Mardini

The dangerous interplay between growing domestic tensions and unstable regional dynamics is driving the rise in violence in Iraq, with levels unseen since 2008. The resurgence of Sunni militancy in Iraq—piggybacking off the sectarian, regional proxy war unfolding in Syria—has alarmed the Shiite community, leading Shiite militias to reactivate and play a role in defending […]

Too Much Crisis, Too Little Defense

By Jon Kyl and Joe Lieberman, POLITICO

The most obvious impact of the defense cuts on the economy is the loss of jobs in the private and public defense sector, but there are even greater negative economic effects that are less visible.

Ambassador Fred Hof’s Testimony on Syria before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 31, 2013

By MENASource

Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Corker, Members of the Committee: I am deeply honored by your invitation to testify today on the situation in Syria.  It is a situation for which the word “appalling” barely suffices.  The crisis in Syria has, for more than 30 months, been destroying a country of 23 million people. 

Syria: Ambassador Fred Hof to Testify Thursday Before Senate Foreign Relations Committee

By MENASource

On Thursday, October 31 Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Ambassador Frederic C. Hof will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senate Committee will convene two panels to discuss the crisis in Syria.

Hailing Hellfires

By Fatima Abo Alasrar

Apart from the Yemeni National Dialogue Conference that has been generating good news in the press, the country is on a rapidly deteriorating course toward uncertainty.

SACEUR: European Allies Vital to Global Security

By Claudette Roulo, American Forces Press Service

It makes fiscal and strategic sense for the United States to continue to base troops in Europe, the officer who serves as NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe and commander of U.S. European Command said today.