Arab & Islamic Politics

Cyber bullets are bullets nonetheless.

Several recent developments have put the possibility of military action in Syria on Turkey's agenda. On April 9, Syrian forces opened fire at a refugee camp on the Turkish side of the border, killing two Syrian refugees and wounding two Turks. The number of such refugees crossing into Turkey has

Bashar al-Assad's complete disregard for UN special envoy Kofi Annan's April 10 deadline for withdrawal of regime forces from population centers is only the latest sign that Damascus has no intention of implementing the envoy's six-point plan to deal with the Syria crisis. The fact that the regime's armed forces

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a Muslim Brotherhood delegation in Washington last week to better understand how the Islamist group will govern Egypt. It was a noble attempt at promoting intercultural political dialogue -- an engagement for which many in the American policy community, as well as academia

Among Syrian opposition groups, the belief is widespread that Damascus has been allowing the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) -- a group on the State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organizations list -- to operate once again in Syria. Back in 1998, the Syrian regime curbed PKK activity on its soil and cut

The current form of religious leadership over the Shi'ite community, marjayia, was founded in the 1830s when Mohammed Hassan Najafi became the first transnational Shi'ite religious authority (marja) in Najaf, Iraq. Najafi created a universal patronage network through which he received religious taxes and endowment incomes, and appointed religious representatives

A year into the Syrian uprising against Bashar Al-Assad, the dysfunctional nature of Syrian opposition politics isn't exactly news. But the resignation last month of Syrian dissident Kamal Labwani from the Syrian National Council (SNC) -- which he accused not only of being "undemocratic" and incompetent, but intent on undermining

On March 27, 2012, Robert Satloff, Andrew J. Tabler, and Simon Henderson addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Dr. Satloff, the Institute's executive director and Howard P. Berkowitz chair in U.S. Middle East policy, had just returned from Israel and Jordan. Mr. Tabler, the Institute's Next Generation fellow

Testimony prepared for the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, U.S. House of Representatives Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the Assad regime's brutal year-long crackdown on Syria's pro-democracy protestors. Throughout years as a journalist and analyst based in Damascus, I followed Tom Lantos's often-critical words on