Iran pursuing China Model?
At 77, and with at least one hospitalization in recent years for prostate cancer, Ayatollah Khamenei appears determined, while he still has full power, to make the changes essential for… Read more »
Author Archives: DemDigest
Authoritarian soft power not drawing many converts
When the Philippines’ tough-guy President Rodrigo Duterte announced in Beijing last week that “America has lost” and that he was “separating” from the United States to align with a rising… Read more »
Quetta attack: Is ISIS extending into Pakistan?
Pakistan’s current government and the military have proudly proclaimed many times in recent memory that their operations against the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), the Haqqani Network, and Al Qaeda hubs in… Read more »
Hungary 1956 – ‘the first color revolution’?
Hungary’s Foreign Ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador over reportedly disparaging remarks on Russian state media about Hungary’s 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, AP reports: The ministry said Tuesday it wants to… Read more »
No avoiding Mideast’s underlying issues of governance, corruption and repression
The next U.S. administration will inherit problems associated with the Middle East that are vastly more challenging than any in a generation as the old order has given way to… Read more »
The truth about Egypt’s revolution?
In “Arab Fall: How the Muslim Brotherhood Won and Lost Egypt in 891 Days,” Eric Trager upends the standard pat narrative of Egypt’s Jasmine Revolution, notes Oren Kessler, deputy director… Read more »
Protect civilians in fight against Islamic State, report cautions
While defeating Islamic State in northern Iraq. would remove a formidable threat, religious minorities and other civilians remain at risk and could face further atrocities, according to a new report… Read more »
Unraveling of Post-1989 Order – The Specter Haunting Europe
The unraveling of the post–Cold War liberal order is manifested by the West’s declining influence in international politics; the waning attraction of liberal democracy; and the maturing tensions within liberal… Read more »
Eastern Europe’s ‘superfluous men’ living in wrong historical moment?
Russian nineteenth-century literature famously had a string of leading characters, the best known being Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, who were called superfluous men, notes Thomas de Waal, Senior Associate at… Read more »