Egypt's fragile democracy needs boost from West

by Alvaro De Vasconcelos

Unless Egypt builds a broad consensus that includes ruling Islamists and the secular opposition, its problems will jeopardize its future democratic prospects.

Editorial Jun 27, 2012

Rough start for Egyptian democracy

It took longer than anticipated, but there is finally a victor in Egypt’s first truly competitive presidential elections. Mr. Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, prevailed over former Gen. Ahmed Shafik. The outcome is symbolic on many levels, but most significantly because ...

Commentary Mar 21, 2012

Nearing the end of tyranny?

by Hugh Cortazzi

President Vladimir Putin in Russia, President Bashar Assad in Syria and President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe are detested by many of their fellow countrymen who would like to see them overthrown and tried for human rights abuses. They depend on a close coterie of ...

Commentary Feb 20, 2012

How the Arab Spring was hijacked

by Brahma Chellaney

A year after the Arab Spring came to symbolize the ascent of people’s power, hope has given way to a bleak sequel. The democratic awakening has fallen prey to murky geopolitics that has cleaved the Arab Spring into two parts, with the oil monarchies ...

Global-related Feb 17, 2012

Behind Obama's Mideast policy of capitulation

by Zaki Laidi

No sooner did U.S. President Barack Obama welcome home American troops from Iraq and laud that country’s stability and democracy than an unprecedented wave of violence — across Baghdad and elsewhere — revealed the severity of Iraq’s political crisis. Is that crisis an unfortunate ...

Commentary Feb 8, 2012

China faces rising risks as it looks overseas for resources

by Michael Richardson

China’s meteoric rise to become the world’s second biggest economy and a global manufacturing center is sustained by ever-growing imports of raw materials and increasing investment abroad, often in under-developed countries shunned by the West for alleged human rights abuses or because they are ...

Global-related Feb 2, 2012

Demilitarizing Muslim politics

by Shahid Javed Burki

Can Muslim governments free themselves from their countries’ powerful militaries and establish civilian control comparable to that found in liberal democracies? This question is now paramount in countries as disparate as Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey. To predict how this struggle will play out, it ...

Global-related Feb 2, 2012

What does Egypt's military leadership want?

by Omar Ashour

“Whatever the majority in the People’s Assembly, they are very welcome, because they won’t have the ability to impose anything that the people don’t want.” Thus declared Gen. Mukhtar al-Mulla, a member of Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Al-Mulla’s message ...

Editorial Jan 30, 2012

A countdown in Nigeria

Awave of bombings in Nigeria has highlighted the fissures that threaten to fracture Africa’s most populous nation. The violence has been launched by an Islamic militia, but it has inflamed already widespread economic and political discontent. President Goodluck Jonathan has called for a security ...

Editorial Jan 28, 2012

Balancing security and science

Scientists working on ways to detect and prevent the spread of the avian flu virus have suspended their work out of concern that it could either be used for bioterrorism or that it might escape the lab; either development could create a global pandemic ...

Global-related Jan 19, 2012

The Arab Spring: separating fact from fiction

by Fouad Ajami

When the Arab Spring began a year ago, the Western world was shocked. On the surface, it had seemed that liberty had bypassed the Arabs; they had seemed resigned to tyranny. But once unleashed, the upheaval knew no restraint, and there were mayhem and ...

Global-related Jan 18, 2012

U.S. no longer land of the free

by Jonathan Turley

Every year, the U.S. State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken ...