Arab & Islamic Politics

As Secretary of State Colin Powell and former President George Bush celebrate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait, for many Gulf Arabs the occasion marks a decade since Saddam Husayn's tanks put the lie to the promises of security that local leaders had made to their people. After

Bahraini Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa announced January 23 that a national referendum will be held February 14-15 on a National Charter, under which the lower house of a national assembly would be elected in 2004. Sheikh Hamads reformist moves are the latest example of a trend in the

Hardline vigilante groups, generally referred to as "pressure groups" (guruh-i fishar) in popular Iranian parlance, have long influenced Iranian politics and society during times of political tension. But particularly since President Muhammad Khatami’s 1997 election—as the power struggle between the Islamic Republic’s reformist and hardline camps has accelerated—vigilantes have become

What changed, and what didn't, in Egypt's parliamentary elections?

The trial of prominent Egyptian democracy activist Dr. Saad ed-Din Ibrahim and twenty-seven of his associates is scheduled to open on November 18 in Cairo. The charges include illegally accepting foreign funds and harming Egypt’s reputation abroad. This trial will be closely watched as a litmus test of the Egyptian

On Saturday, November 4, Jordanian prime minister Ali Abu Raghib returned from a three-day visit to Baghdad. Coming just one week after the signing of the U.S.-Jordanian Free Trade Agreement (FTA) — the first of its kind with an Arab state — the trip highlights Jordan’s policy of pursuing close

Background to the Current Violence There are five "macro" factors that explain the collapse of the Oslo process as we have known it: 1) the complementarity of violence and diplomacy in Palestinian strategy; 2) the U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian collusion on sidestepping any serious focus on compliance with past agreements before pursuing new

Arab heads-of-state meeting this weekend added one more nail in the coffin of the Arab-Israeli peace process by lending full support to the ongoing Palestinian uprising, suspending all further political, diplomatic and economic links with Israel, and fueling the propaganda war by labeling Israeli leaders and military officers as "war

For the first time in nearly five years, heads of state and representatives from the 22 members of the Arab League will convene for a summit meeting in Cairo. This will be a critical meeting not only because of the regional tensions steaming from Israeli-Palestinian violence but also because Iraq-and