'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Making sense of Syria

I have so many questions swirling around my head about what's been happening in Syria. One is why the AK government in Turkey didn't take my great advice and play...

The Arab Spring at Nine Months

What a whirlwind nine months it's been for the Arab world. As I wrote at a much earlier point in this phenomenon called the 'Arab Spring', it is as if...

In Algiers: Book Fair and Colloquium

I'm writing this on a plane, at the end of a four-day visit to Algiers... In Algiers I was participating in a big international Colloquium on the Arab Spring organized...

Syria, authoritarianism, war, and peace

I regret that I haven't had much time in recent months to blog and write about the many developments in the still-unfolding 'Arab Spring.' However, I think that much of...

Quick notes on Fateh-Hamas reconciliation of April 27

As I tweeted yesterday, the reconciliation announced in Cairo yesterday-- which still needs a lot of fleshing out-- is the second great result of the Egyptian people's historic overthrow of...

Quick notes for a quickly changing world

1. Just 30 days ago, on January 14, I was making the 3.5-hour drive down from Charlottesville, VA to Greensboro, NC, for the Quaker conference held to mark the 50th...

Iraqi elections and American mirrors

It will probably be some time before it's possible to get a good, rounded picture of what happened during today's elections in Iraq. It will likely take the Iraqi Independent...

Voting under the gun

It strikes me as a bizarre perversion of the ideals of democracy that people should be expected to cast votes-- and then to concur in the legitimacy of the leadership...

King Abdullah (!) on prospects for Iraqi elections

The BBC and other news media are giving much prominence to the views Jordan's King Abdullah has expressed regarding the prospects of holding timely elections in Iraq. Excuse me? Since...

Women and reform in the Arab world

Another great issue of the Carnegie Endowment's Arab Reform Bulletin this month. This one's a special issue on Women and Reform. Almost all of the (relatively short) contributions in it...

Carnegie's Arab Reform Bulletin

As I drove up to DC yesterday, I thought, heck, I should have given my friend Marina Ottaway a call, to fix up a lunch or something with her. She's...