السياسة العربية والإسلامية

On September 29, Algerians will vote on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's proposed Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, a policy that would provide amnesty for most of the one-thousand Islamic terrorists the government believes are still hiding in Algeria and neighboring countries. Between three hundred and five hundred of the terrorists

On September 24, 2005, Hala Mustafa, Ibrahim Karawan, and Khairi Abaza addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. Dr. Mustafa is editor-in-chief of the Egyptian political quarterly al-Dimuqratiya (Democracy) and a former visiting fellow at the Institute. Dr. Karawan is director of the Middle East Center and a professor of

On September 24, 2005, Robert Blackwill and Samuel Berger addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. Ambassador Blackwill is president of the international consulting firm Barbour, Griffith, and Rogers. Previously, he served in the Bush administration as deputy national security advisor for strategic planning, presidential envoy to Iraq, and U.S

August 17 is the official start of the campaign for Egypt's first multicandidate presidential election; voting is scheduled for on September 7. President Hosni Mubarak, who has held office for twenty-four years, has been elected without opposition four times. In the upcoming election, only party leaders can be candidates; no

On July 20, the Saudi foreign ministry announced that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the long-serving Saudi ambassador to the United States, was stepping down, and that "the process of nominating" Prince Turki al-Faisal, the current Saudi ambassador in London, to replace him had begun. When the widely anticipated death of

While the Bush administration’s Middle East agenda focuses on promoting democracy and freedom throughout the region, Saudi Arabia follows a contrary agenda whose sole avowed focus is counterterrorism. Riyadh’s fight against terrorism and repeated calls for national unity have provided a facade under which the monarchy has abandoned the few

Last week, Iranians elected a proto-fascist as president. The rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, formerly the mayor of Tehran, was a blow to the vibrant reform movement that swept Mohammed Khatami to the presidency in 1997. Ahmadinejad's extreme social conservatism—which bears plenty of resemblance to the Taliban's—and his economic populism have

Once again the Iranian nation is at a fork in the road: a choice between worse and worst. It is not clear when it will have the possibility of choosing, under a democratic structure, between better and best. A problematic election and the intervention of the armed services in politics

Lebanon’s ongoing parliamentary elections—held in a staggered format through June 19—reflect a new, complex reality for the country. Although free from Syrian tutelage and gerrymandering, the results have been much less encouraging than had been hoped when Syrian troops withdrew. Background: Past Elections The 1990 Taif Accord offered an imperfect