News Abroad

The Egyptian Middle Class Is Disgruntled. Again.

by Guy Laron

During the current popular uprising in Egypt, foreign correspondents in Cairo have often remarked on the large numbers of highly educated young men and women who are thoroughly frustrated by the gap between the education they have attained and the jobs they have found. In one New York Times story, a protester in his thirties told a correspondent that he had studied geology, but after graduating the only job that he could get was delivering newspapers.  Other young

The Myth of Stability vs. Democracy in U.S. Foreign Policy

by Ira Chernus

How is a historian supposed to get any work done when history is being made so profoundly today?  My unfinished book on Franklin D. Roosevelt's for

The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions from the Field

by Mohammed A. Bamyeh

Al-Qahira, The City Victorious, February 6, 2011Never has a revolution that seemed so lacking in prospects gathered momentum so quickly and

The End of the American Empire in the Middle East

by Tom Engelhardt

As we've watched the dramatic events in the Middle East, you would hardly know that we had a thing to do with them.  Oh yes, in the name of its War on Terror, Washing

Mothers of the Jasmine Revolution

by Imed Labidi

On January 14, 2011, the ousted former Tunisian dictator Ben Ali fled the country and found his way to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Just two days earlier, French Foreign Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie told her National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Commission that French expertise could help suppress the Tunisian uprising and restore order. Although the French can take much pride in their histo

Popular Uprisings in Egypt’s Recent History

by Robert Tignor

Millions of Egyptians have taken to the streets in the last week, demanding the removal of President Hosni Mubarak from office and an end to dictatorial rule.  These event

All Eyes on Egypt

by Daniel Martin Varisco

About a month ago I visited the King Tut exhibit in New York. Here was the splendor of one of the minor pharaohs of Egypt, one that died at a very young age. Other pharaohs reigned for a lifetime, such as Ramses II who was in power over three millennia ago and ruled the mighty Egyptian empire for more than half a century. Hosni Mubarak on the Nile is no pharaoh any more than Saddam Hussein was Nebuchadnezzar on the Euphrates. Still, he has been in power almost three decades with a son

Agricultural Instability Threatens Political, Economic Development

by Nick Cullather

It is in the cities that the 2011 food crisis hits hardest.  The revolution in Tunis began as a food riot.  As markets in Cairo, Algiers, and Sanaa erupt, dictators are scrambling to buy off the opposition by lowering

Egypt—What’s Next?

by Haider Khan

Events in Egypt have unsettled the media pundits and Western academic advisers alike.  After all, how can the recipient of the largest amount of U.S. foreign aid in the Arab world and a close U.S. ally be in such dire political trouble from within?As a CNN pundit put it recently,"among Arab nations Egypt enjoys a near-unparalleled relationship with Washington."  But now Washington is worried.Only last Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated confidently th

Six Vows to Support Our Troops

by William J. Astore

“Support our troops” is an unconditional American mantra.  We’re told to celebrate them as warrior-liberators, as heroes, as the

Regime Change Redux

by Abena Ampofoa Asare

The Egyptian people have decided that they are no longer willing to wait for President Hosni Mubarak to expire in order to taste freedom. The lesson from Egypt this week, Tunisia last week, and perhaps Yemen or Algeria next week is that U.S. bombs bursting over Baghdad are not the only possible response to state repression in the Middle East and North Africa.Contrary to recent images from Iraq and Afghanistan, this is what democratic regime change looks like in the

Jews Don't Belong in Palestine (How Palestinians See Things)

by Robert L. Tignor

Daily we search for explanations of the violence in the Middle East. Is it the vaunted clash of civilizations? A centuries-old conflict between Islam and the West? Civilization vs. terror or the modern vs. the archaic? Our confusion will disappear if we place the conflict within the historical framework of decolonization struggles. Violence has accompanied decolonization whenever the goal of political independence is blocked. Violence has ceased only through outside interven

Why Are We Still in Afghanistan?

by Ira Chernus

When I try to figure out why we are still in Afghanistan, though every ounce of logic says we ought to get out, an unexpected conversation I had last year haunts me. Doing neighborhood political canvassing, I knocked on the door of a cheerful man who was just about to tune in to his favorite radio show: Rush Limbaugh.  He was kind enough to let me stay and we talked.Conservatives are often the nicest people -- that’s what I told him -- the ones you’d like to have as neighbors. T

Why Military Spending Remains Untouchable

by Andrew Bacevich

In defense circles, “cutting” the Pentagon budget has once again become a topic of conversation.  Americans should not confuse that

Turmoil in Tunisia

by Daniel Pipes

The sudden and as-yet-unexplained exit of Tunisia's strongman, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, 74, after 23 years in power has potential implications for the Middle East and for Muslims worldwide. As an Egyptian commentator noted,"Every Arab leader is watching Tunisia in fear. Every Arab citizen is watching Tunisia in hope and solidarity." I watch with both sets of emotions.

Freedom Fighters for a Fading Empire

by William J. Astore

Words matter, as candidate Barack Obama said in the 2008 election campaign.  What to make, then, of President Obama’s pep talk last month to U.S. troops in Afghanistan in which he lauded them as “the finest fighting force that the world has ever k

Reliving the Soviet Experience in Afghanistan

by Tom Engelhardt

If, as 2011 begins, you want to peer into the future, enter my time machine, strap yourself in, and head for the past, that laboratory for all developments of our moment and beyond.Just as 2010 ended, the Am

Cholera in Haiti: An Epidemic Waiting to Happen

by Myron Echenberg

Although cholera no longer threatens most people today, unlike the devastation it wreaked in a series of global pandemics in the nineteenth century, this acute diarrheal disease remains deeply embedded in collective memo

After New START: Where Does Nuclear Disarmament Go From Here?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

With U.S. Senate ratification of the New START treaty on December 22, supporters of nuclear disarmament won an important victory.  Signed by Presiden

No More Afghanistans

by William Astore

In grappling with Afghanistan, President Obama and his team of national security advisors reveal a tendency all too common within the Washington beltway: privileging fleeting and reversible signs of local success while downplaying endemic difficulties and larger patterns of strategic failure. Our latest intelligence estimates, we are told, show signs of progress. But of what sort? The Taliban appears to be extending its hold in the countryside, corruption continues to spread in the Kar