A Forum on Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics
SAID SABIR IBRAHIMI, 22 NOVEMBER 2021 On August 15, 2021, the Taliban militant group ousted the quasi-democratic Islamic Republic of Afghanistan backed by the U.S. and reinstated the Islamic Emirate in Kabul. The Taliban argues that since the group controls the entire country, the conflict is over, and the international community should recognize the group […]
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KELLY HAMMOND, 24 MAY 2021 By now, the ongoing human rights crisis in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang is well-known and well-documented. Governments around the world continue to denounce the illegal incarceration of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups, such as Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. They are also speaking out vehemently against reeducation camps, the […]
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SEAN YOM, 15 MARCH 2021 During President Biden’s first month in office, the US raised the possibility that relations with Saudi Arabia would need “recalibration,” given its harrowing record of recent human rights violations. This move signaled a familiar scene that plays out in Washington whenever a non-democratic American ally commits egregious human rights abuses. […]
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TURAN KAYAOĞLU, 6 APRIL 2020 On February 27, in the New York Times, Mustafa Akyol wrote that, “the justification of many terrible deeds in the name of Islam today, from terrorism to tyranny, from patriarchy to bigotry” is a cause of Islamophobia. He argues that the solution is “right there in the Quran”: Muslims should […]
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JOHN CALVERT, 3 MAY 2021 A century ago, in March 1921, the shape of the contemporary Middle East was decided at a conference held in Cairo, Egypt. In attendance were the movers and shakers of British imperial policy: Winston Churchill, T.E. Lawrence, and Gertrude Bell, among others. The decisions they made had lasting consequences for […]
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ALEXANDER R. ARIFIANTO, 26 APRIL 2021 Indonesia, the largest Muslim majority country in the world, is considered a prime example of a successful democracy with a Muslim majority society. Leading Indonesian Muslim organizations and intellectuals have promoted its brand of moderate Islam. Recently, such a reputation had come under serious challenge. New and more theologically […]
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KELLY HAMMOND, 05 APRIL 2021 China’s Uyghurs have rightly been the center of news coverage recently. In China, the ongoing efforts to suppress Islam and Uyghur culture have led to the terrible and illegal incarceration of over one million Uyghurs and forced labor conditions. Recently governments in Canada, the United States and the EU have […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ 18 JANUARY 2019 Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Egypt and gave a speech at American University in Cairo. Secretary Pompeo criticized President Obama’s foreign policy in the region by referring to his famous speech, “A New Beginning,” given in Cairo after he became the president in 2009. He blamed Obama of retreating American presence […]
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GÜLAY TÜRKMEN, 17 MAY 2021 On March 17, 2021, a top prosecutor at Turkey’s Court of Cassation filed a case with the Constitutional Court demanding the closure of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which is currently the third-largest party in the parliament. This move came as no surprise to those who are in the […]
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WENDY PEARLMAN, 2 SEPTEMBER 2019 The war in Syria can seem bewilderingly complex. Over more than eight years, a dozen states supported hundreds of rival groups that competed on the ground in a kaleidoscope of shifting alliances and rivalries. A web of sectarian tensions, economic interests, ideological clashes, and geopolitical jockeying overlay a fundamentally political […]
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Interview with MOHAMMAD H. KHALIL, 26 AUGUST 2019 Mohammad Hassan Khalil recently wrote a well-received book, Jihad, Radicalism, and the New Atheism. Having invited Dr. Khalil to Omaha to give a talk about his book and seen the great interest in my community about it, I wanted to have an extended interview with him about the […]
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Siyasa 