Seymour Hersh, investigative journalist for The New Yorker magazine, has sparked fresh debate with his latest article alleging that the Bush administration’s new policy to confront Iran has led it to send American money and other forms of assistance to extremist Sunni groups, sometimes via the Lebanese and Saudi governments, in order to confront and …

It is no surprise that at the annual meeting of the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha last weekend, sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the state of Qatar, the focus of discussion returns repeatedly to American policies throughout the Middle East. The heart of US-Islamic relations is the discord over the Middle East, but that …

The very sensible six-nation agreement reached with North Korea earlier this week to end its nuclear armaments program came at a time when more details were being circulated about an Iranian offer to the United States in Spring 2003 to address all bilateral issues that have chilled relations between Tehran and Washington. The contrast between …

The most significant thing about the national unity government agreement signed Thursday by Hamas and Fatah in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, under Saudi auspices was that it was signed in Mecca under Saudi auspices. This is probably more important for what it tells us about Saudi diplomatic stirrings than what it says about Palestinian-Israeli issues. If …

The one photograph that hangs in my office is that of the late Lebanese writer Samir Kassir. He was assassinated in June 2005, but his ideas are more relevant than ever as Lebanon, Palestine and the entire Arab world that defined his life, embrace greater tension and violence practiced simultaneously by the state, opposition groups …

Regardless of whether the United States’ current military surge and slight shift in tactics in Iraq succeeds or not, Washington has clearly defined and started to implement its fallback plan in the Middle East: an across-the-board battle against Iran. The US has unleashed, or unsheathed, military, diplomatic, economic, proxy, clandestine, and rhetorical means to hold …

The United States as a whole – citizens, government, media and academia – broadly has had a difficult time coming to grips with the terrorism phenomenon that struck its shores so traumatically on Sept. 11, 2001. A two-week journey throughout the United States this month left me with the sense that American society is more …

Just as it was half a century ago, Lebanon is once again a pioneer and pace-setter in the Arab world, though this time the direction of movement may be toward destruction and incomprehensible violence. For years Beirut and Lebanon were known as the Paris and Switzerland of the Middle East, reflecting their freewheeling leisure activities, …

Lebanon and Palestine are the most dramatic examples of the new ideological battle that now defines much of the Middle East, where local players and medium-strength regional powers often interact with one another in parallel with foreign powers’ interests and goals. While tensions were increasing in Beirut last weekend in anticipation of Tuesday’s nationwide strike …

In the span of five days last week, I had the pleasure of participating in five different events that brought together concerned civil society activists, assorted professionals, academics, and a few public figures from across the Arab world. These gatherings are routine nowadays, but are also noteworthy because they mirror a wider determination among Arab …

US President George W. Bush is working hard to achieve a wholesale transformation of Iraq and the Middle East into something more stable, productive and democratic, or so American officials tell us. Bush enjoys reading American history, but he would do well to check out some historical narratives from our own region, especially if he …

Every time I walk through the frontline of the political confrontation in downtown Beirut between the American and Saudi-backed Fouad Seniora Lebanese government and the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah-led opposition, I have the sense of walking through a 1970-era American rock festival or a World War II movie set. The Beirut scene encapsulates today’s multiple …

Of the many transformations taking place throughout the Middle East, the most striking is that the new regional security architecture gradually emerging in the Arab world seems to be managed almost totally by non-Arab parties: Iran, Turkey, Israel, the United States, and now Ethiopia. It is possible that the Arabs could write themselves out of …

By most measures, it would seem the Israelis are winning the Palestinian-Israeli war. They control and colonize Arab lands, enjoy military superiority and total American support, and unilaterally define most diplomatic parameters of the conflict. Yet this may be a mistaken assessment: the Palestinians and Arabs are perhaps starting to win some battles, while Israel …

Coincidentally, I was reading Fouad Ajami’s new book, “The Foreigner’s Gift: the Americans, the Arabs and the Iraqis in Iraq, at the very moment when Iraq seemed to be turning a corner: from an American enterprise characterized by righteous audacity–planting a democracy in the heart of the Arab world–it had turned into an unfathomable mess …

“A commandment of love was the theme that the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah stressed when I asked him last week about what Arab Christians should be doing to address the many challenges and threats in the Middle East today. I was especially interested in the role of Arab Christians because their plight is …

There is a tragic, pitiful quality to British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s current tour around the Middle East. He says the trip is an effort to resurrect the Arab-Israeli peace process, but it seems much more obviously designed to salvage Blair’s fading reputation. It is unlikely to succeed on either count, for the prime minister …

It is easy to get so entangled in the day-to-day dynamics of events in Lebanon that one loses sight of the truly new and potentially historic developments that are taking place before our eyes. I think we can already note five distinct political dynamics that have occurred in Lebanon in the past two years or …

Is there a rational, sensible middle ground between those who question or deny the Holocaust against the Jews and threaten to wipe out Israel, and those who maintain that Israel can do no wrong and must receive perpetual American support? That middle ground has been thin in recent years. In the United States, in particular, …

You can physically get away from Lebanon and its turbulent politics for a few days, but you can never move around in this region without the symbols, causes and consequences of Lebanon’s current confrontations following you like a shadow in every discussion. I discovered that this week in Dubai while participating in Dubai in the …

There is something at once both historic and frightening about the open-ended mass street protest that was launched in Beirut Friday by Hezbollah and its allies, aiming to topple the government headed by Prime Minister Fouad Seniora. The historic element is that this is a rare instance of mass political action that is declared to …

When the leaders of Israel and Hamas in the same weekend offer each other long-term peace deals, you just know in your bones that we are passing through a potentially historic moment. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel was prepared to leave much of the Occupied Territories, release many Palestinian prisoners, remove …

I’ve just spent seven weeks in the United States and encountered hundreds of students, professors and other ordinary citizens all around the country who share a set of powerful ideas–personal liberty, pluralism, and equal rights and opportunities guaranteed by the rule of law. Yet America also runs into great difficulties when it takes its ideals …

It is difficult to read a serious news analysis of American options in Iraq without running into the idea that Washington must open a dialogue with Syria and Iran. This means that Iran and Syria have won the first round of their political boxing match with the United States, and, that we are likely to …

When you want to make peace, it is useful to turn to a proven peace-maker. The other day in New York I had a chance to sit down with one of the successful peace-makers of our time and explore the lessons of his own rich experience, especially in view of current attempts to revive a …

Change is coming soon to American policy in the Middle East. The neoconservatives in Washington who defined American foreign policies in the past six years were down before the elections Tuesday, and they are now well on the way out. The common sense of ordinary Americans has reasserted itself over the reckless militaristic bravado of …

If you did not hear it, the bell for the second round of the new cold war in the Middle East rang on Wednesday, in the form of the United States and Hezbollah trading accusations against each other about assorted sinister aims. There is much that is interesting and important – indeed, historic – about …

One of the depressing aspects of reading, viewing and listening to the mass media in the United States on an extended trip, as I am doing these days, is to suffer the very superficial and often ideologically skewed coverage of important movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas. For various reasons, directly or indirectly related to …

You know you’re in the heartland of the global energy world when the front page of the local newspaper carries daily oil and gas prices. I have had the good fortune this week to be in Texas while following two major global developments: the world’s major powers returning the Iran nuclear file to the UN …

Sometimes when you get away from your part of the world and view it from afar, the wider perspective can make the dark spots appear less troublesome. Unfortunately, seen from the west coast of the United States, where I have started an extended academic visit, the Arab world appears ever more troubled and troubling than …