Some months ago, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was explaining to a senior Bush administration official his plan for a phased withdrawal of US troops from Iraq over 12 months, in consultation with the Iraqis. “We’re going to do the same thing, the senior official confided, “but we’re going to call it victory. This …

For the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite? A “gotcha question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as …

One of the endlessly fascinating and frustrating aspects of the convergence of American politics with Middle Eastern realities is evident again this season: the application of special rules of conduct to Israel that are not applied to the United States itself. One of the most common themes heard in discussions of US policy in the …

Britain’s ex-foreign secretary’s recent commentary on the Muslim niqab, or full veil, as a “visible statement of separation and of difference that “makes it more difficult for people “to acknowledge each other signifies the latest in Europe’s embarrassing blunders. Following the Pope’s political impropriety, Jack Straw’s cavalier declaration on what constitutes effective deliberation was inappropriate …

The centerpiece of successful (i.e. long-term, organic) town and city development is usually a community enterprise or institution, concretized by a structure that declares the community s primary need or intent. For example, a harbor serving fishermen, a marketplace for farmers or craftsmen, a place of worship serving a spiritual ideal, a university serving the …

With the United States Congress appealing to Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa for intervention in Darfur, and with Moussa’s offer to provide peacekeeping troops, one gets the impression that the League is finally taking itself seriously. Historically, the Arab League has been perceived as quasi-legitimate due to its western alliances, since Egypt, Saudi Arabia …

With one week left till the end of Ramadan, a holy month of piety and quiet reflection, one cannot help but recount that the Muslim world has witnessed anything but such temperance this year. Wherever you look today in the Muslim world, there is a disturbance – to put it mildly. In Lebanon, schoolchildren, farmers, …

As the security situation in Baghdad has deteriorated over the past month, there has been growing talk among Iraqi politicians about a “government of national salvation –a coup, in effect–that would impose martial law throughout the country. This coup talk is probably unrealistic, but it illustrates the rising desperation among Iraqis as the country slips …

Children on one of southern Africa’s mightiest rivers are playing the Limpopo board game, literally for their lives. Piloted in places like Zimbabwe s Matabeleland and Mozambique s Gaza Province, it uses the power of play to teach ways of reducing vulnerability to flooding. If a counter lands on a space showing a well designed …

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 …

The proof of a pudding is whether it tastes good and doesn’t make you ill. If the ‘War on Terror’ was a dessert, we’d all be suffering from food poisoning. It’s a failure, and according to numerous leaked documents, that’s official. But when, oh when, will the myopic ones inhabiting the White House and Number …

During her recent visit to Egypt, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would have profited from a short visit to the bookstore of the American University in Cairo, where she could have purchased the extraordinary memoirs of “The Last Khedive of Egypt Abbas Hilmi II, which recently went on sale. Abbas Hilmi succeeded his father …

The recent cancellation of performances of Mozart’s “Idomeneo in Berlin raised the very important question of our perception of the Muslim world, an issue which has not been addressed in any satisfactory way. The production, which I have not seen and am therefore unable to comment upon, was temporarily removed from the German Opera’s repertoire …

In Washington, there is a frequent step before old soldiers die and after they’ve faded away; recruitment into a blue ribbon panel established to resolve one administration headache or other. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by a former secretary of state, James Baker, and a former congressman, Lee Hamilton, is one such venture. The …

“Present at the Creation was the title Dean Acheson gave to his memoir about the founding of the post-World War II order. Now, with North Korea claiming to have tested a nuclear weapon in defiance of the international community and Iran seemingly on the way, Harvard professor Graham Allison argues that we are present at …

It is time to end the fiction that President Vladimir Putin’s “dictatorship of law has made post-communist Russia any less lawless. The murder of Anna Politkovskaya, one of Russia’s bravest and best journalists, a woman who dared to expose the brutal murders committed by Russian troops in Chechnya, is final proof that Putin has delivered …

The percentage of expatriates in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries grew from 22.9 in 1975 to 37.1 in 2004, constituting about 70 percent of the workforce. However, a number of changes on the ground during the last few years have redefined the rules of behavior for about 13 million foreigners, yielding mixed results. …

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 …

It was during a one-day conference on over-seas reporting, held at the University of California’s Graduate School of Journalism, that I learned of yet another element of what purports to be my cultural identity. It was an excellent conference, held by an outstanding school of journalism, where I had the privilege and pleasure of teaching …

A new and influential report just released by the Woodrow Wilson School, titled “Forging a World of Liberty Under Law, U.S. National Security in the 21st Century, underlines the one major flaw of the Bush administration’s policy since September 11, 2001: the absence of law and of a legal process in the projection of American …

A veil of silence covers violence against children, yet abuses are so pervasive that no country can ignore them, and no society can claim to be immune from them. Despite almost universal acceptance of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, governments’ concrete initiatives to counter such violence have been inadequate. Turning a blind …

The world is consumed by fears that Iraq is degenerating into a civil war between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. But in this looming war of all against all, it is Iraq’s small community of Assyrian Christians that is at risk of annihilation. Iraq’s Christian communities are among the world’s most ancient, practicing their faith in …

Saad Al-Jassem slips out of his dishdasha revealing a body in extraordinary shape for a man who turns 70 this year. On a traditional wooden dhow off Doha s corniche, Saad is getting ready to show me how to dive for pearls. My producer Schams Elwazer and our cameraman and I, joined by our diver …

Book Review: Conservatives without Conscience John W. Dean; Penguin Group; 186 pages; $25.95. Given the opportunity to correct President Bush’s political blunder wherein he stated that “this nation is at war with Islamic fascists, John Dean, author of best-selling Worse than Watergate, might suggest that the biggest threat facing the nation is American fascism, not …

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the Middle East this week, trying to bolster America’s allies to confront an enemies list that includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and the all-party anarchy in Iraq. My worry is that Rice is becoming a traveling version of Baghdad’s “Green Zone, talking about hopeful strategies that are …

A European Union conference on immigration, like the one that took place last weekend in Madrid, would not normally be the chosen venue for political heavyweights to stage a slugfest. Yet, in the wake of Islamist extremist bombings on European soil and last year’s riots in French suburbs, these are not normal times to be …

The heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, from where the United States indirectly administers most things Iraqi, seems to have caught the fancy of the Bush administration. It seems to be repeating in the rest of the Middle East the same isolation from its surroundings practiced in Iraq. This is evident in this week’s trip …

If you want to get a sense of which way the wind is blowing in a society, you should consult its youth or its best opinion pollsters. Last month, I had the chance to do both in Dubai, and in the process learned about significant changing attitudes and new trends in the Arab region. I …

Memo: To Arabs and MuslimsRe: The Middle East It’s your own fault. That’s right, the Bush administration can’t be held responsible for the mess they have made of the Middle East. You Arabs and Muslims are to blame. How can anyone be expected to develop a policy for this place? It’s all just too darned …

“What could America do to help push democratization forward in Egypt? an American friend connected to U.S. policy-making circles asked me recently. My usual answer to that particularly persistent question is: “democratize Israel. America’s foremost ally and strategic partner is the Middle East is a self-defined Jewish state, in which 20 percent of the population …