Research & Commentary Results

This article originally appeared in Foreign Policy.

History weighs heavily on any political movement, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria is no different. Over eight decades, the group has adapted to survive. This malleability has kept the Brotherhood, or Ikhwan, alive as an independent organization, but historical experiences have changed it in profound ways and are helping to marginalize it during the current crisis.

Like pieces fitting together in a jigsaw puzzle, Arab governments – presumably from the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council – offered to finance a U.S. military strike on Syria, according to comments made by Secretary of State John Kerry during testimony September 4 with the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In an exchange with Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) on the potential cost of U.S. military action in Syria, Kerry said,

When King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and his foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, issued unequivocal pledges of support for Egypt’s military government and its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, their move was widely depicted in the news media as a logical extension of the kingdom’s opposition to revolutionary movements in the Arab world. This simplistic view overlooks the fact that Saudi Arabia has responded differently to different uprisings—it supports the rebels in Syria, helped to crush them in Bahrain—and that aligning itself with Egypt’s new rulers could be a risky strategy.

Co-authored by W. Robert Pearson, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey. This article first appeared on The Huffington Post.

Decoding Al-Qaeda’s Strategy: The Deep Battle Against America by Michael W.S. Ryan, 2013

The Iranian diaspora in Malaysia is a diverse and vibrant community of educators, students, artists, and entrepreneurs. The following essays provide snapshots of the historical and cultural connections between Iran and Malaysia, as well as the personal and professional experiences and creative output of some of the members of this community.

Artist Asghar Yaghoubi, who was born in Shiraz, Iran, moved to Malaysia in 2008. An accomplished painter and sculptor, he also teaches art at the Cube Gallery, of which he is the founder and director. The gallery is the first and only art gallery in Southeast Asia owned by an Iranian.

Revolt in Syria: Eye-Witness to the Uprising, by Stephen Starr, 2012

Artist Pegah Jahangiri hails from Tehran, but is currently a doctoral student in visual arts at the University of Malaya, Malaysia. She recently spoke to MEI about her work with batik, strikingly dyed cloth found all over the world, but particularly popular and refined in Southeast Asia.

Iraqis who cast their votes in postponed local elections in Anbar and Nineveh on 20 June had a lot on their plates. Beyond issues relating to the provision of services locally, the last weeks before the elections saw massive protests against the central government in Baghdad. The many angry slogans on display included calls for greater autonomy for the Sunni-majority areas of Iraq as well as expressions of solidarity with the mainly Sunni Syrian opposition movement.

The sun is beating down and it isn’t even midday. Clutching the all-important paperwork that will get them coveted UN food vouchers, Syrian refugees look harried. The women pull at their children to hurry through the litter-filled yard of the sports club in the town of Bar Elias that serves as a distribution center for the UN’s hard-pressed World Food Program (WFP). Unlike their men, who head for the shade to smoke and exchange news, the women don’t dally, making for the snaking lines into a crowded hall where they will be called in groups by registration numbers.

The Iranian diaspora in Malaysia is incredibly diverse. Supporters of the Green Movement, students, individuals who fast and pray and those who do not know the direction of the qibla, clerics who promote secularism and those who promote the authority of the vilayat-i faqih, Iranian Kurds, Turks, and Arabs, journalists, artists, and environmentalists: all these—and more—constitute the community of Iranians who have fled or quietly moved to Malaysia.

Randa Slim, MEI Scholar and adjunct research fellow at the New America Foundation, discusses the implications of Hezbollah's growing role in Syria for Lebanese politics and Lebanon's Shiite community.