السياسة العربية والإسلامية

On February 12, 2004, Paula Dobriansky addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. As the undersecretary of state for global affairs, Dr. Dobriansky is the senior State Department official responsible for a broad range of transnational issues, including democracy, human rights, labor, counternarcotics, law enforcement, refugees, humanitarian relief, and environmental

Today's meeting between President George W. Bush and visiting Tunisian president Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali may be a low-profile event with a leader of a country in which the United States has only limited strategic interests. Yet, the repercussions of their luncheon tete-a-tete for the administration's larger objective of Arab

The current situation in Iraq constitutes a unique moment in the history of the Islamic Middle East. For the first time, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, and Assyrians of the same nation have an opportunity to cooperatively evaluate the task of shaping their shared future. The challenge between now and June 30

After pan-Arabism and Islamism, it is heartening to consider the prospect that democracy may be the next great wave to wash over Arab countries. Whether it actually takes root or is merely a passing fancy depends on three sets of actors: local leaders, local populations, and what is euphemistically referred

Friends of the Arabs can but mourn the transformation of the Middle East from an advanced and powerful region arguably ahead of Europe to a backward state. It is sobering to realize that as recently as the 1930s, there was no Arab development deficit. At that time, Alexandria was more

The December 13 capture of Saddam Husayn elicited a variety of reactions from government officials and other prominent figures throughout the Middle East. Following is a sampling of these reactions, quoted and paraphrased from various regional and international media sources. Arab League. Secretary-General Amr Mussa stated that the Iraqi people

President Bush's speech about nourishing democracy in the Middle East was received with predictable derision by state-run Arab media. More disturbing is the fact that the speech has failed to attract much attention in this country. It is dismissed by some as mere political rhetoric and seen by others as

The surprise announcement that Robert Jordan, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, will leave his post by mid-October means that Washington will lack an authoritative voice in the kingdom at a crucial time in the war on terror. One State Department official has claimed that Jordan's resignation was for personal reasons

Wistful expressions of hope by US officials that the demise of Odai and Qusay, the sons of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and indeed of Saddam himself, would undercut the Sunni Arab resistance in Iraq betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the opposition in the so-called Sunni triangle north and west