The United States told the Iraqi government last week that if it wants U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond the deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, as stipulated by the current Status ...

Read more: Iraq, Iran and the Next Move

A potential agreementbrokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council between Yemen’s embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents was rejected on Sunday pending substantial alterations to the pact. Now, with chances for a peaceful resolution to the crisis fading, fears are growing in ...

Read more: Yemen Falling

Today Syria has entered its biggest internal crisis since 1970. The regime has come out to crush the insurrection. Either it will succeed by killing many people or the insurrection will build into a real potential revolution.

And the Western states are doing...precisely zero.

One Syrian expert friend ...

Read more: The Big Historic Event Today: Syria's Biggest Crisis in 40 Years

He joined in the demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square, enduring a beating from Hosni Mubarak's forces while trying to topple a dictator. Mahmoud Salem'shopes for Egypt's future have everything to do with pluralism and economic growth and nothing to do with empowering Islamists like the Muslim ...

Read more: Reconsidering the Brotherhood's Inevitability

The Syrian regime is in deep trouble. The Friday protests against the regime are much larger with each passing week, forcing President Assad to seek help from Iran to crush the uprising. The use of violence has only enlarged the crowds, and now, according to the Reform Party of Syria, the Syrian ...

Read more: Turning Point in Syria

Beijing has become noticeably more anxious than usual in recent months, launching one of the more high-profile security campaigns to suppress political dissent since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. Journalists, bloggers, artists, ...

Read more: China and the End of the Deng Dynasty

This is fascinating for a totally unexpected reason. It illustrates the law of unintended consequences, which is perhaps the single most important concept to keep in mind when examining the Middle East right now.

Abboud al-Zumar was a leader in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (a group now associated with ...

Read more: Oops! An Assassin of Anwar Sadat Explains The Law of Unintended Consequences

Introduction

It took nine months after the Iraqi parliamentary election in March 2010 for a new government to be formed, in a process dotted by bargaining, haggling, threats, compromises and even foreign intervention. It took the political skills of Masoud Barazani, the president of Kurdistan ...

Read more: Iraqi Government in Crisis – Sectarianism, Corruption and Dissent