As the two cities of Cairo and Port Said remain engulfed in the worst violence seen since the Revolution, the entwining in Egypt of ‘football and the game of politics’ could hardly be more complete. And the game, it would appear, has not even reached half-time, says Leila Zaki Chakravarti.
A general strike was called yesterday, there are ongoing protests across the country and calls for the military to enter into the political arena in a more robust way.
War is not the only solution. Iranian flexibility and political creativity in Syria, and Saudi flexibility as well as political creativity in Iraq, could offer a way through.
The diverse experiences of the Arab spring renew the question of whether non-violent movements are more effective than armed struggle in achieving the overthrow of authoritarian regimes, says Martin Shaw.
Relying on the regional and world powers has proven to be a costly participation in a proxy war that is devastating the country.
What the Islamist terrorist threat has become is an incoherent pretext to intervene militarily on the part of the west. The only principled position to adopt therefore is the rejection of both, for the self-determination and sovereignty of the peoples.
How one defines Syria’s troubles determines one’s prescriptions. Evidence that a silent majority did not want violent conflict and preferred a political solution leading to reform is not easily dismissible. And Syrian politics, unlike Libya under Gaddafi’s ‘personal rule’, is not about Assad.
Syria's civil war is now strongly characterised by militias identifying along sectarian lines. The growing divide between Sunnis and Alawites has profound implications for Syria, and the Middle East.
The strategy of "reversed roles," in which the ruling party adopts a position contrary to its traditional ideological bent, thereby forcing the opposition to take the opposite stance, was used by the Justice and Development Party with regard to the American war in Iraq. Could the same tactic be us
As Israelis go the polls on 22 January, Israeli democracy is in real trouble. At least that’s the message from a group of Israeli security mandarins at the centre of the Oscar-nominated documentary film The Gatekeepers.
If the crisis continues, Syria risks not so much division into hostile states as happened in Yugoslavia, but control by warlords who will persecute the Syrian people.
Most of the research conducted so far into the Syrian uprising is focused on the sectarian element of the conflict, forgetting that there is a tribal dimension to the conflict as well.
