Policy Analysis

April 27, 2017 Women in Saudi Arabia, like women all over the world, demand respect, equal rights, and to not be treated as second-class citizens. The highly-debated freedom to drive is but one of their requests, alongside their personal ambitions and a genuine desire to contribute to every area of

April 3, 2017 As expected, several Algerian opposition parties declared they would, after all, participate in the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 4. This decision is unsurprising considering their failure to agree on a political plan that extricates the country from its crisis. Over the past two years, the opposition

March 21, 2017 Having read the article in Foreign Affairs about Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and in the wake of publicity following his meeting with President Trump this week, I would like to offer a candid view that speaks for many Saudis of my generation. Like King Talut of the

March 20, 2017 On December 11, a massive explosion shattered St. Mark’s Cathedral in Abbasia, central Cairo, claiming the lives of more than 25 worshipers and wounding scores of others. The event cast even more anxiety and strain over the situation of Egypt’s Copts, which has been volatile and troubled

Presently, almost all global and regional actors insist on protecting the current borders; however, they offer no vision on how to protect the people and law and order inside them. In a volatile region where co-existence between communities is becoming increasingly difficult, imposing borders on them will remain an even greater challenge.

António Guterres assumes his position in a world that seems not to trust in the organization or the values that it fosters. Yet his personal record and ideological outlook may rescue his mission from failure

An American and European-backed administrative “Marshall Plan” – contingent upon many requirements – is necessary in order to save Kurdistan.

Although most everyone in the region badly wants to turn the page on present-day failures, uncertainties about the next administration abound.

If a case can be made for a country too big to fail in the Middle East, it would be Turkey.

After so much hope, what happened?

The devastation of Aleppo, Idlib, and Tikrit may motivate the Sunni leaders in Mosul and Raqqa to think and act politically rather than violently.

However hard it seems for Iran to fight against the United States’ “soft war,” nothing appears easier and less costly than mobilizing Iranians worldwide against Saudi Arabia or poisoning their consciencewith anti-Arab sentiments.

With some Arabs leading the call, various dissidents like the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) core of the NCRI are accelerating their calls for regime change in Iran.

After the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011, international actors and observers turned their attention to the Islamists in Egypt. All began monitoring how Islamism would be incorporated into the political equation. Led by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamists were dealing with the new struggle around

Mentally manipulating the Iraqi security forces by shaping the news and disseminating it online was one of the major pillars of ISIS’ strategy to occupy Mosul. The fall of Mosul on June 10 2014, followed by the fall of Nineveh and other Iraqi provinces, was especially notable for ISIS’s use

July 15, 2016 With Britain’s new Prime Minister Theresa Maym at the helm, Great Britain will soon leave the EU and return to its historical position as a bridge between Europe and America. But what will become of the EU after Brexit, an event that some have seen as equally

A recent Foreign Policy article argued against holding the Sykes-Picot agreement accountable for the current turmoil in the Middle East. While the author may have gone too far in absolving the treaty and its signatories from all blame, it is certainly true that the borders this document ultimately helped develop

April 8, 2016 On the afternoon of this past January 24th, while Egypt was preparing for the fifth anniversary of the January 25 Revolution, the young Italian academic researcher Giulio Regeni disappeared in the middle of Cairo. His body turned up several days later, tossed near a security outpost on

March 31, 2016 In the aftermath of the P5+1 agreement with Iran, the Arab Middle East has been processing two widely conflicting messages from Tehran. The first message is a soft appeal for friendship directed at the global community as a whole, which is built on promise and good intentions

Five months ago Nawshirwan Mustafa, general organizer of the Change Movement (Gorran) party in Kurdistan, left Iraq for London under the pretext of receiving medical treatment for chronic back pain. His extended stay has puzzled not only his rivals, but also his supporters. Silence over Mustafa’s condition, as well as