عرب و اسلام سیاسی

Iran's fraudulent election and subsequent civil strife demonstrate that, whatever that country's people think about President Obama's desire for mutual respect, the Iranian government is determined to obstruct exactly that goal. Meanwhile, on the Arab side of the Gulf, President Obama's major address to the world's Muslims from Cairo and

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's Friday sermon, which called for an end to mass protests contesting the outcome of last week's presidential elections and which carried an implicit threat of "bloodshed and chaos" if they continued, has raised the stakes in the ongoing standoff between the government and opposition in Iran. The

On On June 16, 2009, Mehdi Khalaji, Mohsen Sazegara, Patrick Clawson, and Michael Singh addressed a special Policy Forum at The Washington Institute to discuss the disputed reelection of Iran's incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad on June 12 amid a wave of mass protests and charges of vote rigging. Mehdi Khalaji

On March 24, 2009, the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, the U.S. Department of State's International Information Programs in Washington D.C., and the Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Embassy in Israel jointly held an international videoconference seminar focusing on reform and democracy in the Gulf States, featuring

On June 7, Lebanon's pro-West March 14 coalition surprised the world by defeating the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance in parliamentary elections. Although March 14 was the incumbent, the coalition was widely seen as the underdog vis-a-vis its Iranian- and Syrian-backed opponents. The victory not only returns the March 14 coalition

Large-scale manipulation of Friday's presidential election in Iran was to be expected, but few could have predicted that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had a military coup in mind. By declaring incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner, Khamenei conveyed a clear message to the West: Iran is digging in on

To most Westerners, Iranian politics is essentially a black box, making it difficult to know what to hope for out of Friday's presidential elections. Knowledgeable commentators offer vastly differing opinions regarding the extent to which the results will reflect the will of the Iranian people versus that of Iran's ultimate

With Iran's presidential campaign culminating on June 12, all three challengers to incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad are expressing increased concern about the possibility of election fraud and manipulation of the election. Not only are there complaints about regime influence on the campaign, such as biased coverage by state-run television, the voting

As the Hizballah-led March 8 coalition campaigns ahead of Lebanon's June 7 elections, the group has been forced to contend with the unexpected exposure of its covert terrorist activities both at home and abroad. At home, Hizballah now stands accused of playing a role in the assassination of former Lebanese