Category: Middle East

By Bernard Schell | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

ABU DHABI (IDN) – Internet is known to have played a crucial role in the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ aimed at overthrowing autocratic regimes and ushering in opportunities for majority of the people to shape their own future. Now a new World Bank report reveals that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries lag behind other regions in use of a technology that is as crucial as the steam engine was as a driving force behind the Industrial Revolution.

But there is no need to despair. “The Middle East and North Africa region has been the cradle of science and technology and can again use modern technology to address the contemporary problems faced by the region,” says Inger Andersen, World Bank Vice President for the MENA region.  “We at the World Bank Group are committed to working closely with all countries in MENA to improve access and quality of broadband internet connection.”

By Pir-Mohammad Mollazehi* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TEHRAN (IDN) – In what way is the oil wealth of the Arab countries being spent? Is that wealth being used to promote sustainable social, cultural, political and economic development in Arab countries and, thus, plays a positive role in the life and livelihood of the Arab masses? Or is it being used in the opposite direction and is actually destroying the entire infrastructure in the Arab world, and instead of being a silver bullet for the maladies of the Arab countries, is only a scourge?

It is not easy to pass a simple judgment on this issue and many positive or negative arguments can be offered here. However, if the current conditions in the Arab world are examined more closely, especially after the political developments that have come to be known as the Arab Spring, one can, at least, claim that more than being a cure to their intractable ailments, the Arab oil wealth has been a scourge in disguise.

By Hiba Zayadin* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

CAIRO (IDN) – The first step in General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s roadmap to “democracy” has been implemented. A new charter has replaced the 2012 constitution drafted during former President Mohamed Morsi’s short-lived presidency giving Sisi the legitimacy he seeks to strengthen the army’s grip on Egypt’s political system. Over 98% of participants voted in favour of approving the new constitution. According to officials, the voter turnout was 38.6% of the Egyptian population – higher than the 33% who voted on the constitution presented during Morsi’s tenure.

There was little doubt the new military-backed constitution would pass. On the first day of the voting process, polling stations featured women ululating in celebration, Egyptian flags being waved, and soldiers carrying flowers handed to them by people displaying their support for the army.

By Said Khaloozadeh* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TEHRAN (IDN) – Every time that the European Union (EU) has established an independent diplomatic mission in a country, it has been construed as a sign of the willingness of the EU member states to promote their relations with that country. Therefore, it seems that the European Union has decided to improve and promote the level of its relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In order to achieve that goal, one good way is to open an independent embassy in the Iranian capital city of Tehran. This will also open the way for future negotiations between the two sides on the conclusion of a bilateral trade and cooperation agreement, and will also help Tehran and the EU to further strengthen their mutual relations. The next stage will be the opening of an independent embassy by the Islamic Republic of Iran in the seat of the EU in the Belgian capital city of Brussels, which will be a further sign of improvement in bilateral relations

By Bernhard Schell | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BEIRUT (IDN) – Ten years after the United States led invasion of Iraq in what was dubbed as “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, the strategically placed country in Western Asia suffered in 2013 the highest annual death toll in five years, and 2014 has started amidst heavy fighting between government troops and Sunni militants. They captured large parts of Fallujah and Ramadi, two cities in Iraq’s western Anbar province that were at the centre of the armed resistance to the US occupation a decade ago.

By Seyed Mohammad Eslami* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

Iran and Egypt are among the most influential in the cauldron of incessant conflict in the Middle East. After the 2011 Egyptian revolution which ousted President Hosni Mubarak, Iran appointed its first ambassador to Egypt in almost 30 years. Mixed feelings pervade in Iran since Egypt’s first democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi was removed from power in the aftermath of popular protest in July 2013. The following article from the Iran Review, the leading independent, non-governmental and non-partisan website, underlines the quandary in which Iran led by President Hassan Rouhani finds itself.

By Tahmineh Bakhtiari* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TEHRAN (IDN) – The December 27 explosion in front of the headquarters of the March 14 Alliance in Beirut targeting some of the party’s senior members such as former finance minister, Mohammad Shatah, reveals another plot against the Middle Eastern countries.

Named after the date of the Cedar Revolution, the Alliance is a coalition of political parties and independents in Lebanon, formed in 2005, that are united by their anti-Syrian regime stance, led by MP Saad Hariri, younger son of Rafik Hariri, the assassinated former prime minister of Lebanon, as well as other figures such as Amine Gemayel, president of the Kataeb Party – the Lebanese Phalanges Party, a traditional right-wing political-paramilitary ultranationalist organization.

By Erfan Ghassempour, Hamidreza Ghanei Bafghi, Abdollah Ale Ja’far and Samira Fatemi

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TEHRAN (IDN) – India and Iran have had economic relations for centuries. However, their relations entered into a new era after the partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan, the Iranian Islamic republic revolution and the Iranian nuclear issue.

Following the partition of the Indian subcontinent, India lost its adjacency with Iran and the two countries followed divergent foreign policies arising out of the post-partition political developments ([i]). On the other hand, Iranian Islamic revolution changed Iran’s relation with the world including India. In the recent years and after the international sanctions against Iran’s economy, Iran and India are experiencing a new and complicated political and commercial relationship. Read in Persian

By Manish Rai* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NEW DELHI (IDN) – Nearly three years of bloody civil war in Syria have created what the United Nations, governments and international humanitarian organizations describe as the most challenging refugee crisis in a generation bigger than the one unleashed by the Rwandan genocide and laden with the sectarianism of the Balkan wars.

With no end in sight in the conflict and with large parts of Syria already destroyed, governments and humanitarian as well as other organizations are quietly preparing for the refugee crisis to last years. This is the crisis that has been called the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of this century and condemned by the UN as a “disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history”.

By Jayantha Dhanapala* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

KANDY, Sri Lanka (IDN) – Even cynics must admit that the time comes in international relations when long frozen situations suddenly thaw causing positive change for international peace and security. Examples of such “game-changers” are many but outstanding are (in chronological order): U.S. President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China; the 1978 Camp David Agreement on the Middle East; the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 signifying the end of the Cold War; and President Willelm de Klerk’s release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 leading to the final dismantlement of apartheid in South Africa in 1994.

We have been fortunate to witness two of such dramatic events in quick succession in 2013. There was, in September, the agreement on Syria’s chemical weapons and although the Syrian civil war continues its bloody course the worst is seemingly over and we are headed towards the Geneva II Conference announced for the end of January 2014.