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As the domestic political situation in Iran remains tense, the Obama administration is engaged in a careful balancing act, being tepid in its support for the Iranian opposition while engaging the regime in an effort to prevent a nuclear armed Iran.
Some analysts have suggested that the 2010 elections are being contested on a non-sectarian basis, or a less sectarian basis than the 2005 elections. But party alliances are organized predominately on an ethnic or confessional basis.
With a combined total of 296 parties and independent candidates registered to compete for a place in a 275-seat parliament, Iraq displays a degree of political fragmentation usually found in first-time multi-party elections but rarely seen thereafter.
The collapse of U.S. diplomacy on the Israeli-Palestinian front has provoked predictably partisan sniping in Washington, with the Obama administration’s critics (and actually even some of its friends) charging it with incompetence.
Scholars are stuck asking the same questions, calling for democratization and human rights in the Arab world without effectively explaining their absence.
Any effective U.S. diplomatic approach to Iran must involve other countries in the Gulf, but Washington will not succeed if it continues to strive for an anti-Iranian alliance. A normalization of relations between Iran and its neighbors is an important and attainable step for reintegrating Iran into the international community.
The Iraqi parliament's last-minute compromise to allow parliamentary elections in Kirkuk solves the immediate problem of who is legally entitled to vote in the city, but guarantees that the controversy will resume right after the elections.
A concise guide to the Iraqi electoral system and the controversy surrounding the country's elections laws.
In the wake of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s announcement that he would not seek a second term, any further attempts at some form of peace process must not ignore a few basic realities about the settlements, Hamas, and Palestinian politics.
Yemen’s Islamist Congregation for Reform party (Islah) faces deep internal divisions on key issues, and its fractious composition prevents it from developing a clear parliamentary platform, leaving the party with no clear path toward the reforms it seeks.