Many of the Arab nations have been blessed historically with oil and natural gas, which became the dominant engines of economic change in the last century. That is the good news. The bad news is that oil and natural gas are the sole economic foundations of the Arab world. What the Arab world has failed …

No sooner had this notion been floated, apparently by a group of (officially independent) Assembly members, than it was denied by the MB secretary-general, Mahmoud Ezzat. He said of a recent high-level party meeting: Some members of the People s Assembly from the group spoke about that issue but no official steps have been taken. …

CAIRO: More than three years into this war, and after nearly 650,000 Iraqi deaths, reporting by mass media on the crises there is no better than the gung-ho, hoopla expressed by numerous columnists seeking evidence on weapons of mass destruction on the eve of invasion. With Iraq’s infrastructure utterly decimated, the media is entirely complicit …

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 …

The swift execution of Saddam Hussein following a flawed trial was a blunt reminder that the former dictator’s “Republic of Fear gave way, under Anglo-American occupation, to an Iraqi state of revenge. The fate of Saddam, whose atrocious crimes were reminiscent of those of the notorious Umayyad governor Al-Hajjaj bin Yusif, seemed to have been …

As the new year approaches, I think of three people who symbolize for me some of the difficulties of the year we have just lived through, and also the promise and potential of the one that is ahead. Each of them reminds me that we are walking into the future balanced on a tightrope. The …

Dear Sir, In regards to your articles on bird flu [“Bird Flu claims another victim , Dec. 26], there is a new peer-reviewed editorial out on bird flu with an interesting slant that your paper might want to cover done by physician/researcher Dr Lawrence Broxmeyer, entitled Bird flu, influenza and 1918: The case for mutant …

It is not the proper time to discuss the Al Azhar University incidents. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has already apologized for the students’ parade that was the focus of media attention for a few days and was used as a launching pad to arrest a few of the MB’s top leaders, including Deputy Chairman Khayrat …

The Hussein execution is likely to have serious repercussions for the region I miss the old days of colonialism. You know, the days when the suppression of the natives was done with a little panache. Nowadays, it’s all shoving and a none-too elegant boot up the collective backside. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was hanged …

The daily toll of events in Iraq and the intensity of media coverage from Baghdad make it hard to allow ideas on the Iraq crisis to be considered with the sober and somber deliberation they deserve. The pressure to squeeze new policy options into political frames that are instantly interpreted as for or against the …

In 1919, the world humbly bore the loss of one of its most imaginative diplomats, when 39-year-old Mark Sykes succumbed to the Spanish flu in his well-appointed Paris hotel room. Sykes died a happy man, having created (with his boon buddy Francois Georges-Picot), a “New Middle East, complete with Octavian-era place names: Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia …

Cairo: Early in 2006, Transparency International, a Berlin-based assessment bureau, announced that Egypt’s corruption index had improved from “highly acute to “rampant. Economist Ahmed al-Naggar wasn’t the only one to remark that “rampant isn’t good enough. January headlines descried a ruling-party member’s sale of expired dialysis equipment to state hospitals, retirement funds used to cover …

It is customary for Muslims to greet one another with the celebratory salutations for Eid Al-Fitr and Al-Adha. “Eid Mubarak (Blessed Holy Day) or “Kul ‘am wantum bi kheir (May you be in goodness every year) are some of the things Muslims say around this time in the lunar calendar. I hear these greetings from …

At the end of December, the United Nations Mission in Burundi (ONUB) will close, ending a successful two-and-a-half year chapter in peacekeeping history. I had the privilege of working in Burundi from June 2004 to April 2006, and bearing witness to the country s completing the process of transition out of a protracted period of …

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 …

The realization in the United States that the war in Iraq has been lost is perhaps the most momentous fact of international politics in 2006. The time of American unilateralism is objectively over. Whether US foreign policy will come to reflect this fact, only the future will tell. Unfortunately, this also means that a unique …

Watching US President George W. Bush in recent weeks has become a grim kind of reality TV show. In almost every news conference, speech and photo opportunity, the topic is the same: What to do about the grinding war in Iraq. Bush has let the facade crack open- admitting that his strategy for victory isn’t …

Israeli government officials in charge of conducting an end-of-year review cannot be happy. While their mid-year review was equally disappointing, with the loss in Lebanon and lack of international support for Israel’s role in Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, the end-of-year review is worse. In December only, Israel lost a major ally at the United Nations with …

As globalization proceeds, with the help of ever-faster communications, faster travel, and more powerful multinational corporations, a new, cosmopolitan social class seems to be emerging. These citizens of the world are developing loyalties to each other that cross national boundaries. I was at a dinner the other night with Yale World Fellows, a carefully selected …

Kuwaitis describe the country’s current Parliament with an apparent contradiction: “The opposition is the majority. In any parliamentary system this would be impossible; a government cannot serve without majority support. Even in presidential or mixed systems, the parliamentary majority enjoys a share of power through cohabitation or divided government. But while Kuwait displays more democratic …

The events of 9/11 gave the United States an opportunity to enforce its domination in the Middle East. This is hardly unique in the history of the region, which has witnessed British domination and later American-Soviet competition. The United States’ influence reached its peak in the Kuwait war of 1991 when it was able to …

“The Egyptians’ lack of power over their lives is translating into a pervasive new style of interaction designed to provide some minimal illusion of strength. Shop girls are ruder, bands of school kids more antagonistic, tradesmen craftier, petty theft is on the rise and [sexual harassment] probably is too. I wrote these words in 2002 …

With one stroke of a pen, Education Minister Yuli Tamir managed recently to restore to the public agenda the basic question that should not have been marginalized in the first place on the validity, significance and legitimacy of the Green Line. The decision is an ideological one, as was the decision to erase the 1949 …

Thanks to a military blogger who calls himself “Blackfive (“The Paratrooper of Love ), we have a snapshot of what Christmas looks like this year at Camp Taji, just over 30 kilometers north of Baghdad. It’s a man dressed up in a Santa Claus suit, standing behind a “sleigh that is an unmanned aerial vehicle …

“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 …

In the final weeks of the Darfur peace talks in Abuja, Mohamed Issa, the chairman of the Rizeigat Advocacy Council and the most prominent independent Arab observer at the talks, grew daily more depressed. Under American pressure, the African Union was forcing the pace of the talks and setting deadlines for an agreement. The leaders …

During my visit to Lebanon in early December, I was struck by the display of freedom of expression represented by peaceful anti-government demonstrations in Beirut, a rare event in the region. At the same time, the protracted political crisis has justifiably raised fears that the country may descend into political violence leading to human rights …

The Iraq Study Group report reached a series of obvious conclusions. Everything is linked. The United States cannot remain in the Iraqi swamp much longer nor can it abandon Iraq and leave it in its current chaotic state. In order to leave Iraq gradually there is a need for a pragmatic Arab coalition that assists …

Robert Gates, the new secretary of defense, warned this week that an American failure in Iraq would be a ‘calamity’ that would haunt the United States for decades. Unfortunately, he’s right. But what is a realistic definition of success? If we ‘surge’ tens of thousands more troops into Iraq and march them up the hill, …

Though triggered by the need to devise an exit strategy from the Iraqi quagmire, the Iraq Study Group’s grim report is a devastating indictment of the Bush administration’s entire foreign policy. The report challenges the core principles of a faith-driven administration and of a president whose political gospel led him to a sharp departure from …