Middle East Policy

Iran Freedom Support Act (H. R. 6198) has been adopted by Congress. This is definitely an important step in the right course towards the new Middle East. It becomes clearer day by day that the fate of the Middle East will be determined by the outcomes of the war between Middle East totalitarians led by Iran and democratic forces backed or represented by determined democratic international powers led by the US. To be accurate, I stress on the term 'totalitarian' because the general authoritarian Arab states are weaker than taking this war. Hence, what matters now is the totalitarian axis. This totalitarian axis, the terror umbrella, as already became obvious and in public consists of the Iranian regime as leader and the remnants of al-Ba'ath party (or the 'last Ba'ath' as I would love to call) besides Hezbullah and Hamas as proxies and hit men. There will be no salvation, peace, stability and of course freedom and democracy in the Middle East without targeting th...

Freedom House has just published their Freedom in the World 2006 (see the map of freedom ), which provides their rating and analysis of the freedom of each state and territory in the world for mid-2005. Also, Freedom House has published a special report, Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies 2006 , which I live in one of them . There has been progress. The number of electoral democracies has increased to 123, and of them, liberal democracies to 89. The following is from the overview by Arch Puddington followed by the list of the worst of the worst: In a year in which the state of world freedom showed striking improvement in major countries from Ukraine to Indonesia, several places in the Arab Middle East saw modest but notable increases in political rights and civil liberties—even though none there yet approach the status of a free society. Although the region continues to suffer from a marked deficit of freedom, this progress was the most significant develo...

Continuing my effort to spotlight the various academic and scholarly views on Middle East democratization policy in Middle East Policy blog , I will post some interesting excerpts from Tamara Cofman Wittes' article, " Arab Democracy, American Ambivalence; Will Bush's rhetoric about transforming the Middle East be matched by American deeds?" appeared in the Weekly Standard , 02/23/2004, Volume 009, Issue 23: Previous View on Middle East Democratization Policy (Tamara Cofman Wittes is a research fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.) The premise underlying America's embrace of this gradual approach is that we can avoid the risk of Islamist victories and minimize bilateral tensions if we help existing governments reform, even if they resist opening up political competition and sharing power. In theory, our new assistance under the Middle East Partnership Initiative and the National Endowment for Democracy is also supposed to...

Here are the recent news and developments concerning the political life and democratic stirring in Egypt gathered from the Egypt Monitor . Egypt watch is of extreme importance to the Middle East democratization research. For my comment on this subject go to Arab Democracy and Egypt Paradigm . Previous Egypt Democracy Watch Egypt Democracy Watch: (Covers the latest two months) Egyptian Judges Oppose New Law on Elections The Judges Club might is preparing for conflict with the government over its introduction of a constitutional amendment. In the debate on constitutional amendments, the government wants to amend Article 88 of the constitution, that stipulates that the judiciary is the authority that monitors elections. The regime wants to create a new body to oversee the election. Limited Cabinet Reshuffle On Monday August 28, new cabinet members were sworn in. The limited cabinet reshuffle included the appointment of Mamdouh Marei- former chairman of the presidential elections commiss...