دمکراسی و اصلاح

During the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Syria's Assad regime was helping insurgents to cross the border and kill Americans. In response to the Syrian provocation, the Bush administration considered a broad range of policy options. But one family of options always remained off the table: regime change or any combination of pressures that might destabilize Damascus. At the Department of Defense, we held a dissenting view.

While the Turkish Justice and Development Party's (AKP's) record on democracy and foreign policy is less than perfectly in accord with European or U.S. preferences, the Turkish opposition has often appeared even worse, given its chauvinistic nationalism, shortsightedness, and anti-Western views. Signs indicate, however, that this dynamic is changing. Since

Although the Muslim Brotherhood favors Egypt's new political parties law, some intellectuals and liberal parties are questioning whether it represents a substantial improvement on the old one.

Ten days after millions of Egyptians voted in the first post-Mubarak election to approve nine constitutional amendments, the country's Supreme Military Council (SMC) has announced it will soon issue its own "constitutional declaration," effectively superseding the existing constitution. This raises the question as to why Egyptians were asked to vote

The lesson of the AKP experience for the Arab world and likely Muslim Brotherhood governments is that religious orthodoxy is an ideological beauty contest, in which the winner is always the ugly guy.

More than a month after President Hosni Mubarak was removed from power, Egypt's jails are again filling up, but this time with senior officials of the fallen regime.

On March 22, 2011, Jean-Pierre Filiu and Mehdi Khalaji addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute to discuss whether the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist offshoots -- not only in Egypt but across the Arab region and beyond -- can respond to a more open political environment

In view of the major, unexpected mass protests in Arab societies -- from Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, and now even Syria -- it must be asked whether similar protests could break out in the West Bank, Gaza, or both. On March 15, approximately 10,000 Palestinians demonstrated in

Iraq is evincing growing confidence and ambition to use its political experience as a regional model for countries emerging from dictatorships.