Commentary
Israel is encroaching on the country’s territory, while the Lebanese look askance at one another.
Issam Kayssi
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Source: Getty
In The Media
Ghosts of the Arab Spring
Supporting Arab autocrats may produce some short-term gains, but at the price of long-term disaster.
Published on Aug 22, 2016
Source: Hoover Digest
Five years after the Arab Spring, democracy seems a distant dream in the Middle East. Arab ruling elites, royal families, militaries, security services, and some businesspeople welcome this outcome. Restoring stability, the argument goes, is more important than democracy. Many Western governments have embraced this logic as well. Threatened as a result of state failure and an accompanying terrorist upsurge, US and European officials now argue that the most urgent need in the Middle East is fighting the Islamic State and its affiliates—a fight that requires collaboration with autocratic rulers. Strengthening Arab autocrats—including, for some, even the mass murderer Bashar al-Assad—is an evil necessary to defeating the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, and the rest of the region...
About the Authors
Amr Hamzawy
Director, Middle East Program
Amr Hamzawy is a senior fellow and the director of the Carnegie Middle East Program. His research and writings focus on Egypt’s and other middle powers’ involvement in regional security in the Middle East, particularly through collective diplomacy and multilateral conflict resolution
Michael McFaul
Former Senior Associate
In addition to his role at Carnegie, McFaul is Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and associate professor of political science at Stanford University.
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
More Work from Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center
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Because perpetual conflict enhances control, offers economic benefits, and allows leaders to ignore popular preferences.
Angie Omar
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Understanding how farmers in the Oued Sahel-Soummam Valley grapple with climate change is essential for addressing the paradoxes through which adaptation, operating at both individual and institutional levels, deepens the region’s vulnerability and erodes the social fabric and agrarian identity that once defined life.
Ilyssa Yahmi
- Smuggling and Civil Peace on Lebanon’s Border: The Case of SummaqiyyehArticle
The Lebanese authorities’ clampdown on illicit cross-border activity threatens to leave inhabitants of the historically neglected village, and the wider Akkar region, in an economically precarious position.
Mohanad Hage Ali
