The debate in Washington about Syria has picked up a bit lately.  The Obama administration is stepping up its aid to the rebellion and the civil war will no doubt be on the President Obama’s agenda when he meets with a parade of regional leaders at the White House starting next week. Although many members of Congress—taking cues from their constituents who are weary of the Middle East—are resolutely opposed to American involvement in Syria, others have expressed frustration that the United States is not doing more to bring the crisis to an end.  Like all things related to Syria there is little agreement even among the people who would like to see a more robust policy on what form a more active approach to the conflict would take. Read more »

Dahlia Scheindlin evaluates the pragmatism of Ghazi Hamad,  Deputy Foreign Minister of Gaza, who publicly recognized the 1967 borders last week. Read more »

When you travel in the Middle East you are bound to have multiple “Holy Moly!” moments.  My wife and I had one of those last Thursday.  Yet we weren’t touring the Temple of Karnak in Luxor, gazing upon the Khazneh in Petra in the late afternoon when the Nabatean capital seems to glow a rose red, or marveling at the ancient ruins of Ani on the Turkish-Armenian border.  We were in Turkey, in Istanbul, in Kadikoy to be exact, but it was not some Ottoman gem of a mosque or palace that caused our eyes to go wide.  Nope.  It was the Şükrü Saracoĝlo Stadyumu and the 52,000 fans of the Fenerbahce Sports Club’s football (i.e. soccer) team—it also fields basketball, boxing, table tennis, and sailing teams—who were near delirium even before their team took the field against Italy’s Lazio. Read more »

Al-Monitor outlines the investigation of Egypt’s beloved comedian, Bassem Youssef.

Muftah discusses how nuances of the Arabic language reflect and affect the ever turbulent politics of the region. Read more »

April 3—Istanbul

A draft of Turkey’s new constitution was supposed to be finished on Monday, but the members of the Constitutional Reconciliation Commission say they need about another month to produce a draft.  The missed deadline prompted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to float the idea that the Justice and Development Party would circumvent the Commission and take its own version of a new constitution to the Turkish people in a referendum.  Not surprisingly, the prime minister’s proposal was met with considerable criticism from the opposition parties in the Grand National Assembly all of which have representatives on the Commission.  In the English language daily, Today’s Zaman, the Nationalist Movement Party’s Faruk Bal said, “The prime minister is looking for excuses to break his promise that his party would not quit the negotiating table.  He is working to disperse the commission.” Read more »

Life is getting increasingly difficult for Egyptians.  The New York Times ran a front page story on Sunday about what anybody who has been paying attention to Egypt already knows:  the country is running out of fuel, food, and cash.  The Egyptian Central Bank announced weeks ago that its reserves of foreign currency are down to critical minimums while sources of liquidity are drying up.  Only the most intrepid tourists are visiting Egypt, Suez Canal revenues are down 7.4 percent, there is little in the way of foreign direct investment, the International Monetary Fund is holding the line on its conditions, the Qataris have turned off the spigot of riyals, the Saudis never really turned it on, and no one else has been willing to step up with assistance. Read more »

Elias Muhanna, of Qifa Nabki, gives his perspective on the recent resignation of Lebanese PM, Najib Mikati. Read more »

There has been much ink spilled in the last week over the rapprochement between Israel and Turkey.  I have been somewhat reluctant to weigh-in if only because I was fairly certain that reconciliation between the two countries was not going to happen anytime soon.  I am now eating crow. Read more »

The Jordanian perspective on Jordan’s current political situation and King Abdullah’s recent commentary in the Atlantic. Read more »

Lost in all the commentary in President Obama’s visit to Israel is the fact that he will also visit Jordan.  The country is often derisively referred to as the “Hashemite Kingdom of Boredom,” but it has been anything but lately.  To be sure, Jeffrey Goldberg’s extraordinary interview with King Abdullah II has caused quite a stir, but that is not the only reason why Jordan is interesting.  In January the Jordanians held elections, there have been a spate of protests over food prices, strong criticism of the King from some of the monarchy’s heretofore strong tribal supporters, and Jordan is now host to more than half a million Syrian refugees.  The fact that Syria is in chaos, sectarian gangs rule Iraq, Egypt is in turmoil, and predictions of a 3^rd Palestinian intifada abound places King Abdullah and his Kingdom in a more uncomfortable position than usual.  That said, I have been assured by people who know far more about Jordan than I that expectations of instability and threats to Hashemite rule are overblown—a function of a few boisterous activists and impressionable Western journalists. Read more »