Significant Developments

Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was welcomed home today from a four-day trip to Africa by thousands of supporters at the airport— the first major show of support by pro-government demonstrators in Turkey since unrest erupted last week. Read more »

Significant Developments

Syria. Moaz al-Khatib, the outgoing leader of the Syrian National Coalition, announced an initiative on Facebook today, proposing a safe exit for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Khatib’s proposal would give Assad twenty days to accept a “peaceful transition of authority,” after which he would have a month to hand over power to either Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi or Vice President Faruq al-Shara’a to then rule Syria for a transitional period of one hundred days. Read more »

Significant Developments

Syria. Israel publicly warned Syrian president Bashar Assad to stop transferring advanced weapons to Hezbollah yesterday. In an unusual move, a senior Israeli official contacted the New York Times on Wednesday and was then quoted by the paper saying that “Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah,” arguing that such a move would destabilize the region. Read more »

Significant Developments

Syria. Hassan Nasrallah announced yesterday that Syria would transfer strategic “game-changing” weapons to the Lebanese group Hezbollah. The televised speech was a response to Israel’s alleged airstrikes near Damascus last Friday and Sunday that reportedly targeted Fateh-110 missiles transiting to Hezbollah from Iran. Read more »

Significant Developments

Syria. Syrian officials today denied international allegations that Bashar al-Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons in Syria. Yesterday, the White House sent a letter to Congressional leaders stating that U.S.  intelligence agencies assessed “with varying degrees of confidence” that Assad’s government had used the chemical agent sarin on a small scale. Read more »

Significant Developments

Egypt. An Egyptian Coptic Christian died today from injuries sustained during sectarian violence over the past week, bringing the total number of deaths to eight. Violence erupted outside Egypt’s main Coptic Christian Cathedral in Cairo on Sunday after street battles between Christians and Muslims in the town of Khosoos left five people dead on Saturday. Read more »

“We do not talk about Morsi’s legitimacy, but rather about his credibility in dealing with the problems of the ordinary Egyptian citizen…We are against his policies, and just as he is legitimate, the opposition is too.” –Former Arab League chief Amre Moussa speaking on behalf of the National Salvation Front Read more »

Significant Middle East Developments

Syria. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad gave his first speech in nearly seven months on Sunday, outlining a “peace plan” that ruled out any negotiation with Syria’s armed rebels. UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi called Assad’s speech “uncompromising” and said that the Syrian president could not be part of any transitional government-the closest Brahimi has come to calling for Assad’s resignation; Syria’s foreign ministry called Brahimi “flagrantly biased.” Russian and U.S. diplomats are scheduled to meet with Brahimi tomorrow in Geneva. Read more »

Last week I posted my take on the most significant Middle East developments of 2012. The ten developments that I identified, in chronological order, were:

1. The cold war with Iran heats up
2. The Muslim Brotherhood’s election in Egypt
3. Syria’s descent into civil war
4. The Innocence of Muslims anti-American riots
5. The killing of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi
6. Political unrest in Jordan
7. The Israel-Hamas November conflict
8. The United Nations recognition of Palestine as a non-member state
9. International failure to stop Syria’s bloodshed
10. The Muslim Brotherhood’s struggle to consolidate power in Egypt

Read more »

Here it is: the second annual Middle East Matters year-end roundup listing the ten most significant Middle East developments of 2012. Since this blog focuses on the interplay between U.S. policy and the region, the items selected were those deemed most noteworthy from an admittedly American foreign policy perspective. This was a tumultuous year in the region, and many items on this list could have been deemed the single most significant. So in roughly chronological order are MEM’s top ten for 2012: Read more »