Recently added articles from Middle East Quarterly:
The economics of democracy in Muslim countries.(Focus on Governance)
Jun 22, 2008; Sarsar, Saliba ... Last year was a tumultuous one for democracy in Muslim-majority countries. On July 22, 2007, despite Turkish military warnings three months earlier about the danger to secularism posed by the impending election/the Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi--AKP) ...
The costs of relying on aging dictators.(Focus on Governance)
Jun 22, 2008; Sevier, Caroline ... Almost as soon as it started, the democratization agenda that the Bush adminisration hoped would be the lodestar of its post 9-11 foreign policy has been all but shelved. The insurgency and sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, the regional threat posed by an expansionist Iran, and the Palestinian ...
Sinning in a Saudi starbucks.(story of the discrimination experienced by women in Saudi Arabia)(Brief article)
Jun 22, 2008 ... Her story offers a rare firsthand glimpse of the discrimination faced by women living in Saudi Arabia. In her first interview with the foreign press, Yara told The Times" that she would remain in Saudi Arabia to challenge its harsh enforcement of conservative Islam rather than return to ...
Does foreign aid fuel Palestinian violence?
Jun 22, 2008; Stotsky, Steven ... On December 17, 2007, eighty-seven countries and international organizations met in Paris and pledged to provide $7.4 billion over three years to the Palestinian Authority (1) (PA), an amount far in excess of any previous level of U.S. or European aid to the Palestinians. The conference ...
European converts to terrorism.
Jun 22, 2008; Uhlmann, Milena ... Conversion to Islam among native Europeans is on the rise. Many converts live at peace within their native societies; some convert only for marriage, and reject neither contemporary culture nor Europe's Judeo-Christian values. A minority, however, embraces radical interpretations of Islam ...
A tale of two wives.(Muslim restaurant owner Mohammed Anwar avoids a ban for speeding using the reason that he has to commute between his business and two wives)(Brief article)
Jun 22, 2008 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When it comes to avoiding a ban for speeding, the courts hear every excuse in the book. But yesterday one motorist offered what must be a unique reason why he should keep his licence. Mohammed Anwar said a ban would make it difficult to commute between his ...
Tactical hudna and Islamist intolerance.
Jun 22, 2008; MacEoin, Denis ... The use by Westerners of the word hudna highlights an anomaly. Whenever journalists, diplomats, or commentators covering the Middle East use a non-English word, it will almost always be Arabic or perhaps Persian; seldom do they use any Hebrew words. Never has a U.S. or British newspaper, ...
The rise of the Chechen emirate?
Jun 22, 2008; Shlapentokh, Dmitry ... Chechnya has been at war with Russia for generations. By 1999, when the second Chechen war broke out, two resistance groups had emerged: nationalists and jihadists. While long simmering below the surface, the schism between the two camps erupted publicly in 2006 on the Internet after ...
Iranian man dying for a drink.(a man called Mohsen was sentenced to death for drinking alcohol which is banned in Iran)(Brief article)
Jun 22, 2008 ... TEHRAN -- A young Iranian man has been sentenced to hanging for repeatedly drinking alcohol which is strictly banned in the Islamic Republic, the Etemad newspaper reported on Wednesday. The 22-year-old, identified only as Mohsen, was handed down the death penalty by a criminal court after ...
An Israeli watershed: strike on Syria.(September 2007 Israel Air Force attack on Syria)
Jun 22, 2008; Zisser, Eyal ... On the morning of September 6, 2007, Israel Air Force (IAF) planes penetrated deep into Syrian airspace and attacked a nuclear facility near the town of Dayr al-Zur in the northeastern part of the country. In an almost unprecedented fashion, the Israeli government and military refused to ...
Ending Londonistan.(DOCUMENT)(comments on the flaws in Great Britain's anti terrorism strategies)(Excerpt)
Jun 22, 2008; Phillips, Melanie ... In February 2008, Gwyn Prim, a professor at the London School of Economics, and Robert Salisbury, the marquess of Salisbury and a privy counselor, published a breakthrough essay in the RUSI Journal on the incongruity between current British defense discourse and the threat posed by radical ...
Archbishop of Canterbury's Shari'a law row.(reactions to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams's idea to bring the Islamic law into the British legal system)
Jun 22, 2008 ... The Archbishop of Canterbury was facing demands to quit last night as the row over Shari'a law intensified. Lord George Carey, Dr. Williams' predecessor, criticised his comments on Shari'a law and said that accepting the Islamic code would be a disaster for Britain. Other leading bishops ...
Turkish secularism is democratic.(COMMENTARY)
Jun 22, 2008; Solmazturk, E. Haldun ... Policymakers and future historians may get whiplash from divergent analyses of where Turkey is headed. Some Turkish writers--The Turkish Daily News' Mustafa Akyol and Zaman's All Aslan, for example--argue that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party ...
Bashar Al-Assad.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 22, 2008; Bukay, David ... To the Editor: Eyal Zisser concludes that Bashar al-Assad is secure ("Where Is Bashar al-Assad Headed?" Winter 2008). True, Assad is as secure as any other Arab leader. But what determines security is a single variable: the army. Say where the army stands, and I can tell you ...
Abrogation in Islam.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 22, 2008; Gardiner, Matthew ... To the Editor: David Bukay raises important questions about Islamic texts in "Peace or Jihad: Abrogation in Islam?" (Fall 2007), but his analysis should go further to explore where the fault lies when holy texts are used to justify violence. In December 1997, I ...
The Middle East's tribal DNA.(Correspondence)
Jun 22, 2008; Gibbons, Marcus A. ... To the Editor: Philip Carl Salzman's article ("The Middle East's Tribal DNA," Winter 2008) is a healthy reminder of the importance of tribal structures on the culture and politics of the Arab and Muslim world. We only need look at the tribes in Iraq that constitute the "Sunni ...
Amirs, Admirals and Desert Sailors: Bahrain, the U.S. Navy and the Arabian Gulf.(Book review)
Jun 22, 2008; Eikmeier, Dale ... Amirs, Admirals and Desert Sailors: Bahrain, the U.S. Navy and the Arabian Gulf. By David F. Winkler. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007. 244 pp. $34.95. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Written as a history of the U.S. Navy's relationship with Bahrain and aimed at naval ...
Arms Transfers to Israel: The Strategic Logic behind American Military Assistance.(Book review)
Jun 22, 2008; Schenker, David ... Arms Transfers to Israel: The Strategic Logic behind American Military Assistance. By David Rodman. Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2007. 129 pp. $45. Rodman's study of U.S. arms transfers to Israel provides important insight into this critical and oft-misunderstood element of ...
Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace.
Jun 22, 2008; Clawson, Patrick ... Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace. By Arang Keshavarzian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 302 pp. $91. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At the time of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, two-thirds of Iran's wholesale trade and at least ...
Between Foreigners and Shi'is.(Book review)
Jun 22, 2008; Rubin, Michael ... Between Foreigners and Shi'is. By Daniel Tsadik. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007. 295 pp. $60. There is often an inverse relationship between the policy importance of a country such as Iran and the seriousness of the books published about it. Most authors give short ...