Significant Middle East Developments

Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians returned to Tahrir Square on Friday chanting “down with military rule” in a day dubbed “The Friday of Pride and Dignity.” Friday’s protest came on the heels of the one-year anniversary of the revolution marked on Wednesday by thousands in Tahrir Square. Read more »

Over the course of the Obama administration, Washington’s objectives for Israeli-Palestinian peace have shifted dramatically. President Obama took office seeking to resolve the conflict within two years. Deeming it a “national security objective” and one of his highest priorities, he immediately appointed Senator George Mitchell his special Middle East envoy. Three years later, Mitchell is no longer in the position, and the president is no longer seeking to resolve the conflict. Read more »

The Arab League met yesterday to assess its observer mission to Syria so far and to consider further steps. Syria’s reprehensible behavior and the Arab League’s inability to stop it will doubtlessly lead to stepped-up calls for international military intervention. While such calls may be justified, any military intervention in Syria is still a long way off. Few countries are prepared to intervene militarily in Syria, nor are the goals of such military action entirely clear. Read more »

Significant Middle East Developments

Syria. With scores of Syrians killed daily, the Arab League received its observer mission’s much awaited report on Thursday. Human Rights Watch urged the Arab League to “publicly release the mission’s final report and to specifically report on whether the Syrian government is complying with the protocol and whether and how the Syrian government is interfering with the work of the mission.” Read more »

Today’s post features a guest blog by Nervana Mahmoud, a British-Egyptian anesthesiologist and blogger known to many through her commentary on Twitter as @Nervana_1. She recently returned to Egypt and reports on what she found.

The Egypt I knew and grew up in was a laid-back country, almost resigned to its fate. Earlier this month, I came back to visit after some years abroad only to see a nation on the edge, anxious and confused. Egypt today is trying to come to terms with its past and present, and struggling to define its vision for the future. Rather than drawing a single unified conclusion about what Egypt is today, I left with a mélange of disparate impressions. Here are four: Read more »

Significant Middle East Developments

Syria. President Bashar al-Assad gave a rare and defiant speech on Tuesday in which he once again blamed foreign conspirators, lashed out against other Arab states, and vowed to keep fighting ‘terrorists.’ I analyze his speech in a previous blog post available here. Read more »

Yesterday I discussed the violence, instability, and political developments in Syria with CFR.org’s Bernard Gwertzman, a former New York Times diplomatic correspondent and foreign editor. It’s currently the featured briefing on CFR.org. You can read the interview here. Read more »

Syria’s president Assad today vowed to use an “iron fist” to weed out “terrorists” and foreign conspiracies plaguing his country. That is his basic world outlook and his take on what is happening in Syria. Today’s speech, the fourth such one he has given to explain his policies since the uprisings in Syria began, was vintage Bashar. Read more »

Significant Middle East Developments

Syria. At least twenty-five people were killed, and dozens more injured, by a bomb attack in Damascus today. It was the second bombing to take place in Syria’s capital in two weeks. The attack came just over a week after a delegation of Arab League observers entered Syria. Read more »