Arab & Islamic Politics

The long-awaited report by the international commission investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri was released on October 21. Overseen by UN chief investigator Detlev Mehlis, the report concluded, "Given the infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in tandem

Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, lashed out at Saudi diplomacy while speaking to journalists in Amman on October 2. Referring to Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, Jabr said Iraq would not be lectured by "some Bedouin riding a camel." Broadening his remarks to the Saudi ruling family, the

On September 29, Algerians will vote on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's proposed Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, a policy that would provide amnesty for most of the one-thousand Islamic terrorists the government believes are still hiding in Algeria and neighboring countries. Between three hundred and five hundred of the terrorists

On September 24, 2005, Hala Mustafa, Ibrahim Karawan, and Khairi Abaza addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. Dr. Mustafa is editor-in-chief of the Egyptian political quarterly al-Dimuqratiya (Democracy) and a former visiting fellow at the Institute. Dr. Karawan is director of the Middle East Center and a professor of

On September 24, 2005, Robert Blackwill and Samuel Berger addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. Ambassador Blackwill is president of the international consulting firm Barbour, Griffith, and Rogers. Previously, he served in the Bush administration as deputy national security advisor for strategic planning, presidential envoy to Iraq, and U.S

August 17 is the official start of the campaign for Egypt's first multicandidate presidential election; voting is scheduled for on September 7. President Hosni Mubarak, who has held office for twenty-four years, has been elected without opposition four times. In the upcoming election, only party leaders can be candidates; no

On July 20, the Saudi foreign ministry announced that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the long-serving Saudi ambassador to the United States, was stepping down, and that "the process of nominating" Prince Turki al-Faisal, the current Saudi ambassador in London, to replace him had begun. When the widely anticipated death of

While the Bush administration’s Middle East agenda focuses on promoting democracy and freedom throughout the region, Saudi Arabia follows a contrary agenda whose sole avowed focus is counterterrorism. Riyadh’s fight against terrorism and repeated calls for national unity have provided a facade under which the monarchy has abandoned the few

Last week, Iranians elected a proto-fascist as president. The rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, formerly the mayor of Tehran, was a blow to the vibrant reform movement that swept Mohammed Khatami to the presidency in 1997. Ahmadinejad's extreme social conservatism—which bears plenty of resemblance to the Taliban's—and his economic populism have