Category: Middle East/North Africa

Tunisian Democratic Transition in Comparative Perspective

     

Tunisia’s fledgling democracy has weathered a parliamentary-prompted transfer of power. On Saturday, the parliament passed an unprecedented vote of no confidence in former Prime Minister Habib Essid, disbanding his government…. Read more »

Post-putsch Turkish democracy still vulnerable

     

In a dispute between NATO allies, Turkey is demanding that the United States extradite Fethullah Gulen (left), a Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric, to face charges of engineering a coup attempt. But… Read more »

Enough is Enough: Iranian Kurds Running Out of Patience

     

Two decades after a ceasefire, Kurdish fighters have resumed armed action in Iran, The London Times reports (subscription required). The result has been scores of deaths, cross-border artillery barrages into… Read more »

Libyans ‘winning the battle’ against Islamic State

     

While the so-called Islamic State is losing ground across Libya, divisions among various Libyan factions make it difficult for the unity government to convert the group’s defeat into legitimacy, Carnegie… Read more »

A year on from JCPOA, Iran views civil society as security threat

     

To thwart widespread expectations that more open relations with the West would follow the signing of the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program last year, Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly warned… Read more »

Egypt’s dubious security harvest

     

  One of the main motivations behind Egypt’s 2013 military coup was to counter potential violence and terrorism. Yet one of its main upshots is a surge in violence and… Read more »

ISIS ‘metastasizing’ – losing territory and social media presence

     

  The Islamic State group lost 12% of the territory it holds in Iraq and Syria – an area the size of Ireland – in the first half of 2016,… Read more »

Chilcot report proves Iraq war was not about advancing democracy

     

  The invasion of Iraq has had a huge impact on the debate about democracy in the Middle East—and almost entirely a detrimental one, notes Jane Kinninmont, senior research fellow… Read more »

JCPOA failed to open up economic and political space within Iran

     

Activist Iyad el-Baghdadi had initially hoped that the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), would give Iran’s entrepreneurs, reformists, and civil society at large more breathing space:… Read more »

New Forms of Democratic Citizenship in MENA

     

The Arab Spring opened a window of opportunity to revise democracy support in a direction that better reflects local interpretations of citizenship and rights, but external actors have yet to… Read more »