Middle East & North Africa Archive

A year ago, Christian Brose penned a provocative article for Foreign Policy entitled “George W. Obama.” In it, the former speechwriter for Condoleezza Rice asserted that “Obama ran against a caricature of Bush’s first term” during the 2008 election, rather than the Bush foreign policy of the second term. Moreover, of the latter, he predicted that Obama would “largely continue it.” In large measure, Brose has turned out to be right. Despite the rhetoric of “change we can believe in,” there has been a high degree of continuity between the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Take the most […]

Here are a few of this week’s highlights from WPR’s video section: – As Yemen’s stability comes into question, experts identify more than just Al Qaida as a threat to the crumbling nation. WorldFocus interviews military analyst Anthony Cordesman about the U.S. role in Yemen in this video. – Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to be plagued by ethnic tensions. WorldFocus talks about the issues with Ivana Howard of the National Endowment for Democracy in this video. – The Afghan parliament turned down a majority of President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet picks, but is this a step backward or forward for democracy […]

The international community is examining Yemen once again as a hotbedfor Al Qaida activity. This comes after the Nigerian responsible for anattempted Christmas day terrorist attack was linked to study in Yemen.Jonathan Rugman of Independent Television News reports on sympathy forAl Qaida in that country.

Instructions: For bracketed text, insert information where needed, or circle what most accurately describes your opinion. (And be forewarned, there is a surprise kicker to this post that you should read only after completing the exercise.) I know so little about [Country X] that I can’t even pretend to be an expert about it. But [Obscure Specialist Y], who blogs at [recently discovered Blog Z], does know a lot about it, and what [s/he] has to say about it jibes with this [Washington think tank] policy paper that I read immediately after I saw the news about [recent national security […]

President Barack Obama tried his best to avoid it, but the moment has now arrived when he has no choice but to impose new sanctions on Iran. The challenge now is to find the formula that will prove effective in pressuring the regime without undermining Iranian protesters who have risked their lives to demand change. Obama’s commitment to use diplomacy in dealing with Iran became a cornerstone of the foreign policy approach he constructed during his presidential campaign. He vowed to use fair-minded negotiations, a respectful tone, and reasonable arguments to convince the Islamic Republic to stop enriching uranium in […]

President Barack Obama spoke to the press after meeting with members ofhis cabinet and other officials about the recent attempted terroristattack. The president said that the failures of the intelligencecommunity lay in the integration and understanding of intelligencerather than the information gathering itself. He has called for tworeviews — one of aviation screening and one of the counter-terrorismwatch-listing system.

Al-Qaida has claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day planebombing, and since then, Yemeni security forces have begun aconcentrated attack against militants with the help of U.S. specialforces. WorldFocus’ Martin Savidge speaks with military analyst AnthonyCordesman about the U.S. role in Yemen. Cordesman says that bringingstability to the crumbling nation may be beyond military help.

More than a week after an attempted terrorist attack on a Christmas dayflight to Detroit, President Barack Obama talks to the nation in hisweekly address.The attack, reportedly organized in Yemen, highlights a hole in U.S.intelligence operations. Obama’s plan to fight extremism in the fragilenation of Yemen includes strengthening and cooperating with the Yemenigovernment.

Political pundits across America seem committed to the notion that our just-concluded decade deserves the moniker “worst ever,” with the formulations ranging from Time’s demonic “decade from hell” to Paul Krugman’s self-flagellating “Big Zero.” But if Krugman could call it “a decade in which nothing good happened,” much of the planet might find our myopic bitterness a bit much — as if the entire world should stop spinning just because the Dow Jones Industrial Average forgot to exit the decade higher than when it entered. Why are we so convinced that the last 10 years, the decade of the Naughts, […]