NATO took a step away from Pakistan was taken when it reached an independent deal with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan to open a transport route to ship military equipment out of Afghanistan. Circumventing Pakistan may very well become the norm in the region as the US, hopefully, begins a bona fide search for a new regional partner.
They must recognize that while the President may be able to ponder who to kill miles away, the rest of the world does not believe that America legitimately has this power. And they must recognize that while drones continue to kill almost daily—a senior al Qaeda leader, Abu Yahya al-Libi was just killed yesterday—and have killed up to 3,000 people since their inception, many in the Middle East may just decide that it is time to fight back.
The discursive frameworks that the P5+1 talks are predicated on do not bode well for future negotiations. The West is a veritable echo chamber of calls for regime change in Iran and its actions to date demonstrate that it does not consider Iran an equal partner.
The SNC, which claims to be leading the uprising from outside Syria, is battling between leading an opposition movement against Assad’s authoritarian grip and gaining credibility among its civilian population and the Western world.
Today we are able to sit with our laptops and tablets and watch the horrors of a regime slaughtering its own people. But despicable as this inaction is, posting filmed clips on YouTube has become one of the only viable means for the Syrian people to call out for help.
Just a little over a year has passed since the outset of the massive uprisings that shook Egypt and deposed one of the longest-ruling Middle Eastern leaders in modern history, and they are quickly passing from the realm of current events into history.
Offset against grey skies and the black uniform of an average Istanbulite bundled against the cold, the bright yellow and turquoise banners of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) bring a hint of the Arab Spring to Taksim Square.
Perhaps the most critical and least acknowledged impediment to the negotiation of a conflict is the manipulation of language. No peace process can come to fruition when representatives from conflicting parties are embroiled in debates on semantics, yet individuals in both government and media inevitably employ strategic language at various stages in the process.
It has long since become cliché to wax poetic about the momentous changes that are now sweeping the Middle East.
Over the weekend, Coptic Christians all over the world mourned the death of their Church’s leader, known as Shenouda III, Pope of Alexandria.
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