Research & Commentary Results

In his speech on September 10 President Obama characterized the Islamic State (ISIS) as a terrorist group.[1] There were clear political benefits to using this label, not the least of which was to facilitate the formation of a broad-based military coalition against the organization.

Hala Shukrallah, president of Egypt’s Al Dostour (Constitution) Party, spoke with MEI about the party’s preparations for upcoming parliamentary elections, its legislative agenda, and the challenges it will face in Parliament. See more of her comments at this year’s Egypt Conference.

Q: How has the Dostour party been preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections?

The following is the written testimony prepared and delivered by Amb (ret) Robert S. Ford for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing held on September 17, 2014. Click here to watch video of the full hearing (Amb. Ford’s testimony begins at the 3 hours and 26 minutes mark).

This article was first published by The National Interest.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that Tehran regards Sunni-jihadist movements as ideologically incompatible rivals. This is not surprising, as the bulk of Sunni-jihadist literature makes it clear that Shia-majority Iran is considered to be the embodiment of apostasy. To most Sunni jihadists, including those from ISIS, Iran is an archenemy surpassing both Israel and the United States.

During his first week in office, Iraq’s new prime minister, Haydar al-Abbadi, has made a number of significant announcements, ranging from highly symbolic moves to more wide-ranging initiatives. Signs of divergence between Abbadi and his predecessor, Nuri al-Maliki, are clearly visible.

One way to grasp the immense difficulty facing President Obama as he tries to forge an effective international coalition to oppose the Islamic State is to examine the difference between this effort and the last time the United States led a diverse group of countries to take on a conflict in the Middle East: Operation Desert Storm, in 1991.

The following is excerpted from an article first published on MSNBC.

Most of Egypt’s newly created secular political parties have complained bitterly about the Parliament Election Law, which former Interim President Adly Mansour rushed to approve in his last day in office, before handing over power to newly-elected President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

This article was first published on LobeLog.

This article was co-written by Sarkawt Shamsulddin, co-founder of the Kurdish Policy Foundation. It was first published on CNN.

This op-ed was first published in the New York Daily News.

The United States might not have had a strategy for battling ISIS last week, but it does now. The NATO summit in Wales produced one. It reflects President Obama’s instincts and his ability to corral fractious allies.

It also says nothing about the use of force by the United States.

In the last three years, Egypt’s economic position has deteriorated dramatically. Domestic and external deficits have increased, causing public debt to grow sharply, external reserves to fall, investment to shrink, and inflation to increase. In the process, growth decelerated, unemployment rose, income distribution worsened, and the medium term economic outlook became clouded.

Although power cuts are hardly new in Egypt, no Egyptian government has tackled the problem seriously and transparently. After the January 25, 2011 uprising, Egyptians had less patience with the failures of state services and demanded change.

On August 9, 2014, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt began another chapter in its besieged political life.  The highest administrative court in Egypt, the Supreme Administrative Court, dissolved the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Court also liquidated all of the FJP’s assets in an effort to quash any further political ambitions and activities that the Brotherhood might have in Egypt.  The ruling—a calculated move conducted prior to upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for later this year—was an attempt

Within four months of the military’s ouster of Mohamed Morsi, one of the icons of liberalism serving in the new cabinet, Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, admitted to CNN that those who called for political reconciliation, like himself, were alienated by the political mood, where the very concept of reconciliation has become “a dirty word” in Egypt.