What has Assad won?
By killing so many Syrians, President Bashar al-Assad also killed the dream of democracy, as well as for plenty of people elsewhere in the Arab world, notes Kamel Daoud, the author of “The Meursault...
View ArticleBernard Lewis, R.I.P. – opposed Arab autocrats, studied Islam-democracy...
Bernard Lewis, an eminent historian of Islam who traced the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to a declining Islamic civilization, a controversial view that influenced world opinion and helped......
View ArticleArab democracy depends on normalizing Islamist parties
Arab democracy would simply be inconceivable without Islamist participation, writes Brookings analyst Shadi Hamid. That, by itself, should give us pause, particularly at a time when Western democracies...
View ArticleAusterity squeeze: middle class discontent stirs memories of Arab Spring
A wave of economic austerity is squeezing the Arab world’s middle class, pushing a segment of society that is key to growth and stability into making painful cutbacks and fueling... Read more » The...
View ArticleAsia’s democratic regression fuels rise of Islamist militants
Today, few people are touting democracy in Southeast Asia as an example of political freedoms, notes Council on Foreign Relations analyst Joshua Kurlantzick. In Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia,...
View ArticleMorocco: PJD electoral success highlights new breed of Islamism
In last Friday’s legislative elections in Morocco, the ruling Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD, left) again secured a plurality, but while the elections were hailed as proof of... Read...
View ArticleLet locals take the lead on ISIS
There may be a continuum between the purportedly non-violent Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State, or ISIS. Nevertheless, “it bears repeating that ISIL’s campaign is not...
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